Hi there,

i need to have some sources, like statistics or newspaper articles (reasons as well) agreeing that the government was not racist in offering black people help during hurricane katrina.

Only answer if you have the answer to my question. This is school work and i didn’t choose wether to defend or attack the government in this issue.

thanks in advance

There’s no evidence at all that the US government discriminated against African-Americans in providing aid to survivors of hurricane katrina. The burden of proof of that accusation is on those making the accusation, and so far no one has produced any proof that is adequate of racism on the part of the Federal government.

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, on the other hand, behaved in an overtly racist manner on several occasions during and after the storm. The most obviously racist act of Mayor Nagin was when he asked on national TV and radio for African-American refugees from Katrina to return (in time for the city mayoral elections) and "make New Orleans a ‘chocolate city’ again"

Before the storm arrived, his failure to accept Federal assistance in preparing for the hurricane led directly to many of the deaths among African-Americans. Fuel which could have been used to power school buses and other city-owned vehicles to evacuate citizens who later died could have been furnished from Federal stockpiles at the Naval Support Activity at Algiers (a neighborhood directly across the river from New Orleans) or from Alvin Callender Field, a Marine and Naval airstrip in the same general area. In refusing Federal assistance, Mayor Nagin appears to have been motivated by either racial hatred of President Bush and the Republican Party or from misguided loyalty to the Democratic Party.

Democratic Party political sabotage appears to have been the motivating factor in Governor Kathleen Blanco’s refusal to allow the use of state-owned vehicles in evacuation of endangered citizens from New Orleans, but racism on Blanco’s part (state government, not Federal, in other words) cannot be excluded as a possibility. Governor Blanco also declined offers of Federal assistance made by President Bush. She also sent troops from the Louisiana Army National Guard in to confine Katrina survivors to certain areas of the city.

FEMA’s errors made after the storm arrived seem to have been the result of incompetence, not racism. No one certainly has proven racism as a motivating factor in any of the errors made by FEMA, although the incompetence and insensitivity to people’s needs was astounding on several occasions and resulted in much unnecessary suffering on the part of blacks and whites alike.

But actual improprieties were committed not by Federal, but by state and local officials, ranging from diversion of Levee Board funds for sculpture and guns for civilian employees to politically-motivated refusal of aid to the citizens of New Orleans, to looting and other offenses committed by officers of the New Orleans Police Department and one instance in which bridges out of New Orleans appear to have been blockaded by out-of-city law enforcement officers or civilians with guns. Racist incidents, when they occurred, were committed by local and state officials, law enforcement and civilians, not Federal troops.

Allegations of Federal improprieties were made by Democratic Party political operatives and members of the media who seized on an opportunity to make false accusations in order to politicize the tragic deaths of New Orleanian citizens. No proof was ever produced of the accusation by these people and others that response by Federal officials might have been more rapid if the storm had occurred in a predominately white community.(4)

However there were many instances of racially motivated violence and even murder of people who took refugees in by some of the refugees, who were mostly black. These stories were not reported by and large by the national media, but covered locally in the communities which took in evacuees.

Many reports of racism were the result of racist attitudes on the part of both blacks and whites in New Orleans according to a sociological study by the University of California at Los Angeles. This study, however, defined white racism and black racism differently and was thus open to charges of racism itself because its definition of "white racism" assumed intent to be racist among whites even when whites said or did nothing overtly racist. According to this study, a white person, according to the study language, would have to drop whatever else he or she was doing to provide aid to a black person in order not to be accused of racism. No such definition was made of black racism, nor were overt acts of bigotrry on the part of blacks in the wake of Katrina (such as widespread looting and arson of residences in white neighborhoods) discussed at all. (5)

A US House of Representatives study of the response to Katrina ascribed the damage after Katrina to "a failure of initiative" - institutional error, NOT racism - at Federal, state and local levels, but also mentioned 166 million dollars in over-payments due to fraudulent applications by katrina survivors or others. (Payments were made to 481,624 households in the four affected Louisiana parishes have received payments – when census data documents only 398,629 households living in these four parishes. Simple math indicates that around 83,000 households were made up in order that someone collected FEMA aid illegally.) (6) Dishonesty was definitely at work in an astounding number of cases, if not outright racism among some survivors.

I think, and I may be wrong, but I think Haiti and every other nation gave the USA $0.00 after hurricane katrkatrina.

Oh well, enough of the cold, hard facts….start loading the supply trucks for Haiti…its a thankless job but someone (USA) has to do it.

I completely understand what you are saying. It’s not that we don’t care but rather we have our own issues that need to be taken care of. 100,000 people die each year in the US because of inadequate insurance. But we wont send aid to that, why? Because it’s not a catastrophic event?

Why can’t everyone dontate 10 dollars to that cause as well?

Why must we help another government that can’t even help itself?

Haiti has a government… just because it is flawed and doesn’t serve and protect the people the way ours does, does not mean that we must feel obligated to extend ourselves to them.

I just do not like how we put more value on some lives than others because one creates a better headline than the other, when we could and should help both.

