<p>We actually stopped and spoke with several homeowners–black, white, and asian who were back working on their homes. We went through both the older close-in neighborhoods shown on TV and the vast northeast parts of NO and the suburbs that were also hard hit. I don’t know if people were on the roofs up there because TV never went up there. I suspect most got out early being upper class and all <sarcasm intended=“”>. Still 80-90% of the homes were vacant and most had been gutted and left. This was early in the last Fall. I have lots of pictures I can send you. We also drove the Miss. coast up to Biloxi which was much worst damaged. This area was mostly middle and upper class with many million $$$$ homes. They were just gone. You saw virtually none of that on TV either. The damage goes out for at least 50 mles from downtown NO. Most of the square miles are not poor black areas.</sarcasm></p>
<p>“but to lay all the blame at the feet of Bush, Brownie and racism, is being just as much in denial as saying most of the victims were not black.”</p>
<p>For the record, I don’t lay the entire blame at the feet of Bush & Co. I believe there’s no excuse for the staggering failure of the state and city governments of NO and LA, which should have been the first line of defense in this disaster. But after it became abundantly obvious that neither the mayor, nor the governor was capable of chewing gum and winding his/her watch at the same time, the federal government should have responded immediately with the kind of coordinated urgency and concern it has shown at the time of other global natural catastrophes on countless other occasions. </p>
<p>Based on my own personal history, and knowing that of our country, I still firmly believe that the response to the NO victims trapped in the flooded city was due to an underlying belief that these people really didn’t matter much, and that that belief was IN PART predicated upon attitudes about their race. I don’t contend that those attitudes were expressed overtly or even consciously, but I believe they translated into what became apathy and an overall sluggish response. Like Conyat, I believe that had a disaster on a similar level have occurred in a poor, but predominately white coal mining town in West Va., the response would have been swift, coordinated, and viewed with the utmost urgency.</p>
<p>
That’s the essence of the problem. We really have not EVER experienced such a disaster in this country and have NEVER had the primary role in responding to similar calamities in foreign countries. Sure, we have sent aid in the form of helicopters and food, but I’m sure that the combined response for Katrina far exceeded any aid that we have ever provided to a foreign country in the time of a similar disaster. </p>
<p>So, to use any comparisons of how the response to Katrina was relative to other natural disasters just doesn’t make sense because we have never experienced anything close to that magnitude to make a comparison worth anything. To then take the next step and say that the reaction was based on the race of the people involved is truly unfortunate and divisive rhetoric.</p>
<p>I think a part of the disconnect here is that some people operate on the assumption that in the absence of overt racism of the “Move to the back, boy!” stripe then racism isn’t a factor. But that’s incorrect. It’s an undeniable fact that blacks as a group are treated with less consideration by the general public - even members of the public who don’t treat blacks they know personally any different than anyone else - than are whites. It’s a statistical fact that a person who murders a white person is more likely to receive the death penalty than is a person who murders a non-white (note: this relates to the race of the victim, not the perpetrator.). <a href=“http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=5&did=184[/url]”>http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=5&did=184</a> The public feeds on a steady diet of “white woman in peril” stories, while the missing and murdered non-white women in similar circumstances are ignored. Like to admit it or not; white lives are treated as being more valuable than non-white lives in America.</p>
<p>Was incompetence and willful failure to prepare the primary cause of the Katrina mess? Absolutely. Did the perceived race of the majority of victims play a part in the failure to address the crisis as effectively and aggressively as possible? Also, most certainly. Harmful decisions, primarily decisions of neglect and inaction, were possible because the people making those decisions weren’t spurred with the same sense of urgency and importance as they would have been if the face of the disaster had been white. That doesn’t mean they were whip-cracking Simon Legrees, just that they, like most American’s, subconsciously don’t value minority life as highly as that of whites.</p>
<p>“Harmful decisions, primarily decisions of neglect and inaction, were possible because the people making those decisions weren’t spurred with the same sense of urgency and importance as they would have been if the face of the disaster had been white. That doesn’t mean they were whip-cracking Simon Legrees, just that they, like most American’s, subconsciously don’t value minority life as highly as that of whites.”</p>
<p>What do you base this on other than pure speculation? Any transcripts that substantiate this? Any parallels in recent US history of disasters of this magnitude? Did the black mayor of New Orleans lack a sense of urgency because of this?</p>
<p>Yes executing more criminals for black on black crime is a smart way to go. Incidents of white on black murders are relatively rare. Half of total murders are by blacks with only 12.8% of the population.</p>
<p>RACE RELATIONSHIP
KILLERS/VICTIMS RELATIONSHIP PERCENT
White kills white 46.1%
Black kills black 40.7%
Black kills white 8.5%
White kills black 3.5%
Other kills other 0.6%
Other kills white 0.4%
White kills other 0.2%
