Monday, March 2, 2009

American Government 3/2

In Class - Continue documentary "When the Levees Broke" concerning Hurricane Katrina.

Homework - Check the articles listed below. Our discussion is tentatively going to be on Thursday, but this may change to Friday.

Articles to check out:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1882371,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1646611,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1103560,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1656660,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1471224,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1109292,00.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/03/katrina/main814623.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/11/AR2005091101131.html

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: DO SOME OUTSIDE RESEARCH EITHER FROM THE ARTICLES FROM THIS BLOG OR ON YOUR OWN. IN YOUR OPINION, DO YOU THINK THE ISSUE OF RACE PLAYED A ROLE IN THE GOVERNMENT'S (FEDERAL AND STATE) SLOW REACTION TO THE PEOPLE IN NEW ORLEANS AND THE REST OF THE GULF COAST? WHY OR WHY NOT?

*BE SURE TO INCLUDE A CITATION FROM THE ARTICLES YOU USED TO BASE YOUR RESPONSE.

36 comments:

adriana said...

I think the issue of race did play a role in the government's slow reaction to the pople of New Orleans.
"I don't think African-Americans are paranoid in believing that they have suffered in ways that white people didn't," Hill says. "But the prevailing conventional wisdom among white people in New Orleans is that African- Americans had no grievances since Katrina, they didn't suffer any kind of special discrimination in the rescue and recovery, and that there is no merit to their claims that poor African-Americans were being locked out of the city and being deprived of their fundamental rights — that those were all paranoid delusions."

Here we see how people had different opinions about the subject. Even though a lot of people state that it was mainly the media that made it seem racial, i strongly disagree. Even in the movie we saw how the black people were treated. If a black person was seen going into a store to get something they needed, they were called THUGS or LOOTERS. However if a white person was seen doing the exact same thing then they were just finding ways to survive. I didnt think the Government was being racial before, but after seeing the video and the articles i now believe they were. It was really unfair for a black person to get shot just because a white person thought they were "dangerous". Also in the video i see how mostly the black people were the ones who complained about not getting even a drink of water or something to eat. Another thing i read was how the whites didnt want to be helped by a black person during the disaster. I think this is so stupid, because in a time like this, it shouldnt have been a racial situation AT ALL, we are all AMERICANS therefore we should have all been treated equally because in the end, we are all one!
this just shows how we still have a long way to go inorder to be EQUAL, no matter the race.

AdrianA. said...

i think the issue of race did play a big role in katrina because new orleans is a mostly african american community and the goverment was more concerned on other issues that really didnt matter to us...
they should of reacted faster because other countrys had to send there troops (canada) to help the victims of katrina instead of our goverment

Rocio said...

i dont think race might of had a role in this traggedy but at the same time i think that people blew it out of proportion. mother nature has no race and doesnt care for who she destroys but it is not just her self. i think that if maybe the goverment actually cared for the safety that is below sea level they would of tooken more consideration to the leevies that broke. but the way they took to long to answer kind of made them reconsider their thoughts of the people and made them think its only becasue i am black oh maybe this maybe that. i dont really know but like in cnn news they siad"race is not the issue right now!"said rep. stephanie tubbs jones,d-ohio."there will be another time to talk about race."

yeah pretty much and i got this from your second to last website on your blog....

Dorkyboy said...

Yes, race did play a role. Bush thinks that some people are expendable. There have been some disasters in the last five years and Bush quickly responded and the majority of the people weren't black. When Katrina hit, he didn't do anything for 4 days. Hmmm...I wonder why?

http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2005/09/13/Opinion/Column.Race.Factors.Into.Response.Aid.Receieved.For.Katrina-1517816.shtml

fabiana said...

In my opinion i think the issue of race did play a role in the governmens slow readtion to the people of new orleans. They should have a acted alot quicker and supposably some didnt even know about it, which i thought was so stupid, i could you not know. i dont understand what took them so long to give there people assistance i mean people dyed because they didnt have help in time. If it had been another race like cacausion i think they would have acted alot quicker this is very sad but i do think they would have sent help sooner. This just proves that we have alot more to work one to be known all all equal. Like it states in our constitution we were all created equal but its sad to say that we definatly dont treat one another that way.

Tesssmith said...

