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Originally Posted by Xantar
As for the racism issue, I don't know how much of a leg they have to stand on. However, it is valid to question whether the response would have been much faster if 90% of the people stuck behind had been white instead of black. You can't honestly tell me that your reaction to news footage would have been exactly the same if every miserable face you had seen had been white.
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I think the response had more to do with money than color. I really think we live in a nearly colorless society now, but not a classless society. We are more culturally bigotted than racially bigoted. (I have no idea how to spell biggotted so I'm trying several versions
). If you were walking down the street at night and saw a group of young black males dressed in hip-hop (man, I feel white just saying that) clothing, would you get nervous? Now, put them in Armani suits. See my point?
I believe that the response was slow do to the fact that the destruction did not hit the national GDP very hard. I think in running a government, those who run it often have to work in abstractions, and that can lead to a large human cost if you don't catch yourself in times of need. The human and material cost of 9/11 had a dramatic effect on our countries economy, and the strength of any nation lies in its economy. I believe that is why the response was so quick and strong in that case. Add to that the "Pearl Harbor" effect, and you have a truly national crisis.
Meanwhile in New Orleans, those that ran the businesses and had control of the monies involved were the ones that escaped. Therefore the toll that the ecomy took was pretty much material alone and unavoidable. The ones that were keft behind are more the "replaceable" working masses, or even those dependent on the government and who take more than they give to the economy.
If saving as many of those left behind as possible would have pushed the stock market to new heights or would have kept gas prices down, the entire fleet of Greyhound busses would have been commadeered (yet anither word I can't spell) the next day. It's just a sad fact that because of America's previous fascination with racism, those that fall in the economically expendable category in major cities (not nationally, though) tend to be minorities. The white trash in tornado allet have to deal with the same thing.