Katrina inspires generosity of black Americans

Katrina has spurred other black Americans to take crucial roles in relief efforts — and they’re in a better position to help than they were even a decade ago, when rap still scared people and being paid $30 million per year to play basketball was beyond imagination.

Now billionaire Mississippi native Oprah Winfrey is bringing her top-rated show to the Katrina zone, famed defense attorney Willie Gary is planning to transport victims in his 737 jet, and rapper Kanye West can excoriate President Bush’s response to the hurricane in front of a nationwide audience.

Tavis Smiley has devoted much of his television talk show to Katrina.

Heads and hearts
“I’ve seen black folk come together around any number of issues. It’s usually either a head or a heart issue,” he said. “For example, we came together after the election of 2000, when Bush essentially stole the election. That was a head issue. People were mad. Other issues hit our hearts; O.J. Simpson comes to mind.”

With Katrina, “our head is saying we know that what happened here is wrong ... and our hearts at the same time go out to these people because we know, we feel their pain.”

Many want to share it.

Hip-hop hit maker Timbaland said that he is renting trucks, buying clothes and toys and heading “to the trenches” — first stop, the Houston Astrodome. He challenged peers who splurge on jewelry and cars to do the same, because “these people in the dome listen to our music.”

“Don’t give to no Red Cross, that’s the easy way. Not to say anything bad about the Red Cross, but who knows where that money’s going?” the producer said. “Take your money and do your own thing.”

Timbaland estimated he was spending several hundred thousand dollars, up there with Diddy and Jay-Z’s half-million each. The donation of time, money and free performances by hip-hoppers is a watershed for what had become a largely apolitical genre.

An American ‘turning point’
“This is the most devastating thing to their community they’ve seen in their lifetime,” said the original hip-hop mogul, Russell Simmons. “I’ve never seen a bigger outpouring of love and giving. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

There is another reason Katrina resonates. Most blacks have family from “down South,” a sort of symbolic womb from which black America slowly went its separate ways.

“We are a population in this country of black people, but do we feel like a community?” said ayo, the author. “What really makes a community?”

Shared experiences, perhaps?

“I think this is one,” ayo said. Katrina “is at the central core of black culture and American culture.... I hope this is a turning point of some kind, a turning point for creating a larger community.”

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