Former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now president of the Urban League, pointed out what most of us have probably already noticed - that those left in the city "are people who are African-American mostly...people who were of little or limited economic means..."
Citation:>>>
"Left Behind"
In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina
From About.com

Opinion: Well every resident of New Orleans was warned ahead of time weren't they? Granted more time could have been allowed and more resources made available to the needy but it's not as though no prior knowledge of the severity of this on coming storm was provided to those who decided to stay DESPITE being urged to do otherwise. I do not feel that any particular ethnicity was singled out to be drowned in the flood waters of Katrina; I saw serveral whites walking around at the dome and waiding through flood waters along side the african americans and latinos and so on. People are stuborn, perhaps it's that most of the third and fourth generation New Orleaners were of color and decided they knew better than the weather agenceys and in their minds compared this new strom to the only comparable event they knew of; that being hurricane Betsy, a storm of far less severity. You can't deny that we were unprepaired, you can't deny that everything in our power that could have been done to help was not done, and you also can not deny that every available resource was not exercised by the American government; I would consider this much more a singling out of a class of people rather than any particular ethnic group.

Jlao said...

In my opinion the issue of race most definitely plays a huge role in the government's slow reaction towards the people of New Orleans. Apparently Iraq is a more important than America's people. I understand that Bush wanted to fight the "terrorists in Iraq", but come on, the people that looked unto him as a leader suffered greatly. I was appalled when i found out that it took the national guard about 4 days to respond to New Orleans' aid. I say they should have responded sooner. He responded faster to the attack on 9/11, than he did to Katrina. Other countries helped out more than the American Government. I think Bush cares for the black community and other minorities, but he doesnt treat them the same as the majority races.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1103560,00.html

Mauricio said...

I dont think race played an important issue in the Katrina/New Orleans disaster because the timing wasnt the greatest and due to serious floods, some places were difficult to reach....

"The Guard was used to protect the less populated sections of the city where Katrina's floodwaters left most houses uninhabitable. That included the woeful Ninth Ward, where renovated houses are outnumbered by moldy, boarded-up wrecks and weed-choked vacant lots.

In their camouflage uniforms and Humvees, the troops were often a welcome sight.

"We don't have enough cops. It's not that they're bad, it's just that there's not enough of them. These guys are Johnny-on-the-spot when you need them," said 57-year-old Tom Hightower, who is still trying to get the mold out of his house. He added: "This is still a spooky place after dark."

(http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1882371,00.html)

Yea it may seem only the more wealthy section was getting help but thats probably because it was on a higher ground level than the Ninth Ward...

Yesenia said...

In my opinon race did play a big role in the New Orlands hurrican. The goverment didnt react right away, I still dont understand why it took so long for the goverment to react to this desaster.


"CBS Radio News reports that New Orleans City Councilman Oliver Thomas said people are too afraid of black people to go in and save them."

"The issue is not about race right now," said Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio. "There will be another time to have issues about color."

Reading all these makes me think that all people agree that this was a issue of color.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/03/katrina/main814623.shtml

Garrett(aka..The Beast!) said...

I strongly believe that race was a issue in the governments slow reaction to the people suffering in New Orleans, but was NOT the only one by far! I think we can twist anything into sounding like a racist idea if we truly wanted to. In the "Times" it said "New Orleans was 67% African American prior to the storm, race played a significant role in criticisms of government, both local and federal, humanitarian aid and not surprisingly, the media." That shows that the media may have twisted the fact that race was the ONLY reason the reactions were so slow. I will not close my eyes and act like race did not play role in the slow reaction, but i will say again that I believe that other key factors played there role in the tragedy. First of all something like this Level 5 hurricane has never happened to such a leave in our life times. It is very hard to prevent such a thing. I do strongly blame the govt for not being ready, that is there job, but im sure they were not thinking .."ummm, well the people are 67% black, we can be a little late" I think if they were ^&% white, Latino or Asian the reaction would of been near the same. But the fault is still on the govt. I think this HAS TOO be a learning thing, we can NEVER have something as tragic as this happen again!

AND thats the Word!

N0RC0!!!!! said...

I think race did play a big role in katrina becuase it was mostly african american communities that were hurt and and they wernt even aided and other countries had to send there troops in like canada and thats why i think that Race was a big part of the katrina

Frank said...

I do not think that race played a role in the government's reaction to Hurricane Catrina. But rather, it is just a poor governement. I mean disasters have happened in the past and the previous hurricane that has hit, it took three days before the govenor even requested for troops and supplies from the federal government.I mean just as the article said that we were given in class today(3/4/09) a majority of the victims were white and not black. However, with all this said, the government shouldnt have to wait for a list of demands and supplies needed before they react.As one of Blanco's aides said,"That's like telling a drowning man that you are not going to help him until he asks for a life preserver." This pretty much somes up what the government should do from now on even though it is likely to not happen in a long time.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1103560-5,00.html

RGorman said...

