HURRICANE KATRINA- Racism behind slow response?

9/7/2005 6:30:00 AM GMT

Many African Americans voiced suspicions that thousands of the hurricane victims were left to suffer and die in the floodwaters simply because most of them were poor and black.

"Are you telling me we can coordinate a relief effort on the other side of the world and we can't do it here?" I.V. Hilliard, pastor of the New Light Christian Center Church in north Houston, said. "I'm not saying they didn't care. I'm saying they didn't care enough!"

"I can't help but think that race has something to do with it," he added to a chorus of "amens." Hilliard's church, the largest predominantly black congregation in Houston, with 20,000 members, has four locations and a broadcast ministry.

"There is a lot of anger here in Texas," said the Rev. William A. Lawson, retired pastor of the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston. "Even a lot of conservative whites are angry.

This was not the reaction people expect to a disaster of this magnitude. We wanted to see them get off their butts and get over there."

Also Rodney Ellis, an African American Democratic state senator representing a district in Houston, complained that the federal response was clearly insufficient, throwing the blame on Bush’s administration, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an African American from Alabama.

"This problem is so mammoth it's not going to go away any time soon," Ellis said. "There will be ample time for Condi Rice and others in the federal government to redeem themselves. And I'm hoping they do that."

On August 29th, no. 1 search site in the world published an image of a white woman and man trudging through chest deep water after “finding bread and soda from a local grocery store.” Huh. They just “found” bread and soda? Like little Goldie Locks “found” porridge after skipping through the forest? The next day the same website posted an image of a black boy after just “looting a grocery store.”

Isn’t this racism?

Not surprisingly, they took off the picture of the “white finders,” as they would never plan out racism. Maybe their subconscious did it for them? The media can’t build up the poor black people to be ravage beasts, foaming from the mouth looting everything in sight, from bread to medicine to water, if we have these other images floating about. The media has to maintain its “fairness” and “objectivity.”

We haven’t treated black people like three-fifths a person in a while—well not if they're rich and republican

It’s not as though the people of New Orleans are asking for aid in small unmarked bills. They just want to get out of New Orleans. Why didn’t they get out in the first place? Well that’s an effect of being poor and black in a country that doesn’t care about you. Who cares if the death toll tops 10,000, just as long as Bush gives 10.5 billion in aid two weeks from now.

He can say, “I tried,” or “in hindsight.” People in America love to say in hindsight as a code for: yes we screwed you, but we’re going to try and put a good face on it anyway.

It’s ok now because Bush can send in the National Guard reinforcements. Wait. No. Those reinforcements are in a hurricane that Bush created in the Middle East called Operation Bomb Brown People. Who cares in the Bush administration anyway? They already cut the funding that would have helped the levees from breaking, and they got the white people out that will be voting for them in the midterm elections. Oh yes, I forgot about the compassion of George Bush. We could have used a bit of that compassion before the hurricane hit and killed possibly tens of thousands of people. We could have used that compassion in Iraq, Afghanistan, and before his new budget cut funding on those poor black Americans that are now suffering third world conditions in the most advanced nation in the world.

It’s not as though the Bush administration couldn’t have done more. They could have sent the relief earlier as they did for Jeb Bush in Florida before the 2004 election. They could have listened to the cries and call, but they chose not to. Yes, now they’re scrambling, just as they did after the start of Tsunami relief when they initially vowed to donate just enough cash for the Tsunami victims to send the U.S. thank you postcards.

We shouldn’t be surprised how this administration is treating the poor and downtrodden in their time of crisis because this how they’ve always treated them. Scoffing at their necessity of health care and vital social programs, rewriting bankruptcy laws that help keep poor people poor, and keeping them at arms length in an “ownership” society is just what the neocon doctors of the Bush administration ordered. It’s why it’s not so surprising to see this administration rape their own people and leave them stranded.

Remi Kanazi contributed to the writing and preparation of this article.

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