A Post-Katrina view minus the revisionism

After a national catastrophe like Katrina, some voices are bellowing about indifference to the poor and racism, while a grieving nation fumbles to make sense of it all.  Some criticism is out of control.  

Let's decry an inept response to a natural disaster, hold accountable and prosecute decision-makers who controlled resources that could have helped more of our southern citizens. We can blame those who could have executed a more efficient evacuation from what Columnist David Brooks described as, “the most anticipated natural disaster in American history.”  Let us do all this but in the process let us also reject empty political charges that amplify the harm of the hurricane.

Contributors on the editorial pages of my local newspaper (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) could not resist the temptation to tar the Bush administration's actions with a recent piece entitled, “A racial rift sadly revealed” (Sept. 9, 2005).  Reactionary rap singers have called the President of the United States a Racist and far left columnists are actually tying the Katrina disaster to “tax cuts for the rich.” If one whispers any dismay over a lack of  responsibility among those forewarned and able to avert Katrina but who chose to remain in the hurricane’s path, or condemn the behavior of those looting in New Orleans; someone will brand you a Racist.  

Tendencies to make accusations of racism after natural calamities is not new. In some cases, the effects can endure. In his last book, To America, Personal Reflections of an Historian (Simon & Schuster, 2002) former University of New Orleans professor Stephen E. Ambrose writes about the propensity of educators over the decades to teach American expansionism in the West as a period where we practiced systematic genocide of American Indian tribes.

Stephen Ambrose, Wikipedia

Ambrose called such explanations for the complete disappearance of Indian tribes, “totally irresponsible.” 

That our forefathers’ presided over a massive land grab, that they broke treaties, that they failed miserably to assimilate Native Americans, is all quite true Ambrose reminded us. Yet the only factual basis behind the total disappearance of Indian tribes occurred as Ambrose wrote,”…because of the introduction of European diseases, most of all smallpox.”

If he was alive and writing about Katrina years from now, I'd like to think that Dr. Ambrose would conclude that Crescent City tragedies witnessed in the year 2005 -- were caused by a devastating hurricane and bureaucratic ineptitude -- not racism, because such charges are "totally irresponsible".