speech

Picture yourself in New Orleans. What images come into your mind? Do you immediately see Mardi Gras celebrations- the humongous floats, colorful beads, and ornate masks? Do you hear melodies fluttering up from packed streets- hundreds of soloists and bands blaring their trumpets, saxophones, or trombones; rhythmically pounding their drums, snapping their fingers, and tapping their feet on the brick pavement while soulfully singing the heart-wrenching blues? Do you smell sweet powder- sugared beignets from Café du Monde, spicy jambalaya, juicy barbecued ribs, or savory fresh seafood?
This is not the reality of New Orleans. This is not the New Orleans that exists today, six years after Hurricane Katrina. Step out of the commercial French Quarter and into areas like lower New Orleans and what you see, hear, and smell are tragically different than what you expect. You see abandoned and demolished houses with broken windows, opened doors, and bright markings left to indicate whether the inspected house had electricity, water, utilities, as well as the number of pets or people found dead inside. You hear silence. There’s a lack of family conversation, an absence of the sound of children at play, and a deficiency of traffic. You smell mold, mildew, musk, and the stench of destruction and death.
Why is there still so much left unrepaired and undone? How could one of the most powerful nations on the earth leave such an eyesore? Maybe, it is as simple as a lack of focus.
Americans, and the American government, need to fix the problems that exist in our own country before focusing on the issues confronting other nations.
We as a nation are letting our fellow American citizens down. The cry that rang out from New Orleans after hurricane Katrina struck was “Do not abandon us. Do not forget us.” And that is precisely what we have done. Since this is no longer a headlining story, people presume that the problems have been fixed. And in truth some of them have. Many of the areas least affected by the hurricane, including the French Quarter and many other wealthy neighborhoods, have been repaired and have regained about ninety percent of their residents. But then there are areas such as the ninth ward that are missing three fourths of its previous inhabitants. The main reason for this is that these families lack the funds required to rebuild their homes. While many were granted money from the government, on average they “fell about $35,000 short of the money needed to rebuild their home,” leaving two thousand families in search of a way to rebuild their homes.
The solution I propose to help fix this problem is that the American government stops placing so much money into foreign affairs. Now I see no problem with the U.S helping other countries when disasters strike or if they are our allies. But every year we are sending millions of dollars to foreign nations who hate us. Why are we trying to help them before we help our own citizens? If we were to take that money and place it into rebuilding New Orleans and other American cities that would increase jobs for people in the area and encourage citizens to return to their home city of New Orleans. This would stimulate growth within the city and region and help to get people off of welfare in this area with an extremely high poverty rate. And also reduce their need for government assistance.
By placing our money back into restoring this historic city we can raise the American morale. How would you feel if your home was destroyed and the help promised to you never came? The once proud citizens of New Orleans have been degraded and forgotten. They have lost faith in the American government. In this time when all of America’s morale and faith in the government is low we can help it to regain its status by simply helping ourselves. This will help citizens to regain faith, confidence, and pride within our own county and strengthen the bonds between us to make us a united nation.
People come from across the world to America in order to experience the infamous American Dream. But is the destruction in New Orleans, the oil spill on the Gulf Coast, or the starving children in Appalachia a dream? No, they are nightmares that the American government has chosen to ignore. How can we be considered such a great nation when we cannot even rebuild one of our cities? It is time that we take care of our own issues, place the focus back on America, and take care of our own citizens. We cannot abandon them, and we cannot forget them.