The Aftermath of Katrina

From the Opinion Journal's Best of the Web comes an excellent synopsis of the race problem in America. It refers to a wholly self-indulgent article from the Black Commentor.

It is disappointing that Whites and Blacks see the events of Katrina so differently and I'm inclined to think that the color of the victims had absolutely nothing to do with the FEMA response. I'm more disconcerted at how Nagin has received a pass from the political black community. Can you imagine what the outcry would have been had a White Republican been the mayor? And as the BC complains that "fiscal responsibility" is code for "don't spend money on black people", they completely ignore the large transfer of wealth that goes from white to black every year. Or in this particular case, they refuse to even consider that New Orleans receives the highest per capita federal spending above local revenues than any other place in the country.

I'm afraid that what we see here is something akin to the Arab response to any event in the middle east. Since the possibility of your world view being wrong is too horific to consider, every situation is inevitably interpreted in familiar "victim" rhetoric. What I see from the results of the poll are not that Blacks think that Whites are responsible but rather that Whites have to be responsible. Among Whites there is much more diversity of opinion. It reminds me of what Mohammed Atta's father said when told that his son was a terrorist: The Jews must have been responsible.

Two quotes: "Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence." Eric Hoffer
"Societies sunk into deep shame tend to reject historical truth and the need to reconsider pointless resentments." Edwin Roberts