Black kills other 0.1%
Other kills black 0.0%
Total 100.0% </p>
<p>(According to the US Census Bureau the US population in 2004 was 80.4% white and 12.8% black.)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html[/url]”>http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html</a></p>
<p>Your statistics are hardly an indictment for executing more black criminals, since apparently white people tend to kill more that blacks (at least each other, and by a large percentage.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should be executing more white people? (this is rhetorical for me…I am opposed to the death penalty for white, black, pink and purple people)</p>
<p>You need to reread the stats. Of all murders 8.5% are black on white and 3.5% are white on black despite there being over 6 times as many whites. So blacks are much more likely as a perp population to kill whites than whites are to kill blacks by a factor of 18 or so.</p>
<p>“Your statistics are hardly an indictment for executing more black criminals, since apparently white people tend to kill more that blacks (at least each other, and by a large percentage.”</p>
<p>“White kills white 46.1%
Black kills black 40.7%
Black kills white 8.5%
White kills black 3.5%” </p>
<p>It actually is about 50% for each.</p>
<p>So why are more blacks sentenced to death?</p>
<p>“They were just gone. You saw virtually none of that on TV either. The damage goes out for at least 50 mles from downtown NO. Most of the square miles are not poor black areas.”</p>
<p>But the thing is, we’re not upset about the property damage. It’s a horrific thing on a personal level to lose your property, but that pales in comparison to the human agony we saw. I care more about one person’s slow death from dehydration than I do about ten empty houses washing away. I mean, we’re talking about Family A losing its home and property, while Family B had to watch their elderly mom tread water in the attic for 48 hours until she gave up and drowned…I mean, I don’t think I should need to explain why I’m a lot more concerned about Family B.</p>
<p>A secondary reason that I’m not as concerned about the property damage in middle class areas is that a lot of that damage, especially in Mississippi, resulted from an act of God. There was little the government could have done to prevent houses in Pass Christian from being swept away (with the possible exception of wetland preservation), and it’s nobody’s fault. It’s terribly sad, but tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. that destroy property are an unavoidable fact of life on this planet. But families sleeping in human waste for three fetid days in the United States of America in 2006? Totally avoidable. It’s a lot of people’s fault that it happened, and there’s plenty we can do to keep it from happening again. So that’s where my energy is focused.</p>
<p>Allmusic–they are NOT. Blacks commit about half the murders but only get 34% of the death sentences. Whites get death at a far higher rate (57%) for the murders they do. </p>
<p>Hanna if you are talking about the deaths at the Dome there were no or virtually no deaths due to dehydration. Out of six deaths four were due to natural causes, one suicide and one other.
You saw the agony because that’s were the cameras were. You have no actual idea what happened in other areas. The areas were VAST and I’de were plenty or people on roofs or whatever out there too. The waterlines were up to the second flor level way out in some burbs. I saw an entire large enclosed shopping mall that was abandoned due to flooding. It was 15 miles from town at least. The other points are fine and we can hope to do better next time. We had a little wind storm blow through last winter and we had no power or heat for a week. In a disaster things take time.</p>
<p>“Hanna if you are talking about the deaths at the Dome”</p>
<p>I’m talking about all the human agony I referred to above. People in 100-degree heat without water for days, people drowning in their own attics, people lying in filth and knowing that they have been abandoned.</p>
<p>“The waterlines were up to the second flor level way out in some burbs. I saw an entire large enclosed shopping mall that was abandoned due to flooding.”</p>
<p>Yeah…BUT THERE WEREN’T ANY PEOPLE THERE. Are you actually arguing that all those middle-class suburbs where water was up to the rooflines were populated on the day the storm hit to anything like the degree that the desperately poor, mostly black neighborhoods were? You don’t think there was a massive correlation between (1) having a car and a credit card to pay for gas and a motel and (2) getting out of town ahead of the storm?</p>
<p>How many people were trapped in that shopping center, with no food, water, or adequate waste disposal, for three days?</p>
<p>The point is Barrons, that there was physical devastation, as Hanna describes, over much of MS and LA, where the storm struck. However, there was not a situation, where American citizens were being treated worse than people in a third world country, anywhere besides the Superdome. </p>
<p>IT wasn’t deliberate or biased reporting (certainly not from FOX, which, if anything, tries to protect and not badmouth, this administration). These were the facts of human suffering, right on the ground. And those people who tried to leave, were physically barred from doing so, and forced back into the very horrific conditions that actually DID kill people.</p>
<p>We don’t know that. There were no cameras out there to show what was going on. Now I suspect most left but there was zero coverage outside the inner city area. The roads were flooded and they probably could not get there. Quite a few people were killed in Miss as I saw crosses were homes once stood. You heard nothing of them either, did you?. A total of about 10 people died in and around the Dome and convention center with most by natural causes. There were maybe 2 or 3 deaths due to the circumstances. Not really what the news was saying at first implying 100’s were dying there.</p>