I believe that in some ways race plays a role in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The government did have a slow reaction to its people, and come on, this is America, not a third world country, where things like this happen all of the time. But at the same time, there were procedures to obey by and not alot of people were willing to go out of their way for other Americans. It makes me sad seeing the footage of dead people that possibly could have still been alive, had they been rescued.

adriana said...

I think that race did play an important role in the slow reaction of the government because it never take government that long to react to something and y allof a sudden thay did.. Idk I think its messed up on part of the government and I feel that they could have really made a diference and they could have saved more people if they would have reacted quicker

William said...

Personally, I think the issue of race was never an issue in Katrina. As I said last week, people are idiots, and a result of that fact is that people will see what they want to see.

For some in New Orleans, that was racism.

The problem may not be so much that there is racism in America, but that people percieve that there is. After all, were I to insult a black man, he could call me racist, but I could turn around and say the same thing to a white guy, and they'd just take it.

Take everything with a grain of salt. Nobody's going to have the whole story, and those who know precious little think they do, and will speak out on that.

Was the government abnormally slow in responding to Katrina? Yes. Was it a result of racism? Improbable.

stephanie mcphetridge said...

yes i do believe that the governments slow reaction on hurricane katrina. i belive this because most of the people involved were black. bush thought other miner problems were more important. he may have felt this way because he wasn't ready for a situation this big to happen, but no matter what he should have responded right away. he needed to put himself in all their shoes and realize that innocent people lost there homes,friends' and family.

Adrian Zanabria said...

I believe that government influenced a huge part in the slow reaction towards the aid, from Hurricane Katrina. Over the issue on race, i believe that President Bush, has no feeling or no respect for african americans, and didnt wish to help those in need. The federal and state government, should have reacted from the cause of Hurrican Katrina, and started saving the lifes of many people that werent able to see their familys again. But on the issue of race, "In New Orleans was 67% African American prior to the storm, race played a significant role in criticisms of government, both local and federal, humanitarian aid and not surprisingly, the media".

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1471224,00.html

Amanda M (: said...

I do believe that the issue of race played a major role in the government's slow reaction to the people of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast. Not only was it a difficult task to begin recovering from such a tragedy, but it was also was a racial scenario. Watching videos on Hurricane Katrina, points out how cruel blacks were being treated. You almost can’t believe it unless you were physically there, or watching these clips on what exactly these people went through. Day 3 after Hurricane Katrina hit, and the government still hadn’t shown up. Going back to the video “When The Levees Broke”, they explain how white families were saved first, and blacks were being treated as slaves. Also from the video, former president George Bush’s mom had stated that these people were fine living the way they were after the hurricane, when in reality, these families weren’t. They were not in homes, and they were separated from their loved ones. They were unfortunately referred to as refugees. Despite these racial issues the government poured upon them, people of all race from the community helped one another out, trying to save as many families as possible. Aiding these people to recovery is understandably hard to perform, but if America cared for these people as they should, our county’s government would have been there sooner to help.

ls.n.franco said...

I do not feel that race played a part in the delays of Katrina. The disaster of the huricane was a natural cause. It was on the news almost ever day from a long long time. The whole Country worked together to help New Orleans get back up onto their feet. Katrina also effected Texas which was the home state of George W. Bush who was our President at the time. So no, i do not feel that race played a part of getting the Gulf Coast back on to their feet.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1103560,00.html

sup palo!

Anonymous said...

well mr.palo this is fernando...in my opinon i think that racial interactions played a very huge part on the response to hurricane katrina.about 67.3% ppl happened to be black in new orleans.but then again i have an anoter argument cause the ppl are right bush should of had ppl over there asap! but then again there are alot of things he has to do in order to get ppl out there i mean if bush took like a day then that would be fine but he took longer than that...that was jus ridiculous...is bush racist? idk but black ppl have always suffered and never the white ppl unless they partnered up witht eh blacks..soo maybe thats why they think that bush is racist or whatever is cause blak ppl are always suffering...that should change...but although ppl were dying bush had sent ppl over there..i mean it doesnt take jus a few hours to get there i mean he sent ppl from out of state i think..hurricne katrina took the lives of many and it was such a disater.pppl cant be getting mad because the help is on its way but the reason they got mad was the heat..loss of loved ones,and material possesions..and cause it took them forever

mnguyen said...

It has been said that there has been late responses of action because people are afraid of blacks and sees every one of them as "thugs", "thieves", and killers. It should not matter what race someone is, if they are in need of help (life threatening or not) then we, as a united country, should help without any second thoughts.

