New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | January 17, 2006

Cathy Young discovers that hurricanes are color blind.

Comments

|1.17.06 @ 9:29AM|#

The moment those in the race business stop playing the race card at every available opportunity will be the moment that the majority can recognize that yes, possibly, some racism (though small), still exists.

|1.17.06 @ 9:36AM|#

Does any sane person not currently recognize that some racism still exists?

|1.17.06 @ 10:00AM|#

Does any sane person not currently recognize that some racism still exists?

I think the argument goes, "Racism still exists, but it has absolutely no effect whatsoever, so anybody who says anything is caused by racism is wrong."

|1.17.06 @ 10:22AM|#

The article pretty much goes along with my feeling, but a couple of things. Should the income question be decided by where bodies were found or where the dead had resided (or is this definitely the same)?

Also, if half of the 36% of white residents (18% of pop.) were heavily flooded, and 3/4 of the 61% of black residents (about 45% of total pop.) were, then why were deaths 51:44 black to white? Does an age skew explain the higher relative mortality of white residents per pop.?

Warren|1.17.06 @ 10:35AM|#

I think the issue is whether we can have a reasonable discussion about race. The "Racism doesn't exist" mantra is no more pervasive or destructive to the dialog than "Racism is the source of all evil".

Speaking as a middle-aged white male suburbanite, I find little to be encouraged about.

|1.17.06 @ 10:39AM|#

Good points, Cartman. One of the reasons there are so many unclaimed, unidentified bodies in the morgue is because so many people died far from their homes, having sought refuge outside of their neighborhoods.

Just the most obvious of the statistical games Young plays.

|1.17.06 @ 10:53AM|#

Does any sane person not currently recognize that some racism still exists?

Anti-white racism (and anti-male sexism) is rampant and pretty blatant in all phases of the government (and in Big Bidness).
The Newspeak term for this type of racism is "affirmative action."

[Article] Ironically, the focus on African-Americans as victims also ended up perpetuating some racist stereotypes-such as tales of rape, murder, and other lawlessness among Katrina refugees.

"Blacks were 7 times more likely than whites to commit homicide in 2002."
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

Sorry, I'm just not in a PC mood this morning...

|1.17.06 @ 10:56AM|#

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, an analysis of block-by-block census data and flood maps suggests that about half of the city's white residents experienced serious flooding, compared with three-quarters of African-Americans.

So what exactly is the big deal here? New Orleans is a great example of the housing market working the way it is supposed to. Land that is flood prone is, ceteris paribus, less attractive than high ground. It should be priced cheaper. Housing is an economic good. People consume more of it when they make more. On average blacks earn less in New Orleans than whites, so they purchased less housing. Race is not an explanatory variable. Poor whites buy crappy housing just like poor blacks.

|1.17.06 @ 11:01AM|#

My niece just got back last week from the ninth ward where she was cleaning out houses. The pictures she took were something else.

What I found weird is that there were very few homeowners fixing up their own places. She said there were a number of people who thanked her and the other volunteers for their efforts to throw out debris and broken appliances, but that she didn't see a lot of people cleaning out their own places. However, she did say there were quite a few people living in their houses, so maybe they were lready cleaned out and were now livable.

She said it was different from block to block in the ninth ward, some houses where the water was only 4 feet deep would probably be fixed up, but that any where the water went over the roof would probably be torn down.

|1.17.06 @ 11:05AM|#

New Orleans is a great example of the housing market working the way it is supposed to.

Signore Pareto, I get the point you're trying to make. But when you say "great example" and "working the way it is supposed to" you're just begging to be taken out of context.

Just a friendly tip.

|1.17.06 @ 11:09AM|#

Check out this link from todays paper in Baton Rouge.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/2210102.html

Ahhh yes its the white folk who are racist right? Any black posters mind if I just refer to you as Chocolates from now on?

Must be ok since a black leader said it. After all its not the N word which has such negative stereotypes and contexts woven into it that only blacks can call each other the N word or use it in whatever context they choose.

Thank you Mayor Nagin... Oppss I mean Mayor McChocolate for your promoting racial harmony in such a typical only the white man is racist kind of way.

No chocolates for Nagin means no chocolate votes which mean no more Mayor McChocolate.

I have a dream.. A dream of a place where flavors are not assigned to humans.. A place where there are no cocoa beans and no vanilla beans.. Where white chocolate can foot the bill while regular chocolate gets its fill. Can I get a witness??

What would happen if a white pol said he sees a chocolate New Orleans too? A white chocolate one perhaps? Something tells me that flavor just wouldn't sit well with the chocolate shit stirrers, opps I mean todays elite black leadership.

