This is a good sound bite, but without actual facts (timelines, reports of orders given and types of actions ordered), it is merely an assertion, nothing more.
Links to those are in the original story, Tom.
This should be very easy, we have two consecutive presidents, one termed a racist, one termed the “first black president”. If you want to know what Bush needs to do to endear himself to black people, just look at what Clinton did.
I’m not black, or poor, so I have no clue what Clinton did that made himself so beloved. I didn’t notice anything in particular about his terms in office that made me think things had changed much for blacks in this country. Nor do I notice anything in particular about Bush that makes me think he’s reversed all the good that Clinton did. What sorts of programs did Clinton create that helped blacks, and what has Bush done to eliminate them?
I don’t like President Bush, and in my opinion he’s the worst mistake the American electorate has ever made. But I think his decision to not address the NAACP was one of (and maybe the only) correct decisions he’s ever made.
He would have been entering not just unfriendly but downright hostile territory and I’m sure the NAACP members were licking their chops at the mere thought of the opportunity to embarrass and humiliate him.
He would have accomplished absolutely nothing by in effect crawling in to perform obeisance to this self-anointed all powerful group and would have only succeed in belittling himself in front of the US and the world.
On the other hand by not attending he in effect pulled the rug out from under them and portrayed himself as a strong and decisive candidate. He in effect set himself apart by saying “Don’t tread on me.”
He may have given the impression that he didn’t care about blacks but I would think that anyone with an open mind would have realized he really had no other choice.
The thing about Clinton isn’t so much a matter of programs, but of persona. He had a fuck up for a brother, he came from poor stock, he was southern, he liked Jazz, he wasn’t afraid of his sexuality and used it to his advantage, he liked women with a bit of meat on them and he just seemed comfortable around black folk. You could see Clinton going to a black person’s home and seemlessly blending in. That goes a long way towards making people feel, you’d look out for them, cause you ** get it**.
He was guilty of many of the flaws that white people believe black folk have and appeared to be attacked by the same self-righteous white people, that would attack black folk.
Just my opinion…YMMV, of course.
Look, nobody hates Bush more than I do, but even I can’t imagine him making a deliberate decision not to help people simply because they are black. The truth is, he’s simply incompetent. He’s a childish, self-centered, and not-too-bright man who only cares about his career and his own well-being. But I’ve never seen any evidence that he’s a racist to the degree that you are suggesting. Now, I agree that the Republican Party is not the champion of the black man, and they haven’t been for a century or two, and that’s one of many reasons I don’t vote Republican. The Republican party strives to maintain a status quo where white people enjoy most of the power, privilege, and wealth, and I think that’s wrong. But when you say ludricrous things about Bush, such as implying that he deliberately refused to help people only because of their race, you give his defenders ammunition. There are so very many valid things to criticize Bush for, but his defenders are going to latch onto such extreme viewpoints, ignore the more cogent criticisms, and say, “See, the Bush critics are just a bunch of nuts.”
I was hoping that there was some unsen substance to the reports. If that is the best Weisberg can do, he is clearly resorting to rhetoric.
Hurricane Charley petered out off the coast of New England on August 19, having hit Florida almost five days earlier. According to Weisburg’s links, Bush did not ask for aid for Charley until August 27–eight days after it had died out and more than ten days after it had swept across Florida. This means that if Bush seeks funds for Katrina before tomorrow, he will have responded more swiftly than hedid to Charley. And FEMA’s debit card distribution is more directly tied to assisting poor people than the televisions to which Weisburg objected. That Bush responded to Frances by September 6 was a function of there having been two hurricanes in the same region in the same season.
The “profligate” nature of the restitution for Charley and Frances can certainly be laid indirectly at Bush’s feet for having returned FEMA to a patronage job after Clinton attempted to make it a professional one, but there is nothing in that story that supports the notion that Bush specifically set out to help whites folks more rapidly or more generously than he has set out to help black folks.
http://www.fema.gov/storm/charley/photo_charley1.fema?id=1
August 14th. Five days earlier. FEMA in Florida.
FEMA was in Louisiana and Mississippi the day after Katrina came through, as well. They were pretty ineffective in New Orleans–but that city was under water. The issue is Bush’s direct response to Katrina vs Bush’s direct response to Charley and whether racism played a part in his different responses.
Nothing presented thus far shows Bush responding quickly to Charley while dawdling around after Katrina. On Friday, Congress passed and Bushed signed an initial (Bush’s words) emergency funding for Katrina support of $10.5B. It is unclear when Bush asked for it, but if it was as late as Friday, that puts his financial response to Katrina ten days sooner than his similar request for Charley.
I am quite willing to hold Bush responsible for the deterioiration of FEMA, but that is not a race-based action.
Hippy Hollow, in Post #74, made a pretty good case for the reasons behind the perceived apathy or antipathy from Bush toward our black citizens. Trying to hang “racism” or “Bush’s racism” on particular failures surrounding the dismal response to Katrina is not getting any traction with me–and I both dislike Bush’s policies and feel that race relations in the U.S. are still a significant problem (as well as one that Bush hides from).
