Bush doesn't care about white people

[MaxFisher]

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200512\NAT20051214b.html

Statistics Suggest Race Not a Factor in Katrina Deaths
By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Correspondent
December 14, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - Statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals suggest that fewer than half of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black, and that whites died at the highest rate of all races in New Orleans.

Liberals in the aftermath of the storm were quick to allege that the Bush administration delayed its response to the catastrophe because most of the victims were black.

Damu Smith, founder of the National Black Environmental Justice Network, in September said that the federal government "ignored us, they forgot about us ... because we look like we look."

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in October said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasn't fit to help the storm's victims because "there are not enough blacks high up in FEMA" and added that, "certainly the Red Cross is the same."

Rapper Kanye West used his time on NBC's telethon for the hurricane victims to charge that, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

But the state's demographic information suggests that whites in New Orleans died at a higher rate than minorities. According to the 2000 census, whites make up 28 percent of the city's population, but the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals indicates that whites constitute 36.6 percent of the storm's fatalities in the city.

African-Americans make up 67.25 percent of the population and 59.1 percent of the deceased. Other minorities constitute approximately 5 percent of the population and represented 4.3 percent of the storm's fatalities.

Overall for the state, 658 bodies have been identified. Forty-seven percent were African-American and 42 percent were Caucasian. The remaining bodies were either non-black minorities or undetermined.

An additional 247 victims have not been identified, so their demographic information has not been released.

The data showed that the majority of Katrina's victims lived in the Orleans parish. The nearby St. Bernard and Jefferson parishes had 91 and 25 victims, respectively.

The storm also did not discriminate based on gender. Fifty percent of the victims were male and 49 percent were female, with 1 percent being undetermined.

Calls requesting comment from Damu Smith and the Nation of Islam were not returned Wednesday

 

[sharky]

Deaths isn't a good indicator of the race issue in this case. This data doesn't account for the number of people in shelters compared to the number of people who were able to get out. It was obvious just by looking at pictures that a majority of people in public shelters were black. Although I will say I don't necessarily agree with the whole "Bush doesn't like black people" thing. It was pretty obvious his entire administration was a bunch of bumbling idiots who cared about no one regardless of race [except maybe Trent Lott, oh his poor house!]. In the week after the hurricane, Bush was on vacation and went to some country music concert before he did anything, Cheney never left his vacation, Condi went shopping for shoes in NYC, and Mike Brown was worried about how he looked on TV and made sure people knew he couldn't be reached for an hour every night because he had to have uninterrupted dinner time.

Also, can someone please post this when it makes it to the mainstream media? In poking around the CNS Web site, they seem to be more of a Bush mouthpiece than an actual real news source. Let me know when the NY Times or Wall St. Journal write about this. Until then, I would take it with a grain of salt.

 

[nbcrusader]

Unfortunately, you can't wait for statistics before you play the race card. It was another example of the unecessary politization of the Katrina disaster before the storm even cleared.

 

[MaxFisher]

Unfortunately, you can't wait for statistics before you play the race card. It was another example of the unecessary politization of the Katrina disaster before the storm even cleared.

 

[BVS]

 

[MaxFisher]

Also, can someone please post this when it makes it to the mainstream media? In poking around the CNS Web site, they seem to be more of a Bush mouthpiece than an actual real news source. Let me know when the NY Times or Wall St. Journal write about this. Until then, I would take it with a grain of salt.

You can view the reports straight from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals website.

http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/reports.asp?ID=192&Detail=207

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I don't see how the fact that more whites died negates any possibility of a race issue/undercurrent vis a vis how the how thing was handled - like sharky said the whole "Bush is a racist/doesn't care about black people" thing, I won't believe that until I have solid evidence

However I don't get the connection CBS is seemingly trying to make

 

[sharky]

Unfortunately, you can't wait for statistics before you play the race card. It was another example of the unecessary politization of the Katrina disaster before the storm even cleared.

There were alot of problems with the Katrina disaster -- lack of communication, race, total incompetence of our leaders on all levels, placing blame instead of taking responsibility. The list could go on.

And nb, don't act like conservatives never played the politics card during all of this. I saw more spin from them than my clothes dryer. The only problem for conservatives is that while they tried the political spin, the reporting from the area was superb and showed how wrong they really were.

