Looking in Katrina's Mirror

Right after Hurricane Katrina, I had dinner with a very dear friend, who is white. We discussed the racial issues being tossed about over the poor showing of aid to New Orleans.

Like many, my friend believes in some measure that New Orleans did not get fast, sufficient assistance because a majority of the needy were poor and black.

I do not agree.

While I believe FEMA and other organizations failed by not mobilizing faster and that the war diverted our resources, there is no precedent for a flood disaster on that scale. It was not possible to rehearse. Mistakes were made.

This is not to say that racism will not emerge at some point. Indeed, it has. Rather, it is my belief that the most debilitating racism has already occurred, when bad law and unfair customs created and maintained an artificially imposed underclass. Now a true underclass, the city’s poor have been unable to provide either personal or tax-based resources to deliver themselves from Katrina or its aftermath.

The lesson is that racism is costly. Since the rest of us must now pay for any remedy undertaken in the wake of this disaster, racism has finally been awarded its ultimate empowerment – to impoverish the entire country that let it persist.