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The National (Un)Response to Hurricane Katrina

Discussion Question: Are you pleased with or disappointed by the national response to Hurricane Katrina?  
 
Late August, September 2005, Hurricane Katrina (and Rita) devastated the lives of millions as it ripped through the heartland of the former Confederate South, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.  Why did the government at all levels prepare so poorly and react so negligently to the plight of Katrina survivors?  I suggest that the root of the government's failures can be found in the American legal system's deeply-embedded doctrine of "blackness as property."  I conclude that we must understand the historical chains that bind us and take affirmative action to establish a legal order that is morally correct, to redress inequities for all people of oppression.  Otherwise, the cancerous shoots of "blackness as property" under the broad application of treating "people as property" will destroy the moral fabric of our great nation.
 
I look forward to your responses.
 
For my further thoughts on this, see my entire presentation to the Southeast/Southwest People of Color Conference(Word Doc).  See also my arguments in support of the federal government's establishing a 911 victims' compensation modeled fund to compensate Katrina survivors, The Katrina Fund: Repairing Breaches in Gulf Coast Insurance Levees , 43 HARV. J. LEG. 329-373 (2006). (PDF)  And further see my explanation of American legal history of treating people as property in Blackness as Property: Sex, Race, Status, and Wealth , 1 STAN. J. C R. & C.L.L. REV. 51- 169 (April 2005) (PDF, 8.7MB).

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Comments

Are you worried because of blacks only? Because the city has a high percentage of white people.

Either walk to get to higher ground, or get a bike!!!

We could tell that was a big storm coming through the Atlantic, you were silly to stay in the path of that gigantic hurricane.

This issue is being used by you guys to further drive a wedge between you and the rest of the world.

The place was so lawless that the cops stopped working and left the area!! Just like LA during the Cracked Out Rodney King riots.

Rodney King a career criminal that hated the police and gave them no respect.

If a man is a lawbreaker, why is he rewarded in the court of law? Only in America!

Since you guys love communism and socialism so much, why don't go visit China!!!

I suggest that you go look at your deed to your house. It clearly stats that we are all "tenants" on our own property.

Morality is with us when we are born. A knowledge of right and wrong and small voice in everybodies head telling us what is right. If you want black men to stop having problems with the police, encourage them to stop breaking the law! As we all know they are without exuse as they know right from wrong!!!

Verlch: If you read newspapers, you would know that China now has a capitalism on steroids. They are going to buy this country soon.

To find Commies, you have to go your local university, especially the law school. This one of the rare places they ramain, that and the Democratic Party. They steal from the rich and productive to give to themselves. They run 99% of the government. They do nothing well, except generate lawyer jobs.

What was the profession of the head of FEMA during Katrina? What the profession of the head of its parent Homeland Security? Paper shufflers. Instead of effective function, you get procedures requiring massive bureaucracy, sensitivity training for rescuers, forbearance for the rampant criminality by the good customers of the paper shufflers, and hell on earth for the public, and death.

I feel like this ... there should have been sets of apartments built all over america for victims of the hurricane .. not only for one Race nor one city .. im talking about EVERYONE who was affected by the storm.

They are going to buy this country soon.


Please, if you read real history books you would read that communism was started by the West!!! China is no exception.

I have yet to figure out who runs the world, but it will not be China. I would never put it past them to pretend the Chinese run the world, or can challenge the West. But it will never happen.

FEMA gave all the people a couple of thousand bucks to get on their feet. It was pure chaos down there. Rape, murder and mayham. There was a horrible war zone going on!!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hJVgzSHq434&mode=related&search=

Sitting below sea level, coupled with the large amount of warnings telling people they need to leave, why stay in the path of that Level 5 hurricane?

Leave, run flee!!!

In rich areas, with $30 mil homes on the beach?

Houses must start one floor above ground. You either build it on a built up mound, or you put carports and storage space on the ground. This simple regulation adds little to cost.

If a builder type can give an estimate of the additional expense, as a taxpayer, it would a good investment. I would be willing to invest it in the cost of housing for the poor. The alternative, the loss of a major US city, has been more expensive.

This simple regulation would be lawyers doing their job, as they do for the rich. No. They are not in N.O. running things for that.

Actually, I thought the country was very, very generous. If you compare this to, say, the Northridge earthquake of 1994, I'd say the Katrina response was far larger and more universal.

It was pure chaos down there. Rape, murder and mayham. There was a horrible war zone going on!!!

You're an idiot. You believed the mainstream media. All they show is murder, rape and mayhem. The world isn't like that at all. I'll bet if you took a poll of the commenters here on blackprof.com, you'd find a vast majority donate their time to some worthy cause while a tiny fraction may have committed some crime in their past. That's the real world, not what you see on TV.

There are 2 groups actually lower than the lawyer. Prisoners and the media.

If they depicted acts of kindness and competence, no one would buy their paper and look at the ads.

I have no doubt the supply of kindness exceeded criminality. Those stories remained untold.

The biased left wing lawyer will not discuss the smooth school choice experiment run by New Orleans, prompted by Katrina and the need to attract families back to town.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6168854

As reported by left wingers. Worked well. Only a small fraction remain owned by the city.

Never cast dirt into that fountain of which you have sometime drunk... Warham

Never cast dirt into that fountain of which you have sometime drunk... Warham

Hatred is blind, as well as love... Hamond

Hatred is blind, as well as love... Hamond

In the country of the blind one-eyed man is a king... Samuel

In the country of the blind one-eyed man is a king... Samuel

In the country of the blind one-eyed man is a king... Samuel

All asses wag their ears... Anne

All asses wag their ears... Anne

A lazy sheep thinks its wool heavy... Holland

A lazy sheep thinks its wool heavy... Holland

A lazy sheep thinks its wool heavy... Holland

A lazy sheep thinks its wool heavy... Holland

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