Efforts to make Katrina a “racial” issue are liable to backfire if too many people decide to ignore genuine racial problems if they see the linkage between race and Katrina as a cry of “Wolf!”.
No, the perception can’t be changed, because it’s all in your head. President Bush doesn’t see you as a Black American, he sees you as an American.
Or a Democrat who didn’t vote for his ass.
Well, if it were only a particular failure, sure. But for many people, people perhaps more resigned to leap to the obvious conclusion than you, the aggregate of particular failures leads to an inesacapable suspicion.
Lat year, Charley hit on the 13th, aid was arriving on the 14th and the President spent that day and Sunday touring devastated areas, talking directly to affected people and making promises. He even joked about swift his response was with the reporting pool. On 9/11/01, the towers came down, and Bush made a nationally televised statement that evening promising aid to the injured and bringing the guilty to justice.
Katrina hit Sunday. No public response. Monday comes and goes with no reassuring public presidential response. No direct response Tuesday. Wednesday, still no response. Last Thursday morning, Bush finally talks to… a morning talk show. About how he used to party in New Orleans and how sad he is for Trett Lott’s house.
Few people say, “Bush hates blacks.” “Bush is racist.” But there is a real lament that he doesn’t care. The true opposite of love is indifference, and Bush seems to have plenty of that for poor blacks. It might be wrong, but even wrong impressions stick. He’s no Clinton. Bush has no obvious urgency or finesse dealing with blacks who don’t vote Republican and aren’t wealthy, influential and powerful. But in all truth, those poor Democratic black people have little use for Bush, either. The difference is that he’s president. He has the authority to do some good and make things happen. And he failed to step up. With the choices explaining this failure as complete inadequacy, disregarded impending warnings and unpreparedness due to unqualified people or a political, class-based bigotry with racial overtones, none have him coming out very good.
SiouxChief. Right. Bush is color-blind – unless it comes to power and influence. “This is an impressive crowd. The haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.” —George W. Bush, at the Al Smith Dinner.
He’s no Clinton, that’s true, but what made Clinton a caring guy while Bush is uncaring? Is it really just a matter of finesse, or are you looking for results? If it’s results you want, I’d like to find out what Clinton did in his time that Bush is failing to do.
Holmes, thanks for your input. I’m not really a big fan of the whole persona thing. I don’t find it useful to have someone appear to be my supporter when his actions/results are no different than my non-supporter. It sort of reminds me of the whole Kyoto thing. Clinton was a supporter of it, gets praised for it, but there wasn’t a chance in hell of it actually becoming reality in the US. Bush was not a supporter, and gets slammed for it. In terms of results, though, Clinton and Bush are really no different, Kyoto wasn’t passing either way.
Right, but the ability to inspire people has value. I don’t think we would be having this conversation if Clinton was President, even if events happened the same way. It wouldn’t enter people’s mind that Clinton would be indifferent to the poor or black in New Orleans.
That’s the real tragedy here for us as a nation. Call it crying wolf if you want, there’s something lacking in Bush for people to even consider this was a matter of him just not caring…forget the deliberate angle.
Agreed. The most damning thing about being indifferent is that callousness doesn’t have to be deliberate.
Biggirl’s a black woman and I’m a white man. But President Bush would look at us and see us as identical - two blue staters who didn’t vote for him.
Maybe the fact that while GWB has never known anything but privilege, entitlement and other rich people, Clinton grew up dirt poor in Arkansas (where poor black people were his peers, not his servants) and (unlike Bush) had to earn everything he ever got had something to with it.
I actually don’t think Bush is a racist but I do think he’s a snob and an elitist. It isn’t that he doesn’t care about black people, it’s that he doesn’t care about poor people (or even middle class, for that matter).
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Incidentally, the Kanye West clip makes me laugh my ass off everytime I see it. Whether he’s right or wrong, it’s just so awesome to hear somebody be so blunt about their feelings. With Mike Myers standing there it looks like an SNL sketch.
Even if Bush DOES care about black people it should still concern him that a large percentage of them sure don’t feel like he does. In politics, perception is all that counts.
I have to agree with most, that nothing short of him becoming a Liberal Democrat will improve his image with the black population.
As for the criticism I’m hearing in this thread:
Not appearing before the NAACP - Ring in post 84 answered this beautifully.
Not supporting Affirmative Action - In theory, increasing the amount of blacks getting into college and having good careers sounds great. In practice, it was all pretty much just quotas and set-asides, and that’s not something Republicans in general endorse.
Not addressing the specific concerns of black people - One big difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats tend to be more about, and focus on the various groups that make up this country: Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Women, etc., and Republicans try to view America as a whole. In other words, try to emphasize the similarities, and downplay the differences.
Now Bush may very well go past the point of downplaying differences between Blacks and Whites and go the extreme of thinking that they don’t exist at all, or at least that they’re very tiny, but that doesn’t make him a racist in my book, just someone who’s out of touch with reality. Actually, come to think of it, we all know he’s out of touch with reality on just about everything else, so I don’t see why “race” would be any different.