"Watson and others also took issue with the word "refugee" being used to describe hurricane victims." Why are these victims being called "refugees" if they are citizens? In class, we watched a documentary of the hurricane victims and they showed a great amount of anger that they were stripped of their citizenship and basically being called aliens or immigrants even though that they were born in the US and have lived there all their lives. The federal government probably did not feel there was a great lost in the hurricane and therefore took longer to act. The federal government in my opinion and due to the outcome made a bad decision because for one it showed that they did not care for THEIR people and gave an impression that they were racist against African Americans.

mnguyen said...

Oops forgot to leave my citation...

heres you go:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/03/katrina/main814623.shtml

bobby said...

I think that the slow reaction to the katrina disaster was race related. "a radio talk-show host in Los Angeles asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice if it was true that President Bush does not care about black people" (She said no.)" President Bush did take a while to send in help to the katrina victims. I think that this country is rich and could've sent in help way earlier not a couple days later. That is why i think that racisim was a part of the disaster.

macrina said...

ARTICLE:Katrina Pushes Issues of Race and Poverty at Bush
AUTHOR:Michael A. Fletcher

QUOTE:"Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster," said Jim Wallis.

people are always avoiding the issue of race or trying to find a way to minimaze the seriousness of it. and i think the quote i choose shows that,because thousands of people died and suffered from this horrible disaster and most of those people were african americans. and the government hardly did anyhting to help them
and there "reason" was because they didnt have all the facts or the right information to actually take some sort of action.i ask myself how is that possible THE
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT one the most powerful nations in the world couldnt get the correct information.20 yrs old news reporters were doing a better job in finding out what was going on.this isssue isnt about a white president not helping african americans, because even people from the same race just stood around like nothing had happend. I BELIEVE IT WAS ABOUT BOTH RACE AND WHO IS WORTH SAVING... MEANING WHO HAS MORE MONEY.and like the quote said "Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster" to me social disasters means racial discrimination and putting a value on a person; if you are rich, value goes up if you are poor, value goes down!!! AS MY FINAL THOUGHT I THINK THERE WAS MORE THAN JUST RACE TO WHY THE GOVERNMENT REACTED TO RIDICULOUSLY SLOW!

Jp #24 said...

I think that why it took so long to get everything going was due to racism. Our country has a track record of not having things planned out. By doing this we it makes things get blown out of size. You could say that there was racism going on ground zero. With people doing things such as the other county having armored guards. If you were to really look at the town next to it. Its a more white populated county and they just didnt want many blacks into there county. No one will really know if race played a factor in the time to get helped sent down to New Orlens and other county's.

Race is a thing that is always on the board edge. I think that at anytime someone could call someone racism. Just by a act, a word, or just by there body laugagne. Racism is a thing that you could almost say at one point or another time say someone is. Just by a man in the street saying something racist they are marked as a racist person. Or a even bigger example just like what happened in New Orlens. People like to say it was racism just because of how many blacks were hurt by Katrina. But take a step back and look at this way, do some resreach and see how our track record as a nation dealing with this kind of problems. They are very poor and it just happen to be that many blacks were hurt by this. Let me ask you this. Why in the movie does it just show blacks and not whites ? There wasnt just blacks that were hurt it was whites. People think if a white person is in need they will get and thats not the cases. Lets just say if whites were introuble the nes wouldnt pay attetion as they just say oh its justs whites they can handle it. But when it comes to blacks if there isnt help right away its called racism

Alright I hope that came out right ? No point inttend on saying something wrong.

Jp #24 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mireya said...

I do believe that race play a big role in our governments slow reaction to the victims of Katrina. One of the reasons was the fact that the majority of them were African Americans that did not received help from FEMA and since the Levees broke down because they were not well constructed mmm I wonder why? Maybe because they did not care since most of the population was African Americans who were poor and weren’t paying much attention too. In the Article mentions that Condoleezza Rice Said "That Americans would somehow in a color-affected way decide who to help and who not to help, I, I just don't believe it," she said. "The African-American community has obviously been very heavily affected. But people are doing what they can for Americans. Nobody wants to see any American suffer."…If they did not want any American to suffer why did they wait so long to “help” them before it was too late and worse of all the media refer to them as Refugees not Americans or the reason that they did not received help was because most of them did not voted for Bush office. And the congress was hiding a video that shows when the levees broke here is the linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epwpnMztkM0


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/03/katrina/main814623.shtml

jackie said...