My husband is Haitian and my mother-in-law lives in Haiti, so I do have a personal tie to the country, I just don’t see how we are so quick to aid another while there are people here that could use the aid as well.

Not to sound unsupportive of the help we are providing to Haiti i just personally do not remember a telethon for Hurricane katrina on all large television stations. Why wasn’t there more support for our own country when a natural disaster hit.

Well I remember a telethon for the hurricane Katrina and a lot of help coming in. But it is true that it seems as though americans tend to give more to foreign countries in need than to their own.

To Hard - You are so misinformed it ain’t even funny. Nobody helped you on 9/11 and during hurricane katrina? Many many countries sent aid during hurricane Katrina even though Bush REFUSED most of it. And if you think that your allies (including Canada which is my country) didn’t help you on 9/11 you are clearly blinded by the truth! Look at all your allies who are fighting and DIEING for YOU in Afghanistan for god’s sake! What an ungrateful person you are!!

The United States is always so eager to help out other countries when disaster strikes, which is great. But, did anyone help us when we suffered through Hurricane Katrina?
You all seem to have so much information, but not enough to know that wikipedia is an unreliable source. Anyone can write anything they want on wiki. And I am simply asking a question, not assuming anything.

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 29, 2007

As the winds and water of hurricane katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.

Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" — a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again — the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving."
Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina’s victims.

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to
according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.
addition, valuable supplies and services — such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships — were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

The struggle to apply foreign aid in the aftermath of the hurricane, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 billion so far, is another reminder of the federal government’s difficulty leading the recovery. Reports of government waste and delays or denials of assistance have surfaced repeatedly since hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.

Administration officials acknowledged in February 2006 that they were ill prepared to coordinate and distribute foreign aid and that only about half the $126 million received had been put to use. Now, 20 months after Katrina, newly released documents and interviews make clear the magnitude of the troubles.

More than 10,000 pages of cables, telegraphs and e-mails from U.S. diplomats around the globe — released piecemeal since last fall under the Freedom of Information Act — provide a fuller account of problems that, at times, mystified generous allies and left U.S. representatives at a loss for an explanation. The documents were obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a public interest group, which provided them to The Washington Post.

In one exchange, State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. "Tell them we blew it," one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: "The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded."

In another instance, the Department of Homeland Security accepted an offer from Greece on Sept. 3, 2005, to dispatch two cruise ships that could be used free as hotels or hospitals for displaced residents. The deal was rescinded Sept. 15 after it became clear a ship would not arrive before Oct. 10. The U.S. eventually paid $249 million to use Carnival Cruise Lines vessels.

And while television sets worldwide showed images of New Orleans residents begging to be rescued from rooftops as floodwaters rose, U.S. officials turned down countless offers of allied troops and search-and-rescue teams. The most common responses: "sent letter of thanks" and "will keep offer on hand," the new documents show.

Overall, the United States declined 54 of 77 recorded aid offers from three of its staunchest allies: Canada, Britain and Israel, according to a 40-page State Department table of the offers that had been received as of January 2006.

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only the tip of the iceburg….

in the future, Google your questions als. You would be surprised in the aount of information you can find.

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After hurricane katrkatrina hit police, and military forced people who owned guns legally to give up their guns. Also police forced people whose homes were NOT effected by the hurricane to leave their homes.Why did police, and military do this?

That’s exactly what’s led to several states passing laws prohibiting the police from using emergency Situations to suspend the 2nd Amendment. In fact, Ray Nagin and New Orleans were sued by the citizens who lost their weapons, and the court ruled that the action was illegal. The city was ordered to return the weapons to their lawful owners. The citizens have had to go back to court and request that Nagin and New Orleans be held in Contempt of Court for failing to comply.

What were the unsanitary conditions in the Superdome during hurricane katrkatrina? No explanation needed. I just need to know what they were.

No sanitary conditions, no beds, no food, no water, over-crowding, no air conditioning, no social services for elderly and babies. Anything horrible you can think of occured. Then the roof was destroyed and they had to be evacuated with nowhere to go.

I’m so sick and tired of when the Saints are on prime time and they mention how the Saints rebuilt from hurricane katrkatrina. It was over 4 years ago.

They never will.

today is the anniversary of 9/11 and I can see how the government is starting to rebuild the wrecked site of where the twin towers used to stand. When 9/11 happened, it seemed like there was an outpour of help and consideration for New York, the families of people who lost loved ones. I don’t see the same thing happening for the victims of hurricane katrkatrina. I do see some rebuilding, but not much, and ppl r waiting to go back to their hometown. Tell me what u think, and don’t make any crude remarks please.

You make a very good point young man

Where can I download an ebook about hurricane katrkatrina.

not

Federalism and hurricane katrkatrina.

The city of New Orleans and its politicians,the people of New Orleans whom knew the Hurricane was coming and made little to NO preparations,The Governor of Louisiana,Then you can work your way to the top.Crisis is always handled at the local level first,then it works its way up.(from the individual to the government)