Whoops!  Another hysterical Hurricane Katrina myth has been busted. 

As most eloquently expressed by Kanye West, a black rapper, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."  While undoubtedly a great fund—raising line for the hurricane relief telethon, alas for him and the other professional victim advocates piously whining to the media and Congress, some recently released statistics tell another story——whatever else, Katrina and George Bush were not storm bigots.

Statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals suggest that fewer than half of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black, and that whites died at the highest rate of all races in New Orleans.

...but the state's demographic information suggests that whites in New Orleans died at a higher rate than minorities. According to the 2000 census, whites make up 28 percent of the city's population, but the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals indicates that whites constitute 36.6 percent of the storm's fatalities in the city.

African—Americans make up 67.25 percent of the population and 59.1 percent of the deceased. Other minorities constitute approximately 5 percent of the population and represented 4.3 percent of the storm's fatalities.

Oh dear, what will these professional victim advocates do now?

Ethel C. Fenig  12 15 05

UPDATE: Jonathan Cohen was well ahead of the curve on this story, way back in mid—September, on AT. He adds:

Even more significant is the age profile. Check this link. More than 80% of the victims were over fifty, almost half over 75.

 

What was obvious is that the ability to physically negotiate the flooded conditions was the key to survival for many. The people in the superdome and the convention center were never in life threatening situations. The government attended to life threatening situations first. that was their first priority as it should have been. the media attended to bashing Bush and passing along racial scripts of black victimhood.