Some Thoughts on Racism, Poverty and Katrina

"More than six in 10 blacks -- 63 percent -- said the problems with the hurricane relief effort are an indication of continuing racial inequity in this country, a view rejected by more than seven in 10 whites, according to the poll."-MSNBC, September 12, 2005

"Hurricane Katrina has thrust the twin issues of race and poverty at President Bush, who faces steep challenges in dealing with both because of a domestic agenda that envisions deep cuts in long-standing anti-poverty programs and relationships with many black leaders frayed by years of mutual suspicion."-Michael A. Fletcher, September 12, 2005

"A lot of people didn't get out because they didn't have a car. This is more a problem of poverty, rather than race."-former Sen. Dan Breaux, D-LA

[Indiana Politico: Can you separate the issues of poverty and race?]

In 2003, among people who reported a single race, the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites was 8.2 percent...People who reported black as their only race, for example, had a poverty rate of 24.4 percent in 2003...Among Hispanics, the poverty rate remained unchanged, at 22.5 percent."-U.S. Census Bureau, August 24, 2004

"Who are the poor? With whites making up 72 percent of the population, the United States contains more poor whites than poor blacks or Hispanics. In fact, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the increase in white poverty in nonurban areas accounts for most of the recent uptick in the poverty rate. But only a little more than 8 percent of American whites are poor, compared with 22 percent of Hispanics and nearly a quarter of all African-Americans (in a country that is 12 percent black)."-Jonathan Alter, "The Other America, September 19, 2005


"I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the hurricane. They were abandoned long ago—to murder and mayhem in the streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness...

What must be said is that whoever was in charge of planning and preparing for the worst case scenario appeared to assume that every American has the capacity to load up their family in an SUV, fill it up with $100 worth of gasoline, stick some bottled water in the trunk, and use a credit card to check in to a hotel on safe ground. I see no evidence of active malice, but I see a continuation of passive indifference on the part of our government towards the least of these." -Barack Obama, last week


And the Heartless Editorialist Award goes to George F. Will, who finds a way to blame the race-class divide on sexually active women. He writes of three "not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal...

"Given that most African Americans are middle class and almost half live outside central cities, and that 76 percent of all births to Louisiana African Americans were to unmarried women, it is a safe surmise that more than 80 percent of African American births in inner-city New Orleans -- as in some other inner cities -- were to women without husbands. That translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males, and that translates into chaos in neighborhoods and schools, come rain or come shine."
-Washington Post, September 13, 2005

[...So the fate of the people of New Orleans was not the result of a natural disaster, nor the result of racial or class divides. It was the result of single motherhood. If only those tarts had kept their legs shut...]