Part 1 of a two-part series
ALONG THE COLOR LINE — JANUARY 2006
The recent human tragedy in New Orleans created by Hurricane Katrina has generated an interesting and important debate about the underlying causes of black suffering and oppression. In its most simple form, the question being debated is whether race and racism were fundamentally responsible for the Katrina crisis that disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of African Americans or whether class and poverty were more important.
In the initial days after Hurricane Katrina struck and New Orleans’s levies collapsed, flooding most of the city, African-American politicians and the civil rights establishment were slow to attribute the federal government’s slow response in aiding inner-city victims because of racism. For example, after meeting with Louisiana officials on September 1, 2005, Jesse Jackson informed the New York Times that “many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response. I’m not saying that myself, but what’s self-evident is that you have many poor people without a way out.”
On the Internet, however, many African Americans almost immediately began referring to Hurricane Katrina as “our tsunami,” and bitterly contrasted the massive humanitarian response by the U.S. government to the 2004 Asian tragedy to that of New Orleans. As images of bloated black corpses floating in flooded streets were broadcast worldwide, and media misinformation about “black looters and rapists” began to proliferate, it became apparent that racist stereotypes about African Americans were being used to explain away government inaction.
The conservative media led the way in deliberately hyping lurid tales of New Orleans blacks committing widespread murders, sexual assaults, car-jackings, and terroristic shootings at rescue workers. As early as September 1, the Fox news anchor John Gibson informed viewers: “All kinds of reports of looting, fires and violence. Thugs shooting at rescue crews.” MSNBC conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, during a televised interview of The Reverend All Sharpton that same day pontificated hysterically: “People are being raped. People are being murdered. People are being shot. Police officers are being shot.” Laced throughout this media misinformation was a racist subtext: that New Orleans blacks weren’t worthy of being saved.
Law enforcement officials quickly manipulated the same racial stereotypes and media misinformation to explain away their ineptitude and inaction. On September 5, New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass informed the London Guardian, “We don’t have an substantiated rapes.” Yet on September 6, appearing on “Oprah,” Compass referred to the Superdome as a chaotic site: “We had little babies in there, some of the little babies getting raped.”
Liberals responded to these racial stereotypes by charging that the Bush administration’s lethargic response to the New Orleans crisis was, to a great extent, racially motivated. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for example, bluntly stated: “The administration’s lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina had a lot to do with race. For race is the biggest reason the United States, uniquely among advanced countries, is ruled by a political movement that is hostile to the idea of helping citizens in need.” Krugman grounded his argument squarely in America’s fractured racial past. “Race, after all, was central to the emergence of a Republican majority: essentially, the South switched sides after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.... And who can honestly deny that race is a major reason America treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country?”
Liberals began arguing that the “crisis” for New Orleans and Louisiana blacks was occurring years before Hurricane Katrina struck. New York Times columnist Bob Hebert indicted the New Orleans School System, “one of the worst in the nation,” for failing African Americans. “The classroom environment has been chaotic,” Hebert noted. “About 10,000 of the 60,000 students were suspended last year, and nearly 1,000 were expelled.” Other researchers observed that over one half of all black ninth graders in New Orleans public schools failed to graduate in four years. In terms of poverty, New Orleans – a city that was nearly 70 percent African American – had 30 percent of its residents living below the federal poverty line. in the flood-devastated Ninth Ward, with a 98 percent black population, the poverty rate exceeded 40 percent. About 40 percent of working age adults were unemployed. Thousands were living in dilapidated, substandard housing even before the hurricane struck.
Data from the 2000 Census for New Orleans confirmed that roughly 30 percent of New Orleans households lacked automobiles. Logistically, it would have been impossible for most low income, unemployed and elderly African Americans to even leave the city before disaster struck.
As the evidence of racial inequality mounted, even President Bush was pressured to acknowledge the reality of discrimination. In a nationally televised address from New Orleans, Bush admitted that poverty “has its roots in a history of racial discrimination which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.” To columnist Bob Herbert, Bush’s newfound revelation was hollow rhetoric. “This president has had zero interest in attacking poverty,” Herbert declared. “His reference to racism and poverty was just another opportunistic Karl Rove moment, never to be acted upon.”
