No, the president nor his followers do not wish to change this perception so it’s no use asking how it can be done. No, can’t convince me I’m silly, the president doesn’t care about black people. Kanye was right.
Well, he’s right now that I know he didn’t say “hate”.
:rolleyes: So, you didn’t actually read any of the replys then. Lable me surprised…
Carry on.
-XT
I read every single one of them. Including your’s which seemed to be saying “But some of his best appointees are black!” That didn’t convince me he cares about black people.
Seriously x, which reply are you talking about?
So, his most trusted appointee (among others) is black and that’s unconvincing - do you have any idea what might be persuasive?
If you thought that my posts (let alone the others in this thread) boiled down to ‘But some of his best appointees are black!’, and you further claim to have read every post (and I assume understood them) then all I can say is…they must be in some code that I can understand and you can’t. Either that or we are in two different realities here.
Well, like the several asking you for further data points perhaps? I asked you twice for more info on your position and I must have missed your replies.
If my replies were too lightweight or not what you were looking for (or you simply don’t want to further illuminate or amplify a few points I asked you about), then check out posts by Little Nemo, Furt, mazinger_z, Fear Itself, John Mace, Cervaise…in this thread. Note I don’t agree with all of them…in fact several of them have butted heads with me in the past on various subjects…but they all bring up points that aren’t ‘But some of his best appointees are black!’…if you actually read them. You may agree or disagree with any or all of them…but it would be nice if you actually tried to debate the points instead of just putting your fingers in your ears and saying you are unconvinced…and then attempting to strawman the whole thread with one trite phrase.
Or, maybe you don’t actually want to debate this…in which case you might want to have a mod move this to the Pit or IMHO or something along those lines. I’m a bit skeptical that you actually WANT a debate on this…as opposed to an echo chamber. Which you don’t seem to be getting here.
-XT
My question still stands: what would?
Perhaps “wealthy” wasn’t the best word. But someone making 50k generally doesn’t have to worry about health care, has a plan for retirement, isn’t in too much danger of losing their home, can afford to be choosey about what school districts they live in, may feel the sting of college tuition but can probably get their kids through without multi-thousand dollar loans.
Most of America considers itself “middle class” regardless of income, and so sometimes it’s hard to realize that so many of the people we interact with every day- from teachers to store clerks- are really pretty darn poor. The poverty rate in 2004 was 12%. The median household income last year was $44,400- which means that average eligable voter incomes must be much less.
In none of the cases you mention above was help there in ten hours. 48-72 hours is about the quickest that large amounts of disaster assets can be on the scene. If there is significant infrastructure damage, such as with Katrina, times will be longer.
Bush has already paid multiple visits to the Katrina disaster area, and secured MUCH more than $2 billion from congress. (50 billion, IIRC)
Maybe he doesn’t care about blacks, maybe he does and isn’t getting the message through. Be that as it may, trying to tie difficulties in New Orleans disaster response to racism is invalid and trying to compare disasters in Florida where extensive flooding was not a factor to hurricane Katrina is not valid either.
I’m not entirely confident that’s true. Even people making that income can be heavily in debt.
It is not invalid unless specific events are examined. Dismissing charges of racism are no more valid than lodging such complaints in the absence of actual information.
Now, in the other long “racism” thread, I argued in several posts that while there may have been historical or institutional racism that left poor blacks more susceptible to this disaster than other people, there was no evidence that any immediate or near recent action by a government official actually targeted black people to be victims. However, in the context of this thread, let us consider two separate events (both of which I consider to be unproved at this time):
1) On the weekend before Katrina hit the coast, New Orleans was under a voluntary evacuation order. Reports have claimed that it was President Bush who called the governor and mayor of Louisiana and New Orleans to ask/insist/demand that they change the order to one of mandatory evacuation. Given that the people who would be most hurt (and who, in fact, were most harmed) by remaining in the city were poor blacks, this would seem to indicate that the president actually cared more for the poor, black citizens of new Orleans than their (black) mayor, who was late in making the evacuation mandatory and who did nothing to provide transportation to actually aid in that evacuation.
