Wizbang posts a pretty good tirade. And I'd say that he means every word of it.
There's an interesting paradox at the heart of much of the commentary that has spewed forth we have heard regarding certain socio-political implications of the aftermath of this hurricane. I recall that when the news showed hordes of black looters, commentators (even conservative bloggers) rushed to point out that, well, NOLA is over 67% black, so one should expect that most looters in NOLA would be black.
However, when it turned out that, gee, most of the victims of Katrina that we were seeing on the television in NOLA were black -- notwithstanding the fact that this could at least largely be attributed to that 67% figure -- it somehow proved to racialist arsonists like Tavis Smiley that the Bush Administration is racist.
The upshot is that we're only allowed to draw one sort of conclusion when we see race become a factor -- whether by cause or correlation -- in the course of a given event, and that conclusion can only be that racism has led to circumstances that either impoverish blacks or lead them to disproportionately engage in [insert social pathology here]. By another name, this stilted dialogue is called "political correctness."
That it continues to diminish the value of any dialogue on race hardly bears mentioning.
UPDATE: Deroy Murdock takes the gloves off:
The wild-eyed theory that Bush hates blacks so deeply that he would engineer their wholesale starvation, dehydration, and asphyxiation pries the scabs off these still-healing wounds and grinds fresh pepper into them. Either such explosive nonsense is a warm pile of lies, or Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FEMA's departed Michael Brown, Democratic Governor Blanco, and Democratic Mayor Nagin (who is black) share Bush's anti-black animus and helped him harm and kill black Americans on live, international television.
This is best-described scatalogically. But to keep it polite, the race hustlers who are exploiting this tragedy are beyond contempt. They are polluting the public square with nitroglycerine. Their twisted view of a bigoted America is belied by the 18,000 mainly black New Orleanians rescued by the Coast Guard, the $762 million in Katrina-related donations Americans of all colors have offered so far to our disadvantaged countrymen, along with free housing, schooling, and more. Thousands of volunteers, many with white faces, raced into the south to comfort the tempest-tossed, many with blacks faces.
From http://underthenews.blogspot.com ...
From a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll: "... Six in 10 blacks said the federal government was slow in rescuing those stranded in New Orleans after Katrina because many of the people in the Louisiana city were black. But only about one in eight white respondents shared that view. ...
"... According to [another] poll broken down by race, blacks were more likely to blame Bush for problems in New Orleans, with 37 percent holding him most to blame for the fact that many residents were trapped inside the city after it flooded. ...
"... On the question of whether Bush cares about black people, 67 percent of whites said they believe the president does care, but only 21 percent of blacks agreed."
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Do you think the next head of FEMA will be black? I might be going out on a limb here, but ... bet on it.
Personally, it's hard to imagine an Oval Office conversation in which the President and his advisers agree to blow off New Orleans based on Census figures. It's hard to imagine that the Bush Administration would abandon the biggest city in a strong RED state that supported him with almost 57% of its votes last year. It's equally hard to imagine a group of people who agree more with the politics of semi-articulate hip-hop singer Kanye West than Rev. T.D. Jakes.
There's something racist about believing that everything is about race. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dreamed of a time where his children would be judged "not by the color of the skin, but the content of their character." A worthy, noble and achievable goal. In fact, we're a lot closer now than in 1965. Certainly more than in 1865, which was better than in 1765.
But some blacks, apparently in large numbers, still want it to be about the color of their skin. Was Michael Jackson's or O.J.'s prosecution racially motivated? No (in the white community) ... yes (among many -- maybe most -- blacks.)
One example: At the moment, an unfortunate urban legend is gaining traction among blacks that an AP photo of black looters in New Orleans caption them as "looters" while an Agence France-Presse photo (from the French wire service) of white looters captions them as "finders." TWO pictures where TWO photojournalists attempted to say ONLY what they saw and knew to be a fact ... and the situation is perverted for political gains, then given momentum by Kanye West. Do yourself a favor by going to myth-debunking Snopes.com to see the truth about those photos and stop listening to urban legends. Suffice it to say, the explanation will reassure you that The Media is not always grinding a personal axe for either the Right or the Left.
I can't speak for nor argue about what's in most hearts, black or white. I can speak for my heart. I can look around and judge for myself what seems logical and honest. And I have seen the outpouring of help and sympathy for Katrina's refugees, evacuees and survivors here in Southeast Texas, not exactly the historic model for good race relations. But in the shelters and churches that have taken them in, the faces of the care-givers are overwhelmingly white in a community that's half-black.
America has a long way to go before we're truly and totally color-blind. Sadly, there are still some things that ARE racially motivated. But in the end, people of color must realize that to achieve color-blindness, they, too, must stop seeing all things as racially motivated.
Maybe I'm wrong. Apparently being wrong about race is " a white thing." Let's strike a blow for true equality: Maybe blacks can be wrong about race, too.
Posted by: Ron Franscell | September 13, 2005 at 11:22 AM