"Anyway, as the German article below puts it, the whole mess in Louisiana was a disaster waiting to happen --"
Sigh. Nobody disputes that. There has been talk about the possibility of disaster in New Orleans for decades. The topic under discussion is why it took the better part of a week to render aid when it was clear that the hurricane was going to come very close to New Orleans for days.
Look, I am perfectly aware that Europeans like to think Americans, particularly Southern Americans, are racist in their every word and deed. My wife, a German who regularly voted Green, was of such an opinion until she moved here. Her opinions has changed. If anything, she thinks we try to hard to avoid even the appearance of racism and over-correct. And she might have a point. Apparently Der Speigel neglected to note that the two different photographs were captioned by two different photographers working for two different agencies. In addition, one photographer saw the subject in question go in a store and come out with a bag of stuff. The other saw two people making their way through the flood waters with stuff from a flooded out store floating all around them. So they were captioned differently because the circumstances were different.
This is not to say that racism doesn't exist in the US, it does. But these days it isn't anywhere nearly as prevalant as it used to be. These days it is usually structural. Blacks, on the average, tend to be poorer and less educated. Those two things weigh more heavily against them than their skin color. If the US were as racist as many Europeans believe, then explain Oprah(please) and all of the black sports stars, entertainers, Colin Powell and other powerful blacks. |
