Media: Katrina Response Affected By Racism?

We'd been reading the many articles which have been produced by editorialists, reporters, and anchors regarding the question of racism affecting the response efforts in the hurricane Katrina disaster. Barbara Bush rather tripped all over this issue last week when she decribed the state of the evacuees as "this is working very well for them" as many of them "were unpriviledged anyway." Uhmmm, yeah. By the way, you must read and editorial by Andy Borowitz which contains a humorous satire on Barbara Bush's relocation:

Mrs. Bush, who in talking about Katrina refugees said that "This is working very well for them" and that many of them "were underprivileged anyway," was transported to a facility where she will have plenty of food and water but no more media appearances, the White House confirmed.

Borowitz goes on the expound (humorously) on the dispostion of one Mrs. Bush:

She will be much more comfortable in this new location, surrounded by armed guards on a 24-hour basis, than she was at her compound in Kennebunkport," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "This is working very well for her."

Responding to a reporter who questioned whether Mrs. Bush would be happy being uprooted from her estate, Mr. McClellan said, "She was overprivileged anyway."

While the White House took credit for its success in relocating Mrs. Bush, some congressional critics argued that it did not act quickly enough to relocate the outspoken former First Lady.

"This was an emergency situation," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del). "They should have relocated her the minute she opened her piehole,"

For her part, the former First Lady remained out of view, but released the following official statement: "I am doing well, but I remain envious of those who were relocated after Hurricane Katrina – boy, do those folks have a sweet deal."

Heh. On a more serious note, we noticed all the anchors and reporters alluding to the issue of racism in their commentary as detailed by the Washington Times:

CNN's Jack Cafferty said, "Despite the many angles of this tragedy, and Lord knows there've been a lot of 'em in New Orleans, there is a great big elephant in the living room that the media seems content to ignore -- that would be, until now. ... [We] in the media are ignoring the fact that almost all of the victims in New Orleans are black and poor."

Wolf Blitzer said: "You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals, as Jack Cafferty just pointed out, so tragically, so many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor, and they are so black, and this is gonna raise lots of questions for people ... watching this story unfold."

Fox's Shepard Smith described citizens of New Orleans stranded on an Interstate as possessing the face of an African-American man, woman, child or baby.

The Wolf Blitzer (our HR violation meter is pinged on that one, BTW) quote is quite interesting, since we were hearing via word-of-mouth that that statement occurred, but couldn't find the contents anywhere other than blogs or messageboard forums which contained the verbiage. We half believed it didn't happen, until the Washington Times and the Seattle Intelligencer Journal referred to it.

Many of the news media wish to make an issue of race out of the lack of response efforts - we think that might be a red herring. Placing emphasis on racism when in fact the Louisiana governor, the mayor of New Orleans, and the federal government's collective communication, processes and procedures for a disaster response of this magnitude were ultimately flawed diverts attention to the real issue of fixing what is an appalling lack of accountability on all levels of government and the people responsible for providing for those who are in need.

Comments

[Laurence Topliffe]

Bush's behavior has been inexcusable. He doesn't deserve one word of thanks. IT was others who did the right things.