Article:The Press, Race, and Katrina.
Author:Time U.S.:Madison Gray

Quote:"As much as we may have wanted to avoid the issue in those first confusing days, because New Orleans was 67% African American prior to the storm, race played a significant role in criticisms of government, both local and federal, humanitarian aid and not surprisingly, the media."

Race definetly had a impact on the goverments slow reaction to the diaster in Katrina. Most of the affected areas were made up of African-Americans, who were in need of help. Should they have been there to begin with, no. Once a mandatory or even voluntary evactuation is requested people in a diaster prone areas should leave. However for many people in this poverty stricken area could not leave, they lacked the reasources or a place to evactuate to. That is were the real problem begins, the lack of.Whether it be resources or money. The real reason behind the unsatisfactory response from the goverment was becuase of the soical class. Those whose who dont "matter" in the economic world dont matter in the emergency situation. Those who have a elite class rate where completely out of harms way, those who werent were ignored. Funds from the goverment arent whats lacking, but priorities.

Jon G. said...

It think it is true that race plays a role with the slow response from the State, and Federal Government. This is because most of the people in New Orleans are Black. In the aftermath about 2/4 of African Americans were killed by the hurricane.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_government_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina#Federal_government_response

Elizabeth said...

Citation:"4 Places Where the System Broke Down"
Quote:"Chertoff [Secretary of department of homeland security] insisted things weren't going as badly as media reports suggested..."

I believe race had a major impact on the response of the federal and state governments. the people in charge did not pay enough attention and according to Chertoff the media overly exploited the diaster of katrina. which to me means maybe the government didn't want to spend the money and resources to aid people that came from a poorer background and more than the population was african american. the government took unbelievably slow reaction to people in need and race should have nothing to do with a natural diaster relief. many reporters have stated that if white people were the ones in need the government would have responded much much faster but it was black people and the government took their sweet time trying to help them. its sad and unbelievable that even race can affect the rescue and aid of american citizens in need.

QueensGurl24 said...

The sow reaction from the government was race related. There were other races that were affected also but the majority of the people that were affected were of color. The government probably would of reacted way different if it wasn't just people of color but more of a light shade. In one of the articles a person was quoted "If we were lucky, we would have died," because of the lack of help they received before,during, and after the hurricane. Natural disasters happen thats a fact, theres nothing we can do about that but how we keep it from a tragedy or keeping those in need to get them some safety can be help. Our government didn't do such a thing they about it but nothing was set in motion till it was to late. Race played a big part many black congressmen believe this is true for lack of response. With other problems they are quick to put there noses were it doesn't belong but super super slow when it actually counted.



citation
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/03/katrina/main814623.shtml

JENNAHwithaH said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JENNAHwithaH said...

I do not think race played a part in the state and local government's reaction to Katrina. After Katrina had hit it took the people multiple days to actually get rescued or moved, but everywhere was flooded so they couldn't exactly get to the people all that easily.

In the video that we watched in class one of the victims was saying that while they were waiting for the buses they tried to walk across, or along, the road leading to the neighboring state. But law enforcements with guns told them to turn back. At first watching that I thought that was totally messed up but after it makes sense because there wasn't any room for them because tons of people most likely had already evacuated into there, so they would have been waiting on the streets of that state like they did on that road for those multiple days, all the same just in a different location.
We also have to remember that the people were informed to evacuate a week prior to Katrina actually hitting. And since that area is used to hurricanes the residents often ignore the warnings and evacuation alerts. Transportation by bus was provided for people without cars, many people did get out this way. But people still were left behind not knowing of the ticket out.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/09/04/int4.htm

d.a. said...

i believe that race did play a big role in the goverments slow reaction to hurrican katrina. the president was worried about the money being used for the victims more than the victims themselves. The media was being racist also ,not to black people but to all the victims of katrina because they were calling them refugees as if they were not even americans. this country could have helped in many ways, but they delayed everything. basically thats why i bealive the reason everything was delayed was because opf their race.

Gladys said...

Hi Mr. Palo,
again i'm sorry for the late response. in my opinion i do believe that race had a part on the gov'ts slow reaction to helping the Katrina victims because had it been people that are in the rich neighborhoods and no offense "white people" i do believe that help would have arrived faster. I think that it was because so many of these victims were in the lower income area they really didn't put much attention thinking that in a way they were use to it, kind of going back to what Bush's mother said.

Liz said...

I think the issue of race did play a role in Katrina. i believe this because police and other people didn't want to go and help and it just so happened to be a city of black people. And i think another reason was because some people didn't want to go out of there way and risk their lives on helping those Katrina people after they had warned them to leave. But i still think they still should have helped a lot quicker because after all it was their fault for not finishing up the levies.