Feel free to ignore this

I have no proof of any of this. No studies, no research, no anything. It’s pure opinion. So, feel free to ignore this.

There’s been a lot of talk about the racism impact (or lack there of) that Katrina has had.

And, since the majority of victims of Katrina were black – it’s hard for this issue not to come up. And, I fully believe, that we still have a racism problem in our society. That said, I feel the real issue in the response to Katrina is not about race :

It’s about money.

The other trait that many of the victims of Katrina shared is that they were poor. I think this, more than race, this is the factor which effects how things are done. Now, I don’t think Bush (or anyone else) simply waved their hands and said ‘Pheh – they’re poor, let them all drown’, but with wealth comes power and the ability to influence things. Certainly, those who were well off (or even just comfortable) had an easier time getting out of the path of the hurricane. They had places to go, and money to get there. I think the issue is that none of the ‘planners’, who all inevitably belong to the ‘at least comfortable’ group, who can probably manage to buy a plane ticket or bust ticket with little to no thought as to how to get the money, ever stopped to think ‘What if someone has no means to get out’. They just assumed people would.

Imagine, for a moment, you’re poor and in the path of Katrina. You have no car, no way to buy a bus ticket, no anything. Your way to get out would be to walk, carrying whatever you could. Where would you go? How would you live? Wouldn’t you be tempted to ride things out, and hope for the best?

If the hurricane had been bearing down on Martha’s Vineyard or Kennebunkport, I have no doubt that the pre-planning would have been top down driven, rather than bottom up like the Katrina planning was. And less planning would have been needed, as most of the people who can afford to live in those places would have been able to take steps to protect themselves.

As I said, race still plays a role in out society, unfortunately, but more than race I think the lower class is the main minority in the US society – because if you want any influence in our society you need money.

And if you have enough, no one cares if you’re black or white or whatever.

(I recognize that racism and class are in many ways linked – and that race can be a bar to moving out of the lower class. But that’s another topic.)