<p>Facts on deaths–widespread and as many whites as black in a heavily black city.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102201191.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102201191.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/12/103853.shtml[/url]”>http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/12/103853.shtml</a></p>
<p>Barrons, again WHERE else were 30,000 people trapped for three days without adequate food, water or waste disposal?</p>
<p>“We don’t know that. There were no cameras out there to show what was going on. Now I suspect most left but there was zero coverage outside the inner city area.”</p>
<p>OK, let me see if I get your point. First, you’re arguing that the cameras should have left the scenes of massive agony and human suffering and struck out into the country because there MIGHT have been a couple of people on the roof of a mall 15 miles away?</p>
<p>And second, you’re arguing that there was a major phenomenon of people being stranded on rooftops in middle-class suburbs for days without food or water, sleeping in their feces etc., but not only was it not reported at the time, but to this day there are no news stories, personal blogs, or any other online evidence you can point to that document that this occurred?</p>
<p>Is that right?</p>
<p>Guys - you’re both missing the point in the death penalty statistics. There is no consistent statistical correlation between the race of the perpetrator and the likelihood of the death penalty being imposed. None. It’s been studied to a fare-thee-well - if there was a pattern it would have been detected.</p>
<p>There is a consistent correlation between the likelihood of the death penalty being imposed and the race of the victim. Think about it. What does that tell you about the juries’ assessment of the seriousness of the crime of killing a white person vs. the crime of killing a black person?</p>
<p>And what does that tell you about the prevailing, unspoken feeling of how important it is to take immediate (and possible messy and even costly) action to safeguard those lives in an emergency?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.reason.com/news/show/32057.html[/url]”>http://www.reason.com/news/show/32057.html</a></p>
<p>Good TV is good TV. No massive areas with a few people on rooftops is not good TV so it’s not on. But you don’t know what you did not see either. The 30,000 were spread out over 100’s of square miles from NE NOLA to Biloxi. Not good tv. I saw it first hand and there is no comparison about which area was hit harder. Miss by far. It was GONE. But that’s bad TV. </p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_Mississippi[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_Mississippi</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1007_051007_mississippi.html[/url]”>National Geographic;
<p>As to death penalty perhaps whites are held to a higher standard as murder is far less common in that community. Also most serial and especially vicious murderers seem to be white and more likely to get death due to aggravated circumstances such as killing children, rape/murder etc etc. Every death sentence in Washington since I have been here was for a white on white crime that was particularly brutal and horrible. Just popping another gangbanger on the street does not draw the same outrage nor should it. .</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A group of black doctors from Atlanta asked permission to fly in with a donated plane and supplies to relieve the suffering. FEMA told them no.</p>
<p>Barrons keeps missing the point that Louisiana had 7 times the # of dead of Mississippi. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I was hoping someone would bring this up. It tells me the same thing the response to the trapped and dying Katrina victims tells me. It tells me the same thing that the studies mini has cited showing that even with the same insurance, going to the same doctor, blacks get fewer recommendations for diagnostic tests than whites too.</p>
<p>
</sarcasm></p>
<p>I guess you’re talking about Lakeview, if you mean within the city limits of New Orleans. There were really not a large number of deaths or trapped people in Lakeview. Most who did die were elderly people, many refused their children’s entreaties to evacuate, having gone through Betsy in the same dwellings with no problems.</p>
<p>Outside the city, it was pretty much the same story, most of the white people who died were elderly people who refused to evacuate and drowned in the initial onslaught. There were massive numbers of rescues in St. Bernard that included whites and blacks. Most rescues were by civilians who owned or liberated boats, the sheriff’s department, and local wildlife and fisheries. </p>
<p>They brought the rescued people to the courthouse roof, as it was a two storey building. (The building itself was flooded). The rescued stayed there for many days, including the survivors of St. Rita’s who were gravely ill. Eventually they were rescued from the courthouse roof by the Canadian Air Force, who were the first to reach the courthouse, despite many broken promises of assistance. </p>
<p>In Jefferson, the flooding, though severe where it was, was very limited in terms of how much area flooded. When the fire department realised that the floodwall had been breached, they ran up to the roof of their building, made a quick survey to see where there were boats in people’s yards, and ran around liberating boats as the water was rising.</p>
<p>Interesting fact: More than a day after it was reported by FEMA officials on the ground to Washington that the floodwalls had been breached, FEMA was still giving press conferences insisting that they hadn’t; that the flooding was just from overtopping. Unfortunately, this caused many people to underestimate the gravity of the situation or how long the flood waters would remain.</p>