Hurricane Katrina The Wake Up Call: Racial and Class Divisions Will Continue

[Akyeame Kwame]

Commentary: Until White America ‘Gets It,’ Racial and Class Divisions Will Continue

Date: Thursday, September 15, 2005
By: Judge Greg Mathis, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Every so often, something in America happens that reminds the general population that white and black Americans are reading different pages in very different books. In the 1990s, the L.A. riots and the O.J. Simpson “not guilty� verdict proved that this country’s race problem didn’t go away post-integration, but was merely swept under the rug. In this decade, the Hurricane Katrina disaster or, more appropriately, it’s handling, is our wake up call.

A recent USA TODAY/CNN Gallop Poll reveals the races are sharply divided on the subject of the victims themselves, President Bush’s handling of the situation and the reasons the government was so slow to respond. According to the poll, six in 10 blacks say that the government responded slowly because the majority of the victims were poor and black, while nearly nine in 10 whites say race and class were not a factor. Even more mind-boggling is the reality that 71 percent of blacks said the disaster response strengthened their belief that racial bias is still a problem in the U.S. Only 32 percent of whites agreed.

There is no doubt that the reasons for this difference in perception can be attributed to the disparity in the historical and current realities of black and white Americans.

America’s historical reality is that blacks were once considered chattel and were bought and sold as such. When we were counted as human beings, we weren’t considered whole; instead, we were thought to be only 3/5ths of a person. Throughout all this, many whites were able to gain money, prestige and power -- often on the backs of our people. Fast-forward to modern times and blacks continue to face discrimination. American apartheid, racial bias in hiring, housing, education, lending practices and the courts have reinforced the idea that African-Americans are not fully valued in this country.

Exasperating the differences in perception is the fact that many whites are removed from the reality of race in this country. If whites choose to do so, they can go their entire lives and have limited contacts with blacks and other minorities. They don’t have to learn our history in school, they don’t have to live amongst us, and they don’t have to see us in the workplace. Blacks, on the other hand, don’t have that luxury. From very early on, we are assimilated into an American culture that has oppressed us.

President Bush says that race did not play a role in the way the massive flooding in New Orleans was handled. Nevertheless, the majority of the suffering, despondent faces on television and in newspapers and magazines belonged to our brothers and sisters. The president’s own mother, during an interview on National Public Radio’s Marketplace commented that many of the displaced individuals were already underprivileged, so living in the Houston Astrodome where they were evacuated was “working very well for them.�

This statement lacks compassion and shows a lack of understanding of the pervasive problems of race and class in this country. President Bush is not his mother, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

We can no longer accept that some things will always be different for us, that we will always see things differently than whites. White America must understand how race and class divisions affect our communities. Until they "get it," the bias that thwarts our progress will continue.

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Judge Greg Mathis is Chairman of the Rainbow PUSH-Excel Board and a National Board Member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.