The American Prospect
by LaNitra Walker

09/07/05

When Hurricane Katrina bombarded the Gulf Coast last week, she blew open a Pandora's box of race and class issues that Americans thought they had packed away. In the wake of a destruction of the hurricane, we simply weren't prepared to see how poor Americans in the South really are, and how many of the poorest are black. The media focused on the tired and desperate victims in the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center pleading for aid in the hours after the storm, and television audiences could see that they were almost all black. Journalists were too busy covering the dramatic rescue efforts to ask why only black Americans had become victims of the storm. Instead, the media focused on how federal and local officials were handling the disaster. Then, after much footage of Army helicopters shown plucking entire black families off of rooftops, the questions turned to whether or not the victims' race played a role in the slow relief response...

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10227


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp