Crisis raises questions of race

New Orleans' poor blacks were already at a disadvantage.
Could more be done to help?

Crisis raises questions of race

New Orleans' poor blacks were already at a disadvantage. Could more be done to help?
By MARCUS FRANKLIN and JAMIE THOMPSON
Published September 2, 2005

NEW ORLEANS - In Hurricane Katrina's baneful aftermath, the dichotomy of New Orleans has become increasingly apparent. In image after image, the victims left to suffer appear to be mostly poor and black.

Why? Part of the answer is that two-thirds of New Orleans' population is black. But history suggests an uglier explanation: Black residents long ago were pushed into the swampy, low-lying lands of New Orleans, while rich white residents built on higher plots.So when Katrina unleashed its fury, poor residents who could not afford to flee were most vulnerable. And, when the skies cleared, they were left to endure the floodwaters and lingering misery.

Black leaders expressed outrage Friday at the relief effort, wondering if it would have been more urgent for white victims. They also wondered if disaster planners gave enough thought to protecting poor residents. "I do think the nation would be responding differently if they were white elderly and white babies actually dying on the street," said David Billings of the People's Institute, a 25-year-old New Orleans organization focused on ending racism.

To be sure, white, black, Hispanic, rich, poor, young and old suffered from Hurricane Katrina. But it came as no surprise to disaster planners, professors and historians that New Orleans' poorest neighborhoods suffered most.

The poorest residents have long lived in the city's low-lying areas, starting in the 1830s when well-off whites built homes on higher ground near Mississippi River levees, Craig E. Colten, a geography professor at Louisiana State University, told the Philadelphia Daily News.
Since the 1890s, those lower areas have been occupied largely by African-Americans. The Lower 9th Ward, where the worst flooding occurred, is 98 percent black. Like other cities, white residents have left the urban area in droves.

New Orleans isn't completely segregated. Run-down shotgun homes sidle up to well-appointed Creole cottages. And while the city has its share of wealthy white residents, it also has wealthy and powerful black residents.

But in Orleans Parish, 21 percent of households earn less than $10,000 a year. Nearly 27,000 families are below the poverty level. Most of those families are black. While an estimated 80 percent of the city's population evacuated, tens of thousands stayed behind with no resources and no way out.

The images of the black poor struggling in New Orleans' chaos should be "a powerful wakeup call," said Dr. Jeff Johnson, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine.
"The message is that these people are in some sense abandoned, and that's why they're so angry," he said. "But that abandonment occurred not just around this storm." Black lawmakers expressed frustration with the relief effort. Black leaders and professors also said Friday they fear the long-term effects of Katrina.

Blacks depicted negatively - psychological impact
Images of black people "looting" stores and reports of crime in the city have depicted blacks negatively, said Thomas J. Durant Jr., a black sociology professor at Louisiana State University. "The reports are greatly exaggerated, I believe," Durant said. "I think it presents an image that has a drastic psychological impact on the rest of the population and creates fear."

Scholars and social commentators across the country question whether the new New Orleans will be as black as it was. Poor black residents won't be able to wait for a long reconstruction effort, Durant said.

If black residents don't go back, how will they fare in new communities? "These are people who didn't have much to begin with," Durant said. "Now they have close to nothing. How will America respond? Will we embrace them?"

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The poor who suffer the most...

In times of crisis, and war, it is the poor who suffer the most. When danger approaches a community, the rich can pack up, and leave, at their leisure. The ones left behind are invariably those who lack the means or ability to leave- the sick, the elderly, and always, always, always: the economically disadvantaged.

Such is the case, again, in the wreckage left behind by Katrina. But here's what gets me:
Poverty is a daily, evil crisis within our country, it is generational, and it is growing. Those who have been in power, republican AND democrat, have been slow to address this problem, with a few bright and shining exceptions.

Why did it take a hurricane, for us to sit up and take notice of this issue, in earnest? True- people like you and I have been screaming about this issue for years- but why did it take such a grotesque tradgedy, for the sheeple to sit up and take notice?

The huddled masses camped in sports stadia and conventon centers have given the silent, ongoing atrocity of domestic poverty a face- this time, it is overwhelmingly black, but make no mistake: poverty knows no color. It is a blind, indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction that lashes out and destroys all who are unfortunate enough to fall victim to it.

>Bush visit halts food delivery

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

There were many people who desperately wanted to leave but couldn't ...

New Orleans has a poverty rate of 28% - more than twice the national rate. Life is always hard for poor people - living on the edge is insecure and full of risk. Natural disasters make it worse. Yet even in normal times, poverty is hidden and not reported by the media. In times of disaster, there continues to be little coverage of the excessive impact on the poor. Devastated luxury homes and hotels, drifting yachts and battered casinos make far more compelling photographs.

The final irony of New Orleans is that the people who normally fill the Louisiana Superdome are those who can afford the high cost of tickets, parking, and concessions. Now its inhabitants are the poor, especially children, the elderly and the sick - those with nowhere else to go. Those with money are nowhere to be seen.

During hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters, those who have the least to lose are often those who lose the most. Why?

t is much harder for the poor to evacuate. They don't own cars, can't afford to rent them, and often can't even afford a tank of gas - especially at today's prices. They can't afford an airplane, train, or even bus ticket. And, as one low-income person told a New Orleans reporter, they have no place to go. People in poverty can't afford motel or hotel rooms, and often don't have friends or family in other places with space to spare. In New Orleans, there were many people who desperately wanted to leave but couldn't.

Also, low-income people are the least likely to have insurance on their homes and belongings, and the least likely to have health insurance. If jobs are lost because of natural disasters, theirs are the first to go. Poverty makes long-term recovery after a disaster more difficult - the communities that are the weakest to begin with usually recover the slowest. The lack of a living family income for most people in those communities leaves no reserve for emergencies.

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