Race factors played into hurricane disaster rescue effort?

[Phlegm]

From Reuters:

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Despite strenuous official denials, delays in helping victims of Hurricane Katrina have fed African-American suspicions the government cares more about the lives of wealthy white people than poor blacks.

In a country where a recent survey indicated many blacks were probably predisposed to believe the government was out to get them, many have asked if the race of most of the victims was a factor in the painfully slow relief effort and the lack of preparation to prevent the disaster.

Officials, straining to explain how so much havoc could result from a storm that experts say had been predicted for years, said they were simply taken by surprise by the magnitude of the disaster when Katrina burst the walls holding back Lake Pontchartrain from a city built below sea level.

They have admitted that the poverty of many of the victims, who simply did not have enough money to obey evacuation orders, was a factor in bringing scenes that viewers around the world would more readily have associated with Sierra Leone than the United States.

But, with blacks more likely to be poor, that explanation was not enough for everyone.

"If this hurricane had struck a white, middle-class neighborhood in the Northeast or the Southwest, his (President George W. Bush's) response would have been a lot stronger," wrote Calvin Butts, president of the Council of Churches of the City of New York, in the British newspaper The Observer on Sunday.

Rapper Kanye West was more direct in a live outburst during an NBC benefit concert for Katrina victims last week, saying, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson drew on some of the most emotive language in the American political vocabulary when he compared the condition of evacuees to "Africans in the hull of a slave ship."

"The issue of race as a factor will not go away," he warned.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Despite enormous progress since the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and the growth of a prosperous and well-educated black middle class, many blacks in the United States remain at the bottom of the social pile and suspect society conspires to keep them there.

A survey by researchers from Oregon State University and the Rand Corporation released earlier this year found 16 percent of African-Americans thought AIDS was created by the government to control the black population.

While many would dismiss such beliefs as ridiculous, they arise in a society where almost one in five black men can expect to spend time in prison, compared with just one in 16 white men.

Conspiracy theories also sprouted among Hurricane Katrina evacuees camping out at Houston's Astrodome. Several told Reuters they suspected black residential areas were flooded purposely in an effort to divert water from white housing.

Among administration officials headed to the disaster zone following criticism of government aid efforts was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. As a Southern black woman, she is herself a powerful symbol of change in a nation just four decades distant from racial segregation laws.

"I don't believe for a minute anybody allowed people to suffer because they are African-Americans. I just don't believe it for a minute," Rice said.

While the victims were mainly black, the sight of many of them being helped by whites sent a positive message to some.

"Before this whole thing, I had a complex about white people. This thing changed me forever," said Joseph Brant, 36, a black man who said he escaped New Orleans by hitching a ride in a van carrying white people.

[Lueyen]

I do not believe that for the most part race played a roll. Not that there wasn't some ignorant jerks that factored in somewhere, but the lack of immediate relief and the troubles had more to do with lack of preparation for the event at ALL levels of government, City, State and Federal. There has been a lot of critisim of the federal side, some justified, some political. What I haven't heard a lot about is areas where local state and city government failed. New Orleans had an evacuation plan for the city for a situation such as this, however it was unrealistic. It required 72 hours to evacuate the city, the plan was flawed, not because of execution but because of the advanced warning required, warning time the city would never see with a hurricane. Local government waited far to long in my opinion to ask the federal government to step in, I believe it was almost a week before things came under federal control.

But hey, if you want conspiracy theories here's one for you:

It's not evil racist whites who "keep the black man down", it's the so called black leadership. Imagine if you will a society where race was not an issue... where would Jesse Jackson be... what power and influence would he have. He is a man that depends on race being an issue, because without that he has no other message, no other influence. No, instead of working to better things within black communities he perpetuates hatred and a fatalistic attitude. If all you are ever told is that you can't succeed, can't do this or that because some entity is going to stop you, it becomes very easy not to even try. His brand of leadership is aimed at keeping a status quo so that he doesn't lose support, power and athority. For the Jackson, the issue of race as a factor will never go away in anything.

[araby]

I do not believe that for the most part race played a roll. Not that there wasn't some ignorant jerks that factored in somewhere, but the lack of immediate relief and the troubles had more to do with lack of preparation for the event at ALL levels of government, City, State and Federal. There has been a lot of critisim of the federal side, some justified, some political. What I haven't heard a lot about is areas where local state and city government failed. New Orleans had an evacuation plan for the city for a situation such as this, however it was unrealistic. It required 72 hours to evacuate the city, the plan was flawed, not because of execution but because of the advanced warning required, warning time the city would never see with a hurricane. Local government waited far to long in my opinion to ask the federal government to step in, I believe it was almost a week before things came under federal control.

But hey, if you want conspiracy theories here's one for you:

It's not evil racist whites who "keep the black man down", it's the so called black leadership. Imagine if you will a society where race was not an issue... where would Jesse Jackson be... what power and influence would he have. He is a man that depends on race being an issue, because without that he has no other message, no other influence. No, instead of working to better things within black communities he perpetuates hatred and a fatalistic attitude. If all you are ever told is that you can't succeed, can't do this or that because some entity is going to stop you, it becomes very easy not to even try. His brand of leadership is aimed at keeping a status quo so that he doesn't lose support, power and athority. For the Jackson, the issue of race as a factor will never go away in anything.

I absolutely agree. I also believe that unfortunately, so many people mistakingly rope democrats in with issues such as race factor and leaders such as Jesse Jackson. It really hurts the democratic party.