Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn. What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled. And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs. Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

It's a little disturbing.

Hurricane Katrina is literally a watershed moment in American history. It has revealed the grim reality of an America that is deeply divided by race and class. We need a new War on Poverty in this country or our society is a failure by any measure that matters, including the religious values that many falsely claim guide us. Perhaps the first key to changing this reality is for all of us to admit that America is not a perfect place.

Shortly after the storm struck, President Bush said that the people who stayed behind in the city had made a poor choice. Our leader once again demonstrated how out of touch with reality he is. "We get paid on Fridays," one woman said. "I couldn't afford a bus ticket until it was too late." She was just one of the hard-working neighbors that America left behind both before and after the tragedy of Katrina struck. For the past several days we have helplessly watched what happens when a nation is too blind and too greedy to tend to its neediest neighbors. We flinch when we see these good family people, concerned for their babies and aged parents and neighbors--we flinch because they are better neighbors than we are, and because we know we have let them down. This must come to an end. The greed of the wealthy, our own self-centeredness, must be tempered with more compassion.