Let them eat cake, but we don't want them crumbing up THIS place.

Barbara Bush must have been in a cruel and insensitive mood when she made these statements on NPR after touring the Houston Astrodome which is filled with disaster victims:

LISTEN to Marketplace archive

"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

"What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

This reminds me of when I was young and we visited my great-aunt who lived somewhere in the deep south (I think it was Mobile, AL or thereabouts). She made a remark that I will never forget. She stated that black people (and used a term now viewed as derogatory instead of "black people") were much happier and better off "when they was slaves" (sic).

I wonder if even one of the evacuees in Houston would consider themselves to be in a situation that is working very well? So these people, because they some were poor and/or black, they are fine and dandy now, living on handouts and charity even though they've lost EVERYTHING but their very lives? What a racist and elitist comment.

I guess just because you dress them up (in pearls) doesn't mean you can take them anywhere. Foot-in-mouth disease must run in the family.

So much for the "let them eat cake" part of the story, listen to the audio file about how the "don't move here" sentiment you sometimes run into in Texas might be seeping over into the evacuee situation.
- Hurricane Katrina -
- Barbara Bush -