2) The USS Bataan, an amphibious landing aircraft carrier with over 40 cargo helicopters and six anti-submarine warfare helicopters aboard, (joined by nine helos from shore-based squadrons), along with a fully staffed hospital facility, followed the hurricane across the Caribbean, waiting just off shore as it moved inland. At this point, stories differ. One report that has been repeated in several venues has been that the Bataan cruised around for three days waiting for orders that never came so that they could begin relief efforts. This would indicate a serious failure of command that would point directly to the White House, given the nature of the event. However, it would be a failure of organization, and not one of deliberately ignoring any particular group of people, black or white.
On the other hand, on the Bataan’s own web site, they talk about the “six days” of “around the clock” effort they had completed on September 4–meaning they considered themselves to have been engaged on Tuesday, August 30, the day that Katrina moved north and the New Orleans levee broke. So what were they doing between Tuesday and Friday? Their web page describes (without dates) providing material resources to people ashore, but they do not describe actual search and rescue operations in New Orleans. They describe taking fresh water ashore (getting their own numbers wrong in the story)–but they only describe taking water to Gulfport. They describe placing medical personnel on shore–but only beginning Saturday, September 3. They also mention sending a fully equipped LCU up the Mississippi on a reconnaisasance mission, noting
(bolding mine)
In what alternative universe did they go up the Mississippi and not find people who needed “meals, shelter and electricity”?
Now, until the actual sequence of events, supported by logs, is presented, I am not going to leap to any conclusions, but IF the Bataan was providing assistance–including water–to Mississippi at Gulfport while several thousand people were dehydrating in the Superdome, then it becomes a legitimate question as to whether there was merely a confused plan of action or whether the more heavily white regions of Gulfport were given preferential treatment.
I do not believe that we have sufficient accurate information to jump to any conclusions at this point, but when the actual story becomes accessible, I think it is very valid to examine it for potential racist overtones.
There are so many factors that render this statement nonsense. There is a long-held belief that many American, even with incomes much higher than $50k, are only two paychecks away from losing their homes. My experience has been that this is probably true.
Health care is a big problem and a family with an income of $50k is quite likely to be a two- (or three-)income family in which none of the jobs provide health coverage.
Putting kids through $40k-$70k of education in four years with a mortgage and an income of only $50k a year without borrowing heavily for that education? You are seriously out of touch with real world finances.
Retirement? Possibly. Although a lot of companies do little to no matching on 401k plans, most company pensions have been a joke since the 1980s, and a host of other problems interfere with setting up IRAs and similar funds.
I would agree that a family making $50k can “get by” in the Great Lakes region, where, aside from winter heating, prices tend to be a bit lower than they are on the coasts, but I really think you need to study what it actually costs to survive in the U.S.
From the 2000 census for Gulfport, Mississippi:
link
White persons, percent, 2000 (a) 62.2%
Black or African American persons, percent, 2000 (a) 33.5%
There were people in dire need at Gulfport as well. But; you think that if this ship was ordered to Gulfport instead of New Orleans, it indicates the person doing the ordering was motivated by racism?
What? He/she checked out the demographics, said to him/herself; “Well there’s only 33% black people at Gulfport and there’s probably a higher % of black people in New Orleans…hummm, lets send our ship to Gulfport.”? I think that’s quite a stretch. YMMV.
(serious question) Could it be that this ship could more easily access Gulfport than it could NO? COULD it access NO during that time frame? I haven’t heard of many ships getting in there, not big ones at least.
-XT
thanks, Contrapuntal, I appreciate your words.
It seems to me that the problem this president has several challenges in how he presents himself to the African American community. Keep in mind that there are several African Americans who support this president and his agenda, so these are by no means all emcompassing.
For instance, he is aligned with a tradition of divisive politics and smear tactics reminiscent of those employed by Lee Atwater, the GOP’s greatest hatchet man (until Karl Rove, that is). Allegations that the Bush campaign claimed that John McCain fathered a Black child have dogged the president to this day. Let’s not forget how the president who has been unable to find the time to speak at the NAACP for five years found time to speak at Bob Jones University in 2000, which at the time banned interracial dating.
Rather than taking a stand on an issue that many - not all, but many - African Americans found important - the Confederate flag - Bush famously stated that it was a state’s rights issue. And of course, you know that as governor of Texas, Bush led the nation in executions. This in of itself is not necessarily damning, but it is shocking at a time when Illinois declared a moratorium on executions because of the number of errors found in capital crime cases, which disproportionately affect African Americans. I would wager that most Black Americans have relatives or friends who have been arrested or incarcerated with little evidence and afforded poor counsel, which would explain why this struck such a nerve among African Americans.
