Point 1: People blaming the residents of New Orleans for living in a hurricane-prone area should ask themselves how they countenance enjoying the fruits of New Orleans labor.

The city is one of the most important ports in the United States. Each and every one of us depends on New Orleans for much of our daily economic life. That would be true even if New Orleans were not a center of energy production. But it is. Enjoy filling your car with cheap gasoline? How about running your home with electricity generated by petroleum products. If not for New Orleans, that electricity would be far more expensive.

Maybe it should be more expensive to help us get over our addiction to fossil fuels killing our climate, but that’s not the point.

Every single resident of the United States has a stake in New Orleans, whether we realize it or not.

Instead of blaming the people who live and work there, we need to be thanking them for our relatively prosperous lives.

And when the time comes to foot the bill after a natural disaster, a bill that is not very burdensome when spread out across the entire nation, we should pay up cheerfully.

Point 2: I am very very tired of people blaming residents of red states for suffering due to Republican politics. I frequently write about LGBTQ issues, which these days means I often focus on unjust laws and policies enforced in conservative parts of the United States.

I find it ridiculous that the most common responses I get to calling out injustice goes something like: “What did you expect from Texas, it’s an awful place" or “Yeah, Arkansas, what a disgusting state. Those dumb people should just move.”

Same with institutions. The most common response I get to calling out institutional injustice goes like: “What did those people expect? They should have known better than to associate with that institution, church, school, etc.”

It’s so tiring to deal with attitudes like this. It’s exhausting to have to face an overwhelming tide of people who advise fleeing injustice rather than fighting injustice, especially when they do it (which is often the case) with snide, morally superior attitudes, as if they aren’t simply lucky to be able to live in a progressive, expensive big city on the eastern seaboard.

Oh, wait! Several of those cities just got slammed by Ida.

Hmmmmm …