JP/7/JULIE (VIEWPOINT)

Julie D. Hackett Jakarta

Tragedy is tragedy, as it brings humanity to its knees, regardless of the geographical location or the demographic that is affected. Generally, in the face of such catastrophe we have witnessed global outpouring of sympathy, community bonding and Good Samaritan kindness.

Who could forget the way that people from all over the world embraced and sympathized with America's pain in the aftermath of Sept. 11? How many people around the world dug into their hearts and their pockets to give money to the countless victims of last year's devastating tsunami?

We can remember the images on television and in the newspapers for each scenario of people holding one another, sharing tears and putting aside whatever differences just to be human for the moment when humanity was most needed.

This latest tragedy on the Gulf Coast of the United States strays far from the norm of post-tragedy solidarity. Front page publications around the world zoomed in on the decimated city of New Orleans as it gave way to violence and desperation. Tuesday's Jakarta Post front page featured uniformed gun toting National Guardsmen standing watch over two barebacked "criminals", skin burned red from the oppressive New Orleans summer sun lying face down with hands behind their heads.

CNN had once again pushed their rewind button to play that one reel of footage they managed to capture of the "stubborn" black residents of New Orleans who "refused" to leave, trudging through chest deep water pulling looted goods behind them or ransacking an abandoned hot dog stand.

This disturbing image was followed by a touching CNN touching montage complete with a symphony of sadness about the heroic journey of a Black Hawk rescue team rescuing white residents of Louisiana who had been mercilessly stranded by the disaster.

If you turned to BBC to get a foreign network perspective, you were met with more of the same stories. Racial tensions rising faster and higher than the flood waters depicted by dark skinned thieves running amuck in the city center with six packs of Pepsi and several pairs of sneakers strung around their neck. Fox News -- silly me, what did I expect?

Bill O'Reilly's guest speaker was a decorated New Orleans police officer who in his expert opinion after serving for 21 years on the force, found that New Orleans was a city where "all" people had gotten along -- black, white, purple, pink -- in blissful harmony! Maybe he had spent his 21 years hanging out on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras?

He went on to sing the praises of the authorities who were risking their lives to save these thugs who were nothing but anarchical opportunists out to make a bad situation worse. Again similar images flooded the screen -- midnight marauders hungry to create disorder and to take back a city that was once theirs. Right.

Part of me is outraged at the negative coverage of black people affected by Hurricane Katrina. Part of me is heartbroken that this is the reality of my country whose leaders have effectively lied to the world and its own citizens about its freedom, its justice, it peace, its tolerance.

But all of me is angry at the fact that so many -- Americans and non-Americans alike -- are now scratching their heads trying to figure out if the images they are seeing on the nightly news are really in America? Maybe they mixed up the coverage they had for Africa or Haiti -- this could not be America! Surely, this could not be New Orleans -- home of Jazz Fest, Mardi Gras and breasts for beads on Bourbon Street.

For non-Americans, of course they are baffled. America has been running an effective and aggressive global public relations campaign about America's unmatched equity and opportunity for years now. But for Americans who have been and still are living in the dark, this is a disgrace.

As a black American woman who has lived abroad several times, I am constantly left to wonder how it is that so many Americans manage to live inside such a tiny little box. Why were people surprised that New Orleans was 67 percent black and one of the poorest and most disparate cities in America? Why did many not know that New Orleans is always making the top ten list for the highest rate of homicide in the U.S.?

Why is everyone so shocked that our government did not prioritize getting this particular demographic out of harm's way? And why the confusion about people looting after they had been left for four days without food and water? Why? Because too many Americans are in denial about what is really going on in their own country.

Too many don't want to know about fellow Americans who live without running water and access to the goods that America supposedly provides for all citizens. Too many don't have time to give to the reality that poverty is raging in our cities and in our rural areas. And too many will not admit that racism is still alive, well and functioning in our cities, in our government and in our hearts.

The tragedy of Katrina has exposed a lot about the great United States of America -- things that so many Americans of all shades and ethnicities have been conveniently ignoring for many years -- mainly our perpetual and growing race and class divisions.

It has also revealed our government's priorities to "save" the world outside its borders under the guise of altruism rather than first being ready, aware, available and more importantly willing, to respond when our social fabric is ripping apart at the seams. And finally the world can see the extreme poverty that exists in America dispelling the myth that poverty is only a plague that ravages the developing world.

In contrast, American poverty is real in every sense of the word. It is striking and powerful and it has successfully pushed too many American citizens to the margins of society making the American dream nothing but a perpetual nightmare. This poverty is shameful in a country that is wrought with materialism, excessive consumerism and opulence.

If you are convinced that the slowness to respond to New Orleans' poor mostly black residents was due to a lack of resources or if you don't see the media coverage of black people looting and unraveling in the wasted city center as deliberate, then ask yourself one question. If Hurricane Katrina had hit Kennebunk Port, Maine or Beverly Hills, California, would there have been people stranded for four days after one of the worst natural disasters to affect the United States? If you answered yes, then you will never understand America.

The writer is a consultant at the World Bank. This article represents the writer's views. She can be reached at jhacket3@jhu.edu.