In addition, this president came to the highest office in the land after a lackluster record of academic and business achievement which was likely only possible through legacy admissions and business connections to the Bush family. Despite this, he expressed lukewarm support for affirmative action programs, despite being a notable beneficiary of it himself. In fact, he even joked about [“having to knock on a lot of doors to follow the old man’s footsteps”](having to knock on a lot of doors to follow the old man’s footsteps" http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/06/bush.legacy/) when he applied to Yale.
What many African Americans see is a politician that uses racism and fear to advance his own career. This president has no problem appearing sympathetic to regressed social views, but for some reason refuses to take a stance on progressive ones (speaking to the NAACP is hardly an endorsement of the organization’s ideals - no one would label him as a sympathizer for appearing). He uncritically embraced the concept of capital punishment at a time when many Americans - and in particular, African Americans - were questioning the fairness and certainty of executions. He has benefited in his life from forms of affirmative action, but offered little or no real support for programs designed to assist Americans who were not born with the same family connections he was.
Some reasons why many African Americans concur with the sentiments expressed by Kanye West a few days ago. In my circle of African American friends - including economic and social conservatives - there has been almost unanimous agreement that his statement has troubling evidence to support it to a degree. Some of these folks are rich and live in nice East Coast suburbs - but they have relatives in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, and are amazed that even college students at a Black college in New Orleans were not rescued until five days after Katrina hit.
It is very likely, as people have argued ad infinitum on these boards, that much of the delay in rescuing and searching for survivors had much to do with the enormity of devastation in the Gulf States. Aside from incompetence, however, this is precisely why an intelligent politician pays attention to not only those in their “base,” but also those who are in opposition. You build up reservoirs of goodwill which might help through difficult times such as these. Bush has little to refute charges of lacking concern for Black Americans through his actions, but plenty to support it.
I do not characterize any decision until I know more about it. However, from the ship’s web site we find the ship stationed, first, 100 miles south of New Orleans, and later, 45 miles south of Gulfport. The two cities are actually very near each other (about 85 miles by highway). From either position, the H-53, H-60, and H-46 choppers that it carries can provide access to both New Orleans and Gulfport simultaneously. Without drawing a conclusion, I would still be curious as to whether water was delivered to Gulfport at a time when more people were without water in New Orleans (and if so, why). Gulfport’s entire population is around 72,000 and much of Gulfport is not destroyed, while there were around 25,000 refugees trapped in New Orleans at the Superdome and around 15,000 more at the Convention Center with more in their homes, so a delivery of water to one location at the apparent expense of delivering water to the other location deserves an explanation. The explanation could be quite innocuous: the delivery may not have occurred until the evacuation of the Superdome and Convention Center was under way when it would have made no sense to send water to an empty building.
I have not argued the “active racism” position in any of these discussions. I am pointing out, here, that actual events must be examined to determine whether “active racism” actually occurred.
Rather than talking generalities, what specific actions occurred? Did President Bush show more concern for the people of New Orleans than its own mayor by insisting on a mandatory evacuation? Did someone in the chain of command leave New Orleans to hang by using aircraft from the Bataan to provide services to Gulfport (still accessible by highway from the north) at a time when news cameras repeatedly showed people desperate for water and food inside New Orleans–water and food that could most easily be deliverd by the same types of helos that the Bataan carries? Answer the factual questions, first, then look for motivation if the factual answers seem to indicate errors of judgment.
Lester Maddox used to have a black guy who went on public appearances with him, so that proves he’s not a racist, eh?
Callous indifference to the hurricane victims doesn’t count?
Actually, I do agree with Fear Itself that Bush is far more of a classist than a racist, it being mostly coincidence that “his kind of people” are mainly white. [Example](www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2000/10/18/politics/main242210.shtml ).
The President (along with the Governor and Mayor I might add) and his administration does a crappy job of disaster prevention and relief in New Orleans, who is populated mostly by blacks. This makes him a racist.
People who ate carrots in 1745 are all dead. Carrots kill people.
Jake Weisberg gets into it:
But that was the word that was used, and what I was responding to. I don’t disagree with the rest of your post all that much (it’s certainly better to be making $50k than to be making $44k or less), but your post doesn’t really address the point I was trying to make-- that the meme of Bush’s base being “the wealthy” is simply not true.