MJC

Take a look at

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=348255

Tell me what you think

ukemigrant

Interesting - no surprise how the broadcast media behave. Bad news sells. Wonder if Time/Newsweek already covered this, or intend to cover it at some point.

Patrick

The only organisations that are using this information are racist groups. These facts and figures are not in any of the legitamate news organisations (that I can find).

So, in my opinion, the racists are fighting what they have seen is an over exposure of the plight of poor black people and are countering with "look -rich whitey suffered too". I am waiting for someone to say "well the poor black people had very little anyway so they lost very little, where as the rich white people lost a lot because they had a lot!"

Truth be told, it is a poor reflection on American society that race should be mentioned at all. The poor (not in a fiscal sense) people of New Orleans have suffered a terrible disaster, it doesn't matter if they where black, white, pink, jew or gentile. The only thing that should be of any importance is the fact they are humans.

I have such a hard time with how racist and intollerant america is.

elfman

You mean something like this?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1001054719

tony126

So are you disputing what has been reported and if you're not why do you put a rascist tag on it?
I stand by the comment I made on the other forum.

ironporer

Kinda makes you wonder why you consider them legitimate- if they first report falshoods, then fail to note any corrections to the frenzy THEY created.

As to the Barbera Bush comments, I have seen a dozen or more reports of families that have moved to Houston, Illinois, Atlanta, UTah and even Alaska- on the news or on NPR and all seem to be quite better off than they were in N.O.- as far as work, home and $$, and few plan on going back (although granted all missed NO greatly).

CaliforniaBride

From a legitimate news source? Beside the fact that 'dozens' is hardly a representative sample. Wouldn't be that media agenda being met would it?

elfman

The disturbing thing about Katrina and racism was that in the aftermath of Katrina a number of people on the right wing side of politics in this country showed their true colours by writing and distributing a whole load of poisonous emails/articles that basically sought to portray low-income Katrina victims/evacuees (i.e. black people) as violent, lazy, selfish, ungrateful thugs, thieves and drug addicts. Some of these were posted on this site and those responsible should be ashamed of themselves.

flybyday

Perhaps they should have a truly model, color-blind society then over here? Like what France has tried to create and has worked so well for its minority populations? I have such a hard time with how many deluded expats utter nonsense about how racist and intolerant America is. Living in oblivion indeed.

But I have to say, living in the area for the time being and working with demography, most of the facts and figures mentioned on that "article" were pretty spot-on regarding race, location, and poverty. That doesn't mean that the final analysis was very reasonable. It's just a matter on how they put a certain "spin" on the facts, and the context from which they organize it. Poor people of any race suffer most during natural disasters; it happens that the majority of the poor in New Orleans are black, though that would be obvious to any one who spends more than a few days down here. And there's no way the media could have avoided capturing it or mentioning it because unless it blurred out everything on either side of Anderson Cooper (and even then it would probably have been obvious).

Ray

They were referring to the police officers ...

tony126

Personally from my viewpoint I thought the media and the residents were the ones who started to shout about rascialism from the start but maybe you seen some different tv programmes than me.

Patrick

Two things,

1. What does is matter what colour the people are who died or suffered?

and

2. If 50 poor and 50 rich people are effected by Katrina it will be easier for the rich people to get back on there feet because they have the means and the connections to do it. The colour of their skin is irrelevant

tony126

Agreed.

Angry White Pyjamas

What about 50 middle class people who have just lost their home, all its contents and their jobs?

snowbunny

We have a significant number of evacuees and while their material quality of life has improved, it is probably only temporary. FEMA and state and local governments are not going to subsidise housing and other costs forever.

Last night I was at the pharmacy and an obviously handicapped man was having to wait for ages while the pharmacist was arguing with someone at FEMA about covering his medications. As someone pointed out, there's really nowhere in America that has an excess of jobs for Katrina evacuees to take.

Would your business hire a Katrina evacuee if your business knew that employee planned on going back as soon as possible, and leaving the job?

What a nightmare for these people.