Ask your doctor if its right for you!

|1.17.06 @ 11:12AM|#

Dar, everybody here knows that some black people are racist against whites. That doesn't mean white-on-black racism doesn't still exist. Stop claiming the victimhood mantle.

|1.17.06 @ 11:13AM|#

"On average blacks earn less in New Orleans than whites, so they purchased less housing. Race is not an explanatory variable."

So black people are disproportionately poor and compelled to live in dangerous housing, and this is evidence that race is NOT an explanatory variable for why black people suffered from from the disaster?

Dan|1.17.06 @ 11:21AM|#

I don't care what the context is, it's pretty asinine to declare the New Orleans is an example of the "housing market working the way it's supposed to".

If that city is an example of the way it's supposed to work, I'm glad I live somewhere where they do it wrong!

|1.17.06 @ 11:22AM|#

when you say "great example" and "working the way it is supposed to" you're just begging to be taken out of context.

That's okay, out of context is the best people have when criticizing a marketplace. It is like a snake, dispassionate and efficient. That is produces outcomes unsavory to some does not mean that it does not work well.


So black people are disproportionately poor and compelled to live in dangerous housing

Right Joe, they are compelled to live there. Someone put a gun against their head and forbad that they should ever leave and improve their circumstances. Oh wait, that was the welfare state.

|1.17.06 @ 11:24AM|#

Ah, yes the "Gun to Your Head" of "Completely Free" argument. Must be nice not to worry about messy reality.

Dan|1.17.06 @ 11:26AM|#

Anyway, bickering over who �died at a greater rate� or whether or not you think Ray Nagin is an idiot misses the greater point of Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina didn�t teach us anything; it simply reminded us of some things that we already know but would rather forget:

1.There is a lot of distrust, generally speaking, between whites and blacks.

2.The poor are going to get the shaft when a disaster occurs.

3.Blacks are more likely to be poor than whites.

4.Many of the people who run important government agencies are incompetent cronies.

5.Poverty is still an issue in America and we ignore it at our own peril.

|1.17.06 @ 11:27AM|#

I don't care what the context is, it's pretty asinine to declare the New Orleans is an example of the "housing market working the way it's supposed to".

Instead of being clever go back and read what I said. I did not claim the City worked well, I said that the allocation of housing resources went as predicted by economic theory.

Must be nice not to worry about messy reality.

Please explain given what you know about me and my life how it is free from reality Joe. And do it objectively.

Dan|1.17.06 @ 11:34AM|#

SP, if your point is that people without much money have to buy crappier housing (or none at all), then, yes, I�d say that�s pretty obvious.

If anything, however, this fact is an indictment of the market system, not a plus.

|1.17.06 @ 11:35AM|#

I don't know anything about you and your life, Swill.

I know that your analysis of this issue demonstrates a bloodless reliance on simplistic models to explain human behavior, as demonstrated by your conflation of "compelled" with "gun to their head."

|1.17.06 @ 11:41AM|#

this fact is an indictment of the market system

How so? Homes are built in floodplains because people want to live there. The pricing mechanism is how scarce resources are distributed efficiently. It is how welfare is maximized. My nom de guerre is a paean to Vilfredo Pareto, who formulated Pareto Optimality.

|1.17.06 @ 11:43AM|#

a bloodless reliance on simplistic models to explain human behavior

It's called self-determination brother. If you don't believe in it then that is your messy reality, not mine.

pigwiggle|1.17.06 @ 11:56AM|#

"A white chocolate one perhaps"

I think Negin's objection is with Mole, rather.

FTFA ... "Meanwhile, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission says that rebuilding should be permitted in all of the city, even in heavily damaged, flood-prone neighborhoods below water level."

Of course it should, without question. The question is if, or not, we are going to bail these folks out a second time (maybe next year). Does anyone now doubt the judgment of insurers who would only underwrite these properties with the support of the feds?

"Just the most obvious of the statistical games Young plays."

What's holding you back joe, lay it bare. Or is the insinuation all the further you care to go?

|1.17.06 @ 12:10PM|#

"Just the most obvious of the statistical games Young plays."

Translation, how dare Kathy Young mess with my reality with pesky facts and statistics.

|1.17.06 @ 12:28PM|#

Swillfredo ignores the development history of NOLA. Significant parts of now-damaged low ground were drained and built up for wealthy people (Broadmoor, Lakeview). Perhaps the fault is in the assumption of ceteris paribus. In blood and dirt all things are never equal.

The perception of flood risk is not the same as true flood risk, and neither has a fixed relationship to elevation.

For all y'all who want to react to Nagin's comments, you will do yourself a service to watch or listen to the entire speech. If you are sharp, you might realize the Mayor wasn't talking to you. The message is sent in language the audience understands.

|1.17.06 @ 12:31PM|#

Wouldn't you all agree that since we are going to be giving these people new places to live maybe we ought to put the houses somewhere we won't have to pay for them again? If I said I wanted to live here and you said thats fine but the house we are building for you is over here I would think I may have to move to where the house is wouldn't I?

