Katrina Quotes
Statement after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans including almost all of the public housing.
The Hurricane Katrina flood destroyed neighborhoods of whites and blacks, rich and poor. While there were differential responses by the authorities during and just after the hurricane, all the subgroups of New Orleans needed assistance which was slow in coming and not extensive.
This quotation is an example of a phenomenon that occurs with many foreign leaders who do not understand America or democracy. Because the world was able to see people on American television claim that racial discrimination was a factor in the Federal government’s terrible performance with Hurricane Katrina, Khamenei and others assume that the accusation is true. Their view is through a very warped prism of Islamic Fascist Fundamentalism. So when they see the American government being so heavily criticized, they assume that this is in spite of government efforts to silence the critics. Therefore the notion that the administration Iranian policy is a ploy to deflect domestic pressure away from Katrina becomes creditable as does the fact that the media carry some American support for this “wag the dog” theory. For us the domestic debate is too important to our democracy to try and adjust domestic political debate to avoid misinterpretation those who do not understand democracy.
This egregiously insensitive statement was one of the reasons he was fired from heading the relief effort and then resigned from the government. He had been a political appointee of George W. Bush with no previous emergency management experience. He had been a lawyer and his management experience consisted of managing horse shows. While many blamed the President for the terrible appointment, the Senate confirmed Brown with not a single No vote, yet his lack of experience was known to the Senators.
Nagin was being aggressively questioned about why New Orleans was not rebuilt from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. He gave as an example the fact that the World Trade Center site in New York had not even started with any rehabilitation. The politics of rebuilding after a catastrophe have become very complicated regardless of the location. Many in New York found the wording “hole in the ground” insensitive as 2,000 people had died on the site. The reality is that both rebuilding efforts were severely hampered by political issues: In the case of New York, the kind of memorial that would be appropriate for “hallowed ground.” In New Orleans, the issues of rebuilding in risky area vs more protection was debated as well as the racial effect where New Orleans had been a majority Black city before but depending on how it was rebuilt might not be after.
