"How Obama would handle another Katrina"

31 Aug

With Hurricane Irene making it’s way through the east coast over the weekend, much of that region of the country was on high alert.  Not to downplay the damage caused by Irene, but it was nowhere near the damage that Hurricane Katrina caused.  Katrina sadly took the lives of almost 2,000 people.

Post-Katrina, former President Bush took a lot of heat and was accused of not doing enough to help the victims of this disaster.  He was accused of not acting quickly and steadfast enough.  Not only that, but with New Orleans being a city that has a rather large black population (many not exactly the wealthiest), Bush was accused of being racist — someone who doesn’t care at all about poor black people, and black people in general.

Now, while nobody (or at least it should be nobody) has ever thought Bush was the smartest person around, I never really thought of him as racist.  Racism itself isn’t always as overt as it used to be, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still exist.  If a giant tornado was threatening a bunch of wealthy white people in Texas, I bet President Bush would’ve reacted to that much differently than Katrina.  Bush might not use the n-word, but his ignoring, slow-to-react behavior was yes, a form of racism — because it was a declaration of where priorities were.  It was a showing of favoritism, in a way.

Anyway, if Katrina happened during the President Obama’s presidency, we would all like to think that the federal government would’ve done more to help —- and not because Barack Obama is a minority, but because he has better moral sense than Bush.

Nevertheless, it’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, and talk about the I woulda-coulda-shouldas, but I doubt President Obama cares more about black people than Bush.  Obama probably doesn’t care white people either.  Then who would Obama be most eager to help out in a disaster? — You guessed it, he’d probably only help bi-racial people, and ignore everyone else.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,