“We just saved this picture from my sister’s house. I lost everything too. We still have to pay the bills. Utility, everything, even if we don’t have a house or power. Sprint shut my phone off in the middle of the day. That is my only means of communication with my family. Facebook is the way are finding out what is going on and getting the warnings about looters taking things from the piles in front of houses. I talked with someone in the Philippines who told me to pay $75 to turn it back on. We are in a disaster zone, how am I going to do that? There is no mail and no banks and the Sprint office is underwater. Nobody cares. My power bill is due August 22 and I don’t know how I am going to pay that. The last I heard, my kids are out of school for four months. What do you do? They are going to get behind.”
“A few weeks ago it was white verses black here. We were going through rioting. At some points, it felt like it was the police against the civilians. People came down from the north to protest that all lives matter, not just black lives. The case that happened with Alton Sterling, I knew the police officers weren’t going to be charged. I am a bail bondsmen and I see what is going on. If it was a black police officer that went into that black neighborhood, Alton would still be alive. If you are afraid of different races, that shouldn’t be your job. Then more lives were taken by someone from out-of-state who killed the police officers. All lives matter, black, white, a police officer or someone who goes to a 9 to 5 job. When this flood happened, it brought our community back together. If you want to drive down the street with your rebel flag or your police officer flag, when it came to this, it didn’t matter. When we finally got to the store this week, the line was so long that we had to wait 30 minutes just to get in. It was the only store opened in Denham. A white lady in front of us slid her card and didn’t have any money on it. The cashier told her to put the food and other items back. My son, a 21-year-old black man who hasn’t been at work in a week, said, ‘Ma’am, you need that?’ She said, ‘Yes, but I don’t have the money.’ He told the cashier he was paying for her food. Her daughter said, ‘Wait, I thought you were using the food stamp card.’ Not all black people are on food stamps. I am not on food stamps. She tried to talk him out if it, but he told them they had just swam through eight feet of water and have nothing, he wanted to help. The people who saw that were almost crying. That is how I raise kids. It is a shame about how people are. When we walked out of the store, the woman and her daughter were sitting on the side of the building with nowhere to go. Nowhere. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what color skin you are. Our community is sticking together. Whatever we can do for each other, we are trying to do it. All lives matter.”
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Our Southern Souls has email addresses for the people in each one of these stories. If you want to help or give gift cards, we can contact them and help make that happen.
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