Hurricane Katrina

http://www.workers.org/2005/us/hurricane-0922/

This is an article on the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the racist undertones in the way it was handled by the US Government. It says how in the hardest hit areas of New Orleans 98% of people who lived there were Black. The Government's slow reaction was also seen in Hurricane Floyd in North Carolina, where there's a predominant Black community. This signifies that "the value of Black and working class life is subordinate to capitalist property and profits." The article shows the difference in wording in race when applied to the taking of food in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. They said that Black people "looted" and White people were "finders". The police were ordered to stop looking for survivors to stop the lawlessness. This suggests that stopping Black people from looting in order to get food to survive is more important than finding survivors, which wouldn't happen if the community was White. It also says how the slow evacuation was blamed on the Black people, as they said they refused to leave their homes, when it was actually because of poverty, unemployment and low wages that were the reasons they couldn't leave, showing the racist attitudes of the media and Government.