Well, this is as good a topic as any to get my blogging jumpstarted again....
First it was homework, then it was a faulty, overheating CPU, then it was preparing to go teach in China, and finally it was evading the cybercops in the Peoples Republic.
So here we have good ol' Ray_Nagin :
In remarks to the annual meeting of the National Association of Black
Journalists, Nagin said the hurricane "exposed the soft underbelly of America as
it relates to dealing with race and class."
"And I, to this day, believe that if that would have happened in Orange County, California, if that would have happened in South Beach, Miami, it would have been a different response," the mayor said.
Don't suppose that the above may conflict with Ray's
talk with Tim Russert last year:
MR. RUSSERT: You had said earlier that you didn't think that race was a
factor in the preparation and evacuation, and yet you had given an interview
to the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, and let me read it for you and
our viewers.
"Definitely class, and the more I think about it, definitely race played into this. If it's race, fine, let's call a spade a spade, a diamond a diamond. We can never let this happen again. Even if you hate black people and you are in a leadership
position, this did not help anybody."
Who in the leadership position hates black people?
MAYOR NAGIN:
Well, you know, I don't know who hates black people, but I will just tell you this, that I think the imagery that came out across the nation portrayed that this was primarily poor black people that were affected. And I don't know if that affected the response or not. But I got really upset when I heard about some of our residents walking to one of the parish lines and were turned back by attack dogs and armed guys with machine guns. Then the secretary of Homeland Security came and he asked me to meet him at Zephyr Field, which is near the Saints' training facility. And when I walked over there, I just started to pay attention to things and I saw
porterlets that we didn't have. I saw ice. To this day, Tim, no one has dropped
one piece of ice in the city of New Orleans to give some people relief. I saw
lights that we were begging for for the Superdome and for the Convention Center
that made that a horrific environment. I saw all of that sitting on the ground
and not moving to New Orleans. So someone has to explain that.
MR. RUSSERT: And you think those decisions were
based on race?
MAYOR NAGIN: You know, I don't know, but I'm hearing all sorts of weird
things right now, like, you know, they're going to build--what is it called?--a
huge trailer park somewhere in the woods of mid- Louisiana and they're going to
bring all the people back that have been dispersed and they're going to create
this tent city, if you will.
And, you know, for the most part, that would be a huge mistake because here in Texas, where I am, I have viewed these shelters and our people are getting much better care--hospital care, housing care, support--than they would in some huge tent city or trailer park that they build in the middle of Louisiana.
Decide for yourself.
