What's Race Got To Do With It?

Terry Neal writing the Washington Post's (aptly named) Talking Points column converts the standard blame Bush talking points in to series of questions aksing “Why, Oh Why?”

One of his talking point questions demonstrates that above all else race matters.

Why was Condoleezza Rice, the administration's highest ranking black official, grinning and guffawing at the Broadway show “Spamalot” and shopping for expensive shoes at Salvatore Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue days after the hurricane ravaged the Gulf Coast and left tens of thousands of poor black folks hungry, desperate and dying?

The secretary of state is responsible for foreign policy, not domestic disaster recovery. I don't recall seeing a lot of pictures of Madeline Albright aiding white senior citizens struck by hurricanes in Florida while she served as Secretary of State. I don't recall her being taken to task for that absence either. The only role for the Secretary of State in a disaster such as this is to work with foreign countries who are offering assistance.

The only purpose for Dr. Rice to go to New Orleans, and this Mr. Neal gets right, is to show hurricane victims a black face as part of the official relief effort.

In all seriousness, if you have just been through a disaster such as what Hurricane Katrina inflicted on New Orleans, if you lost everything you owned on the flooding, if you had had neither food nor water for several days, would the skin color of the person coming to help really matter? Would you let yourself, your family, your children continue to suffer perhaps even die because of the skin color of the people running the rescue effort?

HT: Hugh Hewitt

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 08:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment