Was it racism?
For weeks we have been hearing charges of racism in connection with the response to Katrina. “President Bush doesn’t care about black people.” “It wasn’t’ about race, it was about class.” Laura Bush called charges of racism “disgusting.”

So was it racism? If so, where can we locate it? If not, why do the charges seem to touch such a nerve?
As a historian, my job is to making meaning of disparate facts. So, first of all, what is racism? According to philosopher, and holocaust survivor Albert Memmi, racism is a distinct process, with four steps:

1. stressing the real or imaginary differences between the racist and his victim
2. assigning values to these differences to the advantage of the racist and the detriment of his victim
3. trying to make them absolutes by generalizing from them and claiming that they are final
4. Justifying any present or possible aggression or privilege.

If racism was involved, I argue that the location was the Superdome: it was in response to the suffering of the people stuck there that the charges of racism first erupted, and it was in the superdome itself that the rumors of violence swirled. These stories spread as rumors, and were repeated by the mayor and more important the police commissioner. The national guard was cowering behind a partition, afraid to aid the storms evacuees in the hellish darkness. They insisted on waiting until they had a 1000 man swat team, and when they did get in, they found no thugs, only old people dying of heat exhaustion and dehydration
So why were the stories so believable? And why was the police chief spreading them, and why was even the mayor spreading them? Did “city officials” tell the busses waiting on the outskirts of the city, that it was “too dangerous” to evacuate those waiting in line in front of the convention center?
Those held in the superdome were victims of the believability of a story, a series of rumors, that led everyone to picture a hell-hole full of gun toting thugs and child rapists, instead of a hell hole of heat and darkness swallowing poor families who were trying to keep their loved ones alive. The different imagined picture actually created the emergency, and the feat and exacerbated the condition in the superdome, and delayed the aid. They were victims of racism.

NOLA.com: T-P Orleans Parish Breaking News Weblog: "As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know."