[Cheese]

Originally posted by Cowperson+Sep 4 2005, 12:15 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cowperson @ Sep 4 2005, 12:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Certantly. The other poster was insinuating that the response to the disaster in NOLA would have been considerably better if the majority of the trapped people were white. An accusation that racism played a significant role in the speed of the response.

The implied statement is that those in power are racists. The further implication is that those in power are white, as there is no reason to expect that black leaders would be racist against blacks.

The accusation that the response was slow because of racism is being made based on the presumed skin colour of those in charge only.

Would you not agree that judging a person, or making accusations based only on skin colour is racist?

Its only about a month since the CN derailment at Wabamum Lake near Edmonton, where toxic chemicals were spilled into the lake and where the lateness and confusion of the response from CN Rail and provincial officials drew substantial criticism.

So far, to my knowledge, no resident of Lake Wabamum has accused the President of CN Rail or Premier Klein of racism.

They're passed at those people, and justifiably so, but sometimes a fata-up is just a fata-up.

Meanwhile, red neck Texas has taken in over 200,000 mostly black refugees and the white governor has said children will be taken into Texas schools without reservation.

Meanwhile, thousands of white Texas volunteers are working at places like the Houston Astrodome to provide shelter for blacks.

Meanwhile, in the early hours of the disaster, white helicopter pilots and crews were risking their lives rescuing people in difficult situations.

Just because a black man says its racism doesn't automatically make it so. . . . . its a statement that should be questioned and weighed against the facts in this instance. The author of the statement may in fact be offering a racist point of view himself. Not all racists are WASP's.

And why is the black mayor and mostly black civic council of mostly black New Orleans not being questioned more heavily about the lack of a proper local disaster plan that, in most communities, would have provided for the evacuation of at least the infirm and elderly on short notice? The Mayor this morning was crowing that "his" disaster plan got 80% of the people out of New Orleans when the reality is pretty much all of them drove themselves out when he yelled "RUN!!" There's no real evidence New Orleans had much of a detailed local disaster plan at all and that's why the poor, elderly and infirm were left behind.

It doesn't matter to me that the mayor and his council are black . . . . but they're just as accountable if not more so than the white FEMA officials who were late off the mark.

This is going to be very interesting to analyze when its all done, where the breakdowns occurred, because there will be plenty of both blacks and whites, Republicans and Democrats, past beauracrats and present ones, who will need to get their asses kicked.

Cowperson [/b][/quote]
Bloody well right Mr Cow.... :tup: