Who is the real culprit of Katrina, Whites or Blacks?

Question

So many of my Brothers and Sisters like to play the blame game when it comes to the mess during Hurrican Katrina. While the government may have been a little slow to respond, we can't deny the facts that we caused a large mess ourselves with all the looting and killing during the time of crisis.

We shot at supply crews who were dropping off aid. We stole buses to load them full of stolen goods that we looted from flooded businesses. We killed our brothers and sisters for food and gas. Then we blamed the government for the mess.

When will we learn to start being responsible for our own actions?
How do we ever expect to gain any real respect until we do?

Answer 1

i agree with u , i was working down there when the devestation occured. Working security detail for the Bell South corportation. All the uncontrolled violence through New Orleans reflected on mainly black people. Looters, criminal organizations and so on... I would prefer not to say the " blacks are mostly responsible" but prefer to say the citizens of new orleans were accountable for all the mess , considering New Olreans is 80 percent black... just what i think,

Answer 2

Uh, most of those stories turned out to be untrue. People were NOT shooting at supply crews.

As for "looting" that was multi-racial. When you haven't eaten for several days, and the only food available is floating down the street, you grab it.

Everyone who could, did. (The press labeled the whites as "foraging" and the blacks as "looting" for doing the same thing -- the press later apologized.)

Heck, I believe the 14 yr old who "stole" a bus and got a bus-load of people out of there in time was black. (The authorities considered charging him, but fortunately, dropped the idea.)

All Americans pay taxes, in part, so that when there's a disaster, the government will rescue people.

Leaving people stranded without any aide whatsoever was a disgusting act.

It was the Feds who were the real culprit. They had a responsibility to help.

They refused.

They prevented help from arriving.

They committed murder through their refusal to act.

They awarded "rebuild" contracts to known thieves, rather than the money going to the people there to rebuild (and get paid).

Don't blame their victims.

Answer 3

Don't feel bad about your brothers and sisters. There are idiots and thugs in every race, and at about the same percentage!.

There are a lot of reasons for what happened with Katrina, but two big ones are that people call events like Katrina "natural" disasters, but they aren't really natural disasters or "acts of God." They are the result of people building in areas where hurricanes and other natural forces can destroy what they build and not building to withstand the worst case events that can happen. Since these events don't happen very often, people think, "So far, so good!" To make things worse, as populations increase, poorer people move into areas that are known to be at risk because the land/housing is cheaper there.

Another problem is that the US government hasn't done much to teach people about civil defense since the '60s. Because of my job, I know that I had better plan on taking care of myself and my family for the first 3 to 5 days. But how would poor people living in Lousiana know that unless someone / the government tells them? (Of course, if the govt. did tell them, some wouldn't get it and some wouldn't pay attention, but at least they'd have been told.)

Two reasons that relief didn't get into New Orleans sooner were (1) the National Guard and relief agencies will not deploy their people until the hurricane and extremely high winds/bad weather are over -- otherwise the relief workers will just get killed or be part of the problem, and (2), the governor of the state has to give the Federal government permission to come in and help out, and the governor of Louisiana wouldn't give permission for quite a while.

Here's a good book to read: "Acts of God" by Ted Steinberg.

Also, the Chinese say, "If everyone swept his own doorstep and yard, the whole world would be clean." I take that to me that if we are each responsible for ourselves and our families, eventually everyone will be responsible. (Except of course, for the standard percentage of jerks...)

So fix what is under your control and do what you can. Natural selection will hopefully take care of the jerks.

Answer 4

The real culprit was Hurricane Katrina/Nature, ignorance, local and state political corruption and graft; however, the victims were Americans from the affected states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

Driven by the shame and guilt of the slavery days, the various local, state, and federal government through Affirmative Action and related social welfare programs, and other failed policies (All with good intentions) of the DNC have created an atmosphere of government reliance as opposed to self-reliance as a people with regard to African-Americans. Yet, profoundly implicit in all these programs is need based on inferiority. (What could be more racist!?) In that respect, the government is to blame.

As for the actions of those who looted, rioted, burned, stole, raped, and murdered, they alone are guilty of their choices and actions.

Answer 5

If you saw Spike Lee's special on HBO, you'd know that the reports of killings and rapes in the Superdome and Convention center were actually false! The chief of police admits that he made them up in an effort to get the federal govt to act faster! This chief is BLACK by they way!

So much of the image that America has of the poor or blacks in N.O. as criminals and murderers was caused by this one person. I honestly get sick of hearing people in Houston talk about how everyone from N.O. is a thief or murderer. I then go on to point out that I moved here from N.O. 8 years ago and still have friends there. Then I'm told that it's only the people that moved from Katrina that were bad.

Disaster can bring out the best and worst in people. The people at the convention center weren't the worst. The people at the superdome weren't the worst. It was the people running the streets and that was definitely not a huge percentage of those left in the city. The majority just wanted to get to safety!

And the fact that they were stuck there had nothing to do with being black. It had something to do with being poor. It also had something to do with the fact that when you're from that area, you get a lot of close calls and minor storms. You get use to sticking it out.

Answer 6

I still think the government was the real culprit! The looting was because of the government. But there is an exception for those who stole things like televisions and stereos! I mean what use would those items be? But people wouldn't have had to loot for food, water, and toiletries if the government would have done their JOB! White or black it all falls on the government!

Answer 7

The water is at fault which means nobody, or the stupid Politicians who lived in Louisiana and never put any money into a new dam. Their are poor folks every where and if it happened in a trailer park in white trash Vil I'm sure some of that stuff would have also happened, those blacks just so happened to be the ghetto type, but not all were

Answer 8

You can say that the people guilty of this were probably living like this even before Katrina. At the same time, the government took about 40 years to respond and give aid to the victims. I think that we are ALL to blame.

Answer 9

The real culprit would be the government, but since the government officials were primarily white (there's your answer). As for many of the blacks that were victims of this tragedy. If you've ever taken a sociology course, whites could have easily been a part of the same things.

During national disasters people of all races tend to at crazy or just plain stupid. The media made black folks look so bad. Whites were labeled as finding food, but blacks were called looters for also taking food.

Don't let the media fool you, whites would've done the same things, but I'm sure they wouldn't have been sitting there for a whole week waiting for help.

Answer 10

Think, why were those people living like that? For generation they had been taught to depend on others. This is done for profit. Yes, for profit. If all those people got off public assistance we wouldn't need as many police officers, social workers, free lunches, .... If they got educated, the school system could not beg for additional tax dollar every year. How many high paying jobs and billions in contracts do you think are involved in keeping people poor and ignorant?