New Orleans exposes America’s racial divide

Whether in the New Orleans Superdome or the Red Cross shelters along the Mississippi coast, the image was the same poor, black people, who had no way of escaping Katrina’s fury and were now left to suffer its aftermath in the most squalib conditions imaginable.

Days earlier, the television pictures had been of mostly white people fleering the area in cars and sports utility vehicles as Katrina gathered strength in the Gulf of Mexico. While the national wave of charity towards the storm’s victims has shown the US at its best, some observes believe the disaster has starkly exposed its racial divisions and economic inequality.

Elijjah E. Cummings, a Republican member of the congressional black cacus, yesterday claimed the skin colour of many of the victims had been a factor in the slow response. He told a news conference “ The difference between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age, or skin colour.” But in the Red Cross shelter in Gulfport, Mississippi, on Wednesday, all Anita Gaddis, 36, disabled and black, wanted to know was: “ When is help coming?”
Food and water eventually arrived but homes and jobs to replace those that have been lost may take a longer. Ms Gaddis’s question may still be resonating months from now.