"Black Culture" blamed for Katrina woes

See if you can get your head around this. I can't.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the African American founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) is not willing to blame the Bush administration. Instead, he faults what he calls the "black culture."

"It's not President Bush's responsibility to make us get up and take care of ourselves. That was a political ploy in order to make blacks believe the Republican Party was against them and that they really don't care," Peterson said.

Peterson will moderate the July 26 conference at the Heritage Foundation.

Rev. Grant Storm, who is the Caucasian minister and president of Conservative Christians for Reform, echoed Peterson's view. "The mentality of 'government's going to bail me out. Where's the government?'" is "in the black culture," Storm said. "The mentality is instilled within their churches and in their homes -- of 'the government owes you, the government is your solution, and the government will come and help you.'

"When the government doesn't come and help them, frankly all they do is yap and complain," said Storm, instead of "saying 'Hey, I better go get a job, I better go on my own, I better go find an apartment, I better go take care of myself and my family.

"They are waiting for more FEMA money, they are waiting for more relief money and it ain't coming, or it's coming slow; meanwhile, the surrounding parishes -- the predominantly white parishes -- they are rebuilding on their own, and the same way in the Gulf of Mississippi," said Storm. "Orleans -- they still don't have their flooded cars off the streets."

White parishes and Mississippi residents are rebuilding on their own? Do tell.

In my view, this is an unbelievable insult to the thousands upon thousands of displaced residents who have gotten jobs, found apartments, and are taking care of their families the best way they can on their own while worrying about their homes and whether they will ever be able to return. Not to mention the thousands of needy residents of the Gulf Coast, black and white, who are still waiting on promised relief nearly a year later.