Katrina, Color Blind?

People of color, that's mainly what we see when we look at the images of devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Nobody in the media, as far as I know, has mentioned it yet, but sooner or later some columnist or reporter or public official is going to wonder if the slow response by the Federal government has anything to do with the fact that the majority of victims are African-American, poor and working-class.

I don't want to believe that race has anything to do with the Fed's failure to mobilize, but with the Bush regime in power, you never know. If Katrina had slammed into a largely white, Republican community in Florida or Texas, I wonder if aid would have arrived on the scene faster. It's well-known that the Bush regime values American lives more than Iraqi lives, so much so that we don't even bother to count Iraqi killed or wounded, so it stands to reason that Bush and his people might place a higher value on white Republicans than poor African-Americans.

But perhaps the real culprit here is our foolish Occupation of Iraq and the billions of dollars we've poured down that gopher hole -- money that might have been used for myriad other purposes, like homeland security, adequate funding for FEMA, public health programs and public works, like flood control. And wouldn't it be beneficial to have fully staffed and equipped National Guard units on the scene to lend assistance to our citizens, rather than deployed in Iraq? Bush's lavish tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans haven't helped either. Those cuts come at the expense of public investment, and now, at the time when Government can make the biggest difference in people's lives, we find ourselves short of resources.

Sooner or later people are going to wake up and realize how much damage Bush & Co. have done to our vital public infrastructure. The people devastated by Katrina already get it.