A case of black & white

Posted on October 25, 2007
Filed Under All, Politics |

Listening to the morning news (while doing my ‘hard Heidi’ exercises), I note how upbeat evacuees are about the services available to them at Qualcomm Park - water, blankets, diapers, hot breakfast et al.

I can’t help but compare this experience to that of the Katrina victims in New Orleans 2 years ago. Two major disasters, affecting similarly-sized populations (about 500,000) but there appears to be a night-and-day difference in the delivery of emergency services. Remember the images from the Superdome?

Of course, many, if not most of the Southern California evacuees appear to be white and middle class, whereas the Katrina victims were mostly poor and black. Coincidence? Or another Bush administration legacy?

Comments

7 Responses to “A case of black & white”

  1. Anonymous on October 25th, 2007 10:01 am

    Doubt Hillary would have treated blacks any better, giver her history with Somalia.

  2. Anonymous on October 25th, 2007 10:30 am

    Hard 2 feel sympathy for the fire victims considering they had achieved enough wealth to buy $2 million houses and they could easily sell the charcoal remains for more money than most people make in a lifetime, but instead it will B workers & wage earners paying higher taxes to rebuild their CEO’s camelots.

  3. AmyB on October 25th, 2007 4:19 pm

    Wow. Losing your home and all (or most) of your worldly possessions is a tragic and difficult circumstance regardless of your individual financial status. Granted, greater resources make it easier to recover from catastrophe, but this would be a better world overall, if more people could empathize with each others’ difficulties/challenges instead of being judgemental and critical.

    And, as anyone in California realizes, $2 million, unfortunately doesn’t go as far as it seems like it should.

  4. AmyB on October 25th, 2007 4:23 pm

    Wow. Losing your home and all (or most) of your worldly possessions is a tragic and difficult circumstance regardless of your individual financial status. Granted, greater resources make it easier to recover from catastrophe, but this would be a better world overall, if more people could empathize with each others’ difficulties/challenges instead of being judgemental and critical.

    And, as anyone in California realizes, $2 million in real estate, unfortunately doesn’t go nearly as far as it seems like it should…

  5. Ron on October 26th, 2007 2:25 am

    Yes, quite a difference. In California all but two left their homes when told to, in New Orleans 15,000 stayed home.

    Disregard for the authorities is also shown in their lifestyles.

    And who is to blame?

  6. Anonymous on October 26th, 2007 10:07 am

    AP wrote:
    > two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive
    > cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules
    > and bureaucracy

    Guess not all the residents were white.

  7. gfbird on October 26th, 2007 7:17 pm

    ‘empathize instead of being judgemental and critical’. Golly, another plea for a behavior pass.

    Almost every fire evacuee household had several vehicles in which to leave, and the money to buy temporary accommodations, while those stranded in New Orleans mostly did not. Fires occur regularly and people are often somewhat prepped, even as people build flammable structures in the fire zone, chafing with disregard for regulatory authorities trying to mitigate risk . New Orleans survived the hurricane, but after it passed, defectively built dikes broke. Lots of differences.

    I hope observers of the two events note that New Orleans is mostly Democratic and the fire districts are mostly Republican. Then there is the scandal of the FEMA in-house staffer press event.

    Chris, once again your high humanitarianism opens us to the truth of cruel politics.

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