To the editor:

In the Sept. 3 Saturday Column entitled “Hurricane shows U.S. unprepared to deal with adversity,” the author’s reaction to the situation in New Orleans was to label the pictures and stories from New Orleans as “disgusting,” “a national disgrace,” referring to the tragedy as “an ugly, unflattering scene,” accusing innocent victims of this violence of “acting like crazed animals.”

This rhetoric exemplifies the divisiveness festering in this country between the “haves” and “have-nots,” to separate “us from them,” to make “them” less human than “us,” that somehow “we” would behave better and conduct ourselves properly, had the same tragedy befallen us, the chosen ones.

Watching the same television, I saw American citizens’ lives changed forever by disaster, confused, dazed and fearful when confronted by their own death, brutally reduced to Third World status without food, clean water or basic sanitary options in the merciless heat, waiting in vain for hope, help, the promised deliverance, the miracle to come. The only difference between “us” and “them,” was luck.

The writer concludes, ” It’s time for the country and its people to get real, not live in a dream world. Protecting our environment is important, but it is even more important to protect our country.”

Perhaps now is not the time to castigate those less fortunate but rather to come together in compassion, not fear, to acknowledge and accept the basic humanity shared as human beings.

Perhaps now is not the time to cast stones.

Curtis D. Bennett,

Lawrence