FEMA and the SoCal Wildfires
I want to start this post by stating how sorry I feel for the individuals who lost their homes in the recent wildfires that swept through Southern California. I can't even imagine what it must be like to lose everything, including a home.However, I have a problem with the way the news media has been portraying the incident. One of the many NY Times articles that I have read on the subject centers on how Bush is reacting to this natural disaster in contrast to how he acted during Hurricane Katrina. Of course he is acting faster to provide federal aid during this disaster! He can't stand the fallout of another mis-step when it comes to helping the victims.
All opinions of the President's politics aside, there is something inherently wrong with comparing San Diego to New Orleans. The NY Times article linked to above states some of them, such as the number of homes destroyed in each national disaster (many, many more in New Orleans), and response of local governments. Ok, that is true, but why is nobody mentioning the racial and socioeconomic makeup of the areas affected? Check out the two photos that appeared at the top of the article, one of victims of the fires and one of victims of Katrina.
Notice that the white couple on the left have multiple suitcases, and what appears to be a shopping bag, whereas the only some of the people in the group of African Americans have even a backpack. SoCal residents had time to gather their belongings and leave, and apparently enough time to do a little shopping during their stay at Qualcomm stadium. Katrina victims didn't have food or water.
The NY Times also included an interesting sidebar to one of their articles, although the article it accompanied never even referenced the statistics offered.
As you can see, the areas affected by the fires are richer neighborhoods (over 25% earn more than 100K a year, and only 9% are below the poverty line) with more white people, and far less African Americans. If Kanye were to comment on this disaster, he might be inclined to say, "George Bush loves white people." And he would be right. It is easy to see that the racial makeup of the areas affected is vastly different, and that the homes affected in Southern California belong to people who probably have enough insurance to fix their homes or enough money to pay for new ones. Of course, there are poor people who were affected in SoCal, but the fires broke out in Malibu and Beverly Hills, people! Why is nobody mentioning that one of the main differences between the fires and the hurricane is that George Bush is being called on to help rich white folks instead of poor black folks?Additionally, why is the NY Times not covering the particular hardships that undocumented immigrants are going to face after the fires? FEMA will not release aid to anybody unless a social security number is provided, and they are not releasing aid to anybody until a given social security number is verified. Even if undocumented workers weren't already leery of applying for social services, the announcement of FEMA's new regulations ensure that very little, if any, of the undocumented population is going to receive aid. In a town so close to the border, this is an issue that is going to have an impact on rebuilding of homes in lower income neighborhoods (I don't know how many were affected).
The news media needs to stop praising Bush for being quick to respond to a mostly white population, and acknowledge that even his quick release of aid is not necessarily going to help all of the people of color in the area. He hasn't changed since Katrina, the situation has.
posted by Sara at
9:45 AM
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