I know there is a controversy brewing regarding the treatment of African-Americans in the recovery efforts in New Orleans.
However, what has impressed me is how little race has impacted the response of white folks living in East Texas. East Texas has had its share of racist activity and thought. The local Democratic Party delegates to the 1972 Democratic Convention were basically a group of Wallacites.
Whites in East Texas are giving generously in so many ways to help the evacuees who are largely African-American. I am sure somewhere there is an angry white racist, but what I have heard and seen is people giving money, hugs, living space, etc. irrespective of race.
I also happened to see the following news item which seems to support my observations. A black man said: In the last week, Joseph Brant lost his apartment, walked by scores of dead in the streets, traversed pools of toxic water and endured an arduous journey to escape the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in his hometown New Orleans. On Sunday, he was praising the Lord, saying the ordeal was a test that ended up dispelling his lifelong distrust of white people and setting his life on a new course. He said he hitched a ride on Friday in a van driven by a group of white folks. "Before this whole thing I had a complex about white people; this thing changed me forever," said Brant, 36, a truck driver who, like many of the refugees receiving public assistance in Houston, Texas, is black. http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050904/2005-09-04T212950Z_01_BAU462115_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-CHURCH-DC.html
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