 

[nbcrusader]

I don't see how the fact that more whites died negates any possibility of a race issue/undercurrent vis a vis how the how thing was handled - like sharky said the whole "Bush is a racist/doesn't care about black people" thing, I won't believe that until I have solid evidence

I wish more people would wait for evidence. Once the suggestion is made (of racism), for some it becomes the default belief until there is clear evidence to the contrary.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Well I would never accuse anyone of being racist unless and until I have solid evidence- that is quite a conclusion to reach about someone and it shouldn't be done haphazardly or lightly. However when I conclude that someone is I have no problem doing so and saying so.

 

[Irvine511]

Deaths isn't a good indicator of the race issue in this case. This data doesn't account for the number of people in shelters compared to the number of people who were able to get out.

this is the issue.

it wasn't about deaths, it was about the lack of government response to people trapped in the Superdome, the Convention Center, and the inability to evacuate the urban poor who can't just put a few cases of Poland Spring in the back of the Range Rover and drive to the country house.

but white people need something to be defensive about, so let's continue to miss the issue.

 

[MaxFisher]

this is the issue.

it wasn't about deaths, it was about the lack of government response to people trapped in the Superdome, the Convention Center, and the inability to evacuate the urban poor who can't just put a few cases of Poland Spring in the back of the Range Rover and drive to the country house.

but white people need something to be defensive about, so let's continue to miss the issue.

No. Many people said that resonse to Katrina was racially motivated. It was not. And that is the point of my original post.

The general FEMA response to Katrina is a completely different issue.

Please stay on topic.

 

[Irvine511]

No. Many people said that resonse to Katrina was racially motivated. It was not. And that is the point of my original post.

The general FEMA response to Katrina is a completely different issue.

Please stay on topic.

firstly, you're going to have to define what it is you mean by "racially motivated" -- what everyone said was that the cluelessness of FEMA was due in part to disorganization due to ineptitude at the top as well as the lack of a genuine sense of crisis due to the fact that most of the victims at the Superdome and at the Convention Center on TV were black and were poor. if rich white people had been stuck on rooftops in Scarsdale, NY, then the federal response would have been different.

what distinction are you making between "that res[p]onse" and "the general FEMA response"?

i am entirely on topic. death is not the issue. response time is.

 

[BVS]

firstly, you're going to have to define what it is you mean by "racially motivated" -- what everyone said was that the cluelessness of FEMA was due in part to disorganization due to ineptitude at the top as well as the lack of a genuine sense of crisis due to the fact that most of the victims at the Superdome and at the Convention Center on TV were black and were poor. if rich white people had been stuck on rooftops in Scarsdale, NY, then the federal response would have been different.

what distinction are you making between "that res[p]onse" and "the general FEMA response"?

i am entirely on topic. death is not the issue. response time is.

absolutely.

That's why this article is just a waste of space.

 

[nbcrusader]

And nb, don't act like conservatives never played the politics card during all of this. I saw more spin from them than my clothes dryer. The only problem for conservatives is that while they tried the political spin, the reporting from the area was superb and showed how wrong they really were.

I wasn't making that suggestion. I agree with you and was very disappointed in the amount of energy wasted on political spin, finger pointing, etc. that did not help one person.

 

[sharky]

Max -- Thanks for the link. In looking at the reports, it seems the bigger issue is not race but rather age and you can do a news search to find that most mainstream media sources are writing about that and not race. Most of those who died were over the age of 60.

I, like you, thought it was weird that with numbers like this, the main stream media hadn't written a story on race -- I mean, the race of the dead must reflect the race of those who were evacuated, right? so I did a little digging of my own. The report below is a survey of evacuees done by the Washington Post/ Kaiser Family Foundation/ Harvard University. I would highly suggest you start with the demographics information on page 16. 32% of those evacuated made less than $10,000 per year. 52% did not have health insurance. 93% were black. If that doesn't tell you who was really affected by the hurricane, I don't know what does.

http://www.kff.org/newsmedia/upload/7401.pdf

 

[nathan1977]

Age and poverty level seem to be the driving forces here.

Skin color seems to be an unfortunate side-effect of larger social forces. (Not the least of which is human trafficking, which the Bayou is known for covering.)