Race, Hurricane Katrina, and the Aftermath

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“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” these are the words that Kanye West spoke during a Hurricane Katrina fundraising concert. Not only did the sentiment expressed with those words resonate with many Americans watching the concert that day, but observing the post Hurricane Katrina aftermath some would go a step further and argue that the United States government doesn’t care about black people. Although there were several events in the history of this country that would lead one to the same conclusion it was the disproportionate suffering and devastation experienced by African Americans in New Orleans not only during Hurricane Katrina but long after the storm had passed that leads many to conclude that the United States does not care for its African American citizens.
Long before the storm hit New Orleans there was already a divide in the city. The city seemed to be divided by race with affluent whites living in the cities nicer neighborhoods which unsurprisingly just happened to be located at higher altitudes. While less affluent African Americans tended to reside in neighborhoods at lower altitudes. According to a report titled Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Return Migration to New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina, the segregation in the city had been historically low compared to the rest of the country however “by 2000, the standard index of black–white segregation showed New Orleans to have reached, and even gone a bit beyond, the national average” (Fussell, Elizabeth) When the storm hit 2005 the effect that this seemingly unnoticed difference was magnified as it became apparent that the difference in altitudes would lead to extremely different outcomes for the residents in the different neighborhoods. Acco...

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...r Katrina's Deadly Effects." Discover the Networks. 15 Feb. 2005. 27 Nov. 2013 .
Dreier, Peter. "Katrina: A Political Disaster." Shelterforce Online (2006). Spring 2006. National Housing Institute. 27 Nov. 2013 .
Fussell, Elizabeth, Narayan Sastry, and Mark VanLandingham. "Race, socioeconomic status, and return migration to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina." Population and Environment 31 (2010): 20-42. NCBI. Jan. 2010. U.S. National Library of Medicine. 27 Nov. 2013 .
Goodman, Amy, and Juan Gonzalez. "Disaster Profiteering: Purging the Poor in the New New Orleans." Democracy Now! 23 Sept. 2005. 27 Nov. 2013 .

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