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Home Front: Politix
Is Katrina Racist?
2005-09-03
Al Sharpton showed up on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" on MSNBC last night, and the pair sounded a theme that's becoming depressingly familiar in the effort to demagogue hurricane Katrina:

Olbermann: I actually heard a commentator this afternoon--it was that Limbaugh--suggest that the issue of class and race in those who were left behind in New Orleans was irrelevant, because, as he put it, those people were not forced to live there and they weren't bused into New Orleans.

And I was thinking, A, this guy is even more clueless than I thought he was, which is saying something. But, B, there are people who actually believe that. How do you respond to them? How do you explain to them what the truth is? . . .

Sharpton: . . . The real question is not only those that didn't get out. The question is why has it taken the government so long to get in. I feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and racial makeup, that President Bush would have run out of Crawford a lot quicker and FEMA would have found its way in a lot sooner.

In truth, Katrina's devastation was spread out over a huge area, not just the city of New Orleans with its majority-black population. The Associated Press quotes Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who lists four suburban parishes that, along with Orleans Parish (which is coterminous with New Orleans) were hit hard enough to need "long-term rebuilding."

Here are the 2000 census's racial breakdowns of the populations of those five Louisiana parishes, along with Mississippi's coastal counties, which suffered a direct hit:

Parish or county White Black
Jefferson, La. 69.8% 22.9%
Orleans, La. 28.1% 67.3%
Plaquemines, La. 69.8% 23.4%
St. Bernard, La. 88.3% 7.6%
St. Tammany, La. 87.0% 9.9%
Hancock, Miss. 90.2% 6.8%
Harrison, Miss. 73.1% 21.1%
Jackson, Miss. 75.4% 20.9%

Posted by:Captain America

#7  Ever see a satellite photo of katrina? She's white, white, white. I rest my case.
Posted by: Rev. Al, Race Hustler for Hire   2005-09-03 17:18  

#6  oh Al Sharpton, just shut up! (rolling eyes)
Posted by: Unaque Ulosing1075   2005-09-03 17:13  

#5  Katrina sounds mighty white to me. How come the National (clue word for whitey) Hurricane Center is allowed to use nothing but Dick and Jane names? How come there's no Hurricane Takasharilllia or Hurricane Jar'Michael? I know racism when I'm sold it.
Posted by: Mona Gorilla   2005-09-03 17:13  

#4  And how about the black victims of rape, murder, and looting that aren't being shown?

These "gangstas" prey are equal opportunity thugs.
Posted by: Captain America   2005-09-03 11:57  

#3  "We cannot allow ourselves to see only the black faces doing the looting.."
Translation: "We have to shut our eyes very tightly and go 'la la la la'."
No, it isn't only black faces doing the looting, but for crying out loud, that's who most of the population there are. If looters are uniformly distributed through the population, most will be black. Doesn't anybody ever learn statistics? Not that the media are any better . . .
Posted by: James   2005-09-03 10:32  

#2  "We cannot allow ourselves to see only the black faces doing the looting.." that is who is doing the looting, the shooting, the raping and the killing dear. In two days I have seen very few white people at all in New Orleans. Get over it, this stuff is part of a pathology of poverty the leaders of the black community and black elected officals had cultivated, nurtured and encouraged helped by your friends in the Democratic party.

Sew the wind reap the whirlwind dear.
Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom   2005-09-03 02:50  

#1  And, in a related "race" article, the Congressionl Black Congress, the all-time source for truth and justice...

Racism charges swirl in Congress amid chaos

"Black leaders at a press conference in Washington criticized news coverage they said has depicted blacks in New Orleans as looters and refugees."

"We cannot allow ourselves to see only the black faces doing the looting and not see the homeowners, the families, the children who have lost everything," said Dorothy I. Height, president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women."
Posted by: Captain America   2005-09-03 02:44  

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