I think a lot of you are missing the point in this housing issue.

The people we are talking about didn't buy property in low areas because they are poor. The government gave them housing because they are poor. Key word here is GAVE as in FREE no cost to you the welfare entitled. Now all that is gone is it really so bad that we ask not to rebuild the same thing and hand it to the same people in the same place that has proven it's inability to overcome anything but a hangover!

For one to own something they must have purchased it to begin with otherwise its only on loan. Unless I missed some new law being passed that now allows welfare families to pass along their subsidized housing when they die to next of kin. Not that it would surprise me of course.

pigwiggle|1.17.06 @ 12:59PM|#

"If you are sharp, you might realize the Mayor wasn't talking to you. The message is sent in language the audience understands."

Oh, I see; it's some black New Orlinean code. So what exactly does it mean when he says god wants New Orleans to be a majority African American? Right, I shouldn't bother myself with that. He wasn't talking to me. Maybe he was talking to all the immigrant Mexican laborers; 'god wants New Orleans to be chocolate' is code for 'thanks for the cheap labor, now go home'.

|1.17.06 @ 1:08PM|#

Joe,

I love how you use the "Gun to the Head" argument here at 12:45, after derisively dismissing it in this thread at 11:24. I sure hope you are in on the joke.

|1.17.06 @ 1:14PM|#

I guess the joke is on me. Try again without the clever HREF.

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/01/living_wages_an.shtml#comments

Dave W.|1.17.06 @ 1:41PM|#

I find it amazing that Young's article uses partial bodycounts. Why would we not know a bodycount at this late date? Why would we not know the racial breakdown at this late date?

When its mostly white people that die, we get quicker bodycounts. As usual, the journalist Young should be doing FOIAs and getting the facts instead of concocting half-baked opinions based on partial info.

|1.17.06 @ 1:49PM|#

Look, people, do I have to spell it out for you?

Yes, black people who owned houses in the Lower Ninth lost everything. (And the Lower Ninth Ward was a triumphant libertarian success story if there ever was one - the only big city in the US where it seems like poor people actually owned houses!)

But, look! White folks in some wealthier neighborhoods had some flood damage too. The fact that their insurance companies will pay to rebuild or relocate them is inconvenient for me, yes. But I'm sure I can work out a way in which the black folks who lost everything are equally blessed. Just GIVE ME TIME. Please! Look over there! Democrats doing something wrong!

Larry A|1.17.06 @ 1:57PM|#

Dan: Katrina didn�t teach us anything; it simply reminded us of some things that we already know but would rather forget:

You left out:

6. Water runs downhill.

|1.17.06 @ 2:02PM|#

Swillfredo,

You mean when I mocked the "gun to the head" standard on the minimum wage thread, and suggested that it is better to look at the likely outcomes in the real world than to limit one's investigation to the formal requirements of the law?

Read harder, Swill. You can do it.

|1.17.06 @ 2:09PM|#

Joe,

No, what I mean is that I used the expression mockingly, was in turn mocked by you, and yet you found it perfectly acceptable to use the expression in the same fashion 45 minutes later.

Do yourself a favor and don't talk down to others. With your track record you just look ignorant.

|1.17.06 @ 2:14PM|#

Everyone can read what you wrote at 11:22, Swill.

You mocked me for writing that the residents were "compelled" to live there, pointing out that no one put a gun to their head.

|1.17.06 @ 2:25PM|#

I reject the notion that NOLA Katrina body counts are related to racism or the lack thereof. The body counts are related to the fact that the mayor of NOLA didn't use the huge amount of school buses to evacuate residents. I'm sure if the mayor was white "everyone" would be sure that this was racism pure and simple.

Is the current disproportionate poverty of blacks due to past racism? Yes. Is the existence of current (US definition) poverty an example of racism? If so, Democrats like Ted Kennedy have a lot of explaining to do.

The fact is the "Great Society" has proven to be a multigenerational failure. It has destroyed black families. It has done leveled off the poverty rate that had been declining steadily for as far back as economists can reasonably estimate.

Hurricane Katrina is not about racism. It is about the failure of the government. Government at the city, state, and federal level. Failure of government programs to do any good at all, indeed make things worse. If the government of NOLA had confined itself to commons problems like fighting crime and fires, it may very well have had the foresight and the time to do some rational disaster preperation.

