One year has passed since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast and left thousands dead, homeless and financially ruined. In the days following the destruction of the levees, we all watched as our government left American citizens to die in the streets of New Orleans. FEMA waited nearly four days to arrive on the scene, and the president spent two days away from Washington after the storm hit. The bungled response by federal and local authorities has been the focal point of the discussion following Katrina, but in a storm that killed over 1,800 people, most being poor and African American, the debate surrounding poverty and racism in this country has been silent. In this great nation, we must begin to re-engage in this debate. A year is simply too long.
Many Americans opened their hearts and minds to these issues after watching the horrific images portrayed on television of the scene in New Orleans. It would have been an ideal time for the administration to open a dialogue on these two grave problems in our society.
I expected a new war on poverty and expanded programs and legislation for children in the poorest ghettos of the country. It starts, however, with being honest and open about your mistakes. Instead, the administration refuses to admit that they made mistakes.
Media attention on the disaster increased as the one-year anniversary of the tragedy approached, and a new documentary by Spike Lee, entitled "When the Levees Broke," reminded the country of Katrina's destruction. I heard some rumblings, for the first time in a while, about poverty and racism.
The U.S. Census Bureau released new statistics on Aug. 29 which revealed that one in eight Americans live in poverty. That number jumps to nearly one in four when the poverty figure is adjusted to look at simply African Americans. The study found that 24.7 percent of African Americans and 21.8 percent of Hispanic Americans live in poverty, while 8.3 percent of white Americans live in poverty. Poverty is defined as earning an annual income at or below $10,000 for an individual, or $20,000 or under for a family of four.
As I have previously said, racism is still very evident in our society today, and it contributes to poverty. Sadly, we have seemingly failed to address these issues in post-Katrina America.
New York Times reporter Paul Krugman wrote, "By three to one, African-Americans believe that federal aid took so long to arrive in New Orleans in part because the city was poor and black. By an equally large margin, whites disagree." There's no way to know for sure, but I personally can't picture a response to a natural disaster in America being much worse. I highly doubt that a wealthy community would have had to go through the same hell.
In order to solve some of these problems, we must first admit that mistakes were made, and then we have to talk about the issues. We can't pretend that racism is only a thing of the past, and we can't turn a blind eye to the millions of Americans living in poverty.
Kevin Agnese is a student in the Washington Semester program.
