Amidst the Bush administration's efforts to avoid blame for the failures of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, the hurricane has highlighted the role race plays in society and how capitalism has failed many of the country's poor. Rather than highlighting the “compassion” and “understanding” that were touted by columnists and politicians after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the response to Hurricane Katrina has shown the failure of the moral and political philosophy of the United States and has exposed a society built on racism and inequality.
This has been seen in the response of the Bush administration, an administration that has chosen to spend considerable time developing a media strategy to minimize damage from the crisis--a strategy that has included token visits from cabinet members, coordinated public appearances on television, and shifting blame towards the Louisiana and New Orleans governments. The Bush administration knows that as an urban area housing primarily people of color that New Orleans has little political power, and as such, lacks both the capacity to effectively challenge the federal government’s indifference through traditional channels and the public infrastructure necessary to cope with the disaster.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, has identified the problem and has pointed out the indifference of the federal government and the institutional racism that has shaped its response:
We authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9-11, we gave the President unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places. You mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere in the world everybody's eyes light up. You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying everyday that we can't figure out how to authorize the resources that we need?
Following 9/11, many critical resources in New Orleans were diverted towards the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” Some $200 billion has been spent on the war, much of it paid for via cutbacks to emergency preparedness projects. In June of 2004, Walter Maestri, the emergency management chief for New Orleans’ western suburbs, noted that funding to pay for new levees had been diverted to pay for the war in Iraq. During the 1990s a variety of federal efforts were undertaken to increase New Orleans capacity to deal with large-scale flooding, but money for the projects was nearly eliminated after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In fact, nine articles in New Orleans’ Time-Picayune newspaper specifically cited the cost of the war as a reason for the lack of hurricane and flood-control money. Additionally, 35% of Louisiana’s National Guard is currently in Iraq and unable to assist with hurricane relief efforts.
Despite previous hurricanes in New Orleans, including 2004’s Hurricane Ivan, that identified widespread problems with the city’s capacity to respond, there was little effort made to improve the situation. Much of this likely has to do with the city’s demographics. Aside from the widespread examples of the media portraying white people as “trying to survive” and black people as “looting,” there are deeper discussions of race and capitalism that have been ignored. New Orleans, known to many as a city of pleasure, was in reality an example of the systemic injustice that the majority of Americans face on a daily basis. It was the African-American population that inhabited the cheap, low-lying housing that was hardest hit by the hurricane, that was unable to evacuate (35% of African-American homes did not have a car), and that lived in poverty before the hurricane even hit.
This reality has not been entirely lost on the Bush administration and their Republican allies, hence the slow response and callous comments coming from the government. Michael Brown, head of FEMA, has attributed much of the human cost of the hurricane to “people who did not heed the advance warnings” and has blamed the victims of the hurricane. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania has also mentioned a need for “tougher penalties” for people that do not evacuate during hurricanes. Of course, neither Brown nor Santorum acknowledge the fact that many people were unable to leave. Similarly, Barbara Bush, has described the temporary shelters as working out “very well” for many people in New Orleans, who she says were “underprivileged anyway” and thus are really enjoying their temporary housing.
