TWO LINKS: Dear Tom DeLay, If you don’t have anything not completely insane and horrible to say, don’t say anything at all.

ETA: OK, I thought about this more. 1. Anybody who’s been quoted by the press twice has probably been misquoted once. 2. More importantly, almost anyone who’s tried to comfort people in terrible circumstances has probably said at least one terrible, inappropriate, awful thing in a misguided attempt to help. (I know I’ve done that.) That fact doesn’t make DeLay’s comment any less awful. But I think I should exercise the level of charity toward others (…even politicians, sigh) that I would want others to exercise to me if I were caught “on camera” saying one of the horrible things I’ve said to friends, family, or acquaintances who were in pain.

3. The reason I think DeLay’s comments struck me so forcefully, I think, was how they fit in with the passage quoted below. It’s very tempting to dehumanize those who suffer. It’s tempting to pretend their suffering is lesser because they are lesser (“they don’t feel pain like we do”). It’s shaming to think that others suffer while we don’t, and frightening to think that we could suffer like they are. It’s painful to be in a situation where you see an incredible amount of suffering and can’t relieve all or even much of it; easier to become numb, to become inhuman. (The corresponding, opposite temptation is to view people as pointillist composites of their tragedies–no longer individuals, but abstract representations of suffering and loss.) That’s why I was so struck by DeLay’s quotes and by this line from the post linked below: “In my view, survivors seem to have immediately become nonentities in the eyes of many of their supposed protectors.”

And:

Adam Brookes is a BBC reporter who also happens to be both a neighbor and a friend of mine. He was in New Orleans from just after Katrina hit until Labor Day last week. …

One image he related sticks with me: there was some kind of high-strength chickenwire fence separating people from pallets of food in a Superdome storage area (I believe, it may have been the Convention Center). So people there could see the desperately needed supplies were there, but they couldn’t get to it. And unfortunately, they were never able to. The fence was too strong — and after a few days, the wire was covered with the blood of people’s torn up hands.

Another story is even more disturbing. …

The disturbing part is that six state troopers were standing only a couple of yards from the man — doing nothing, just chatting with each other. When he approached them and suggested they do something for the man, they basically just shrugged and walked away. He was able to flag down another policeman a while later to attend to the sick man.

In my view, survivors seem to have immediately become nonentities in the eyes of many of their supposed protectors.

(more)

Second link via Unqualified Offerings; I forget where I got the first one.