But if makes folks feel better to blame Whitey, go right ahead. Why should facts matter? Of course, if folks want things to get better, they should take a look at what the real problem is, the total lack of success of the government anti-poverty programs to reduce poverty.

|1.17.06 @ 2:48PM|#

The moment those in the race business stop playing the race card at every available opportunity will be the moment that the majority can recognize that yes, possibly, some racism (though small), still exists.

Comment by: Finkelstein at January 17, 2006 09:29 AM

---

Does any sane person not currently recognize that some racism still exists?

Comment by: Julian Sanchez at January 17, 2006 09:36 AM

---

Does any sane person not currently recognize that some racism still exists?

I think the argument goes, "Racism still exists, but it has absolutely no effect whatsoever, so anybody who says anything is caused by racism is wrong."

Comment by: Jennifer at January 17, 2006 10:00 AM
---------------------------------------------

Actually, the way things are now (and the point I think FInkelstein was trying to make):

1) Yes, racism still exists.

2) However, racism is blamed as the cause of far, far more undesirable circumstances than it is really responsible for.

3) Therefore, if someone says, "This is the result of racism!"

3b) ... and you reflexively reply, "No, it isn't."

3c) ... chances are you are, in fact, right.

Like, if I blamed every bad thing that ever happened -- rising gas prices, stubbing my toe, Paris Hilton's fame, the cancellation of Firefly -- on communists, and you always replied, "Communism had nothing to do with that," odds are that you'd be right in just about every case, but that doesn't mean communists don't exist.

Oddly, because of the grossly exaggerated number of accusations (which are statistically going to be mostly wrong), the people who believe that (racism)(communism) doesn't exist are the ones who are most likely to make the correct statement -- "(Racism)(Communism) had nothing to do with that problem" -- in the majority of the particular cases, even if they are wrong in the general case.

However, if the exaggerated number of accusations is reduced, then a larger proportion of accusations will be shown to actually be true, making it harder for people to reflexively deny that (racism)(communicsm) exists.

Which roughly conforms to what Finkelstein said.

I hope that made sense. My head hurts now.

|1.17.06 @ 2:56PM|#

Translation of what Stevo said: Don't cry wolf unless the wolf is really there, or people will in the future think you are full of shit, regardless of whether or not what you say in the future is true or not.

pigwiggle|1.17.06 @ 2:57PM|#

"I find it amazing that Young's article uses partial bodycounts. Why would we not know a bodycount at this late date?"

It doesn't use a partial body count. It uses the recovered body count as, presumably, more may be found as the debris is cleared; ie. 4 bodies recovered from December 24 to January 4, 1 recover from January 4 to January 11.

"When its mostly white people that die, we get quicker bodycounts."

And this is supported by quicker counts in which parishes, counties, states?

"Young should be doing FOIAs and getting the facts instead of concocting half-baked opinions based on partial info."

The same could be said for you. You might start here .

|1.17.06 @ 3:15PM|#

Dar: http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/2210102.html
Jeezus.

Refugee for Life: For all y'all who want to react to Nagin's comments, you will do yourself a service to watch or listen to the entire speech. If you are sharp, you might realize the Mayor wasn't talking to you.
Based on the portions of the speech which were printed, I can only assume that he was talking to Special Olympics participants.

Ed|1.17.06 @ 3:58PM|#

Special Olympics participants

Heh. Or a church congregation. Same thing.

whatever|1.17.06 @ 4:01PM|#

From Nagin's speech:

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," Nagin said. "Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/2210102.html

Pretty outrageous statements from Falwell er Robertson er I mean Nagin.

|1.18.06 @ 10:59AM|#

Translation of what Stevo said: Don't cry wolf unless the wolf is really there, or people will in the future think you are full of shit, regardless of whether or not what you say in the future is true or not.

That is a very apt and concise summary of what I was trying to say. Wish I'd thought of that "crying wolf" metaphor.

|1.18.06 @ 1:23PM|#

Yes, pigwiggle, he was speaking in code (or dialect).

You probably already know that the lines you mock were intended to resonate and reassure the black people who believe they're getting screwed, just as they always have.

Whether or not they're actually getting screwed, or ever were, is a separate issue. The trouble for a mayor is that the people he needs to come back already believe it. Nagin spoke in terms those people would hear, and at the same time he called upon them to rethink their victimhood predjudice.

Unfortunately, all the indignance people like you, pigwiggle, are so eager to feel, overtakes the transformational message in Nagin's words. Nobody is talking about how black people must be quit blaming and take care of their own business. Instead, everybody is having spasms over a rhetorical interpretation of god's will.

That, to me, is the mistake in the speech: The words got in the way of the message. Those not in the audience don't seem interested in understanding. It is always easier to bitch.

|1.18.06 @ 2:28PM|#

Mr. Le Mur, you illustrate my point. You crack wise armed only with the short-bus excerpts. The entire text is available, if you are truly interested.