This is what Contempt for the Poor looks like

Testimony from New Orleans, post-Katrina

"On Tuesday, a special House Select Committee held a hearing focusing on the role of race and class in the government's response to Katrina. The hearing was requested by Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney. She was one of the few Democrats to participate. It was a most unusual hearing - one that we rarely see on Capitol Hill. Survivors and activists testified that racism was a big reason so many were abandoned and allowed to die..."

"Alva, a 51-year-old grandmother from New Orleans East, remembers, “When we were taken to the higher ground in Jefferson Parish, what did we have to greet us? A line of military police with M-16 rifles. They watched us, caged us, laughed at us, took pictures of us with their camera-phones. I saw a young man get down on his knees and beg for water for his little baby, and I saw the child die right there on the concrete. "