There have been a lot of people saying that the American response to Katrina was racist (and thus that Bush is racist) because so many African Americans remained in New Orleans, with no way to evacuate, and then were left to suffer without assistance.

Well, as much as I dislike Bush, I don’t think he’s a racist. I just think he doesn’t give a damn about the poor.

But I came across something very interesting in one of the articles I’m reading for my gerontology class. (Culture, Diversity, and Aging) Let me quote:

Black people are more likely not only to live in lower-SES (socioeconomic status) communities than non-Black people but to live in lower socioeconomic communities than non-Black people with the same income level. For example…in metropolitan areas in 1990, only 6.3% of poor white people lived in high poverty areas, compared with 33.5 percent and 22.1 percent of poor Black and poor Hispanic people, respectively.

Robert, S.A. and Lee, K.Y. (2002) Explaining Race Differences in Health among Older Adults: The Contribution of Community Socioeconomic Context. Research on Aging, 24, 654-683.

Maybe we live in a society where there is not as much overt racism as in the past, but we certainly haven’t escaped the legacy of racism.