It would seem obvious to blame racism for the slow response time by the government to provide assistance to the victims in New Orleans. However, do you not realize that New Orleans has avoided catastrophes like this since the engineering of this city many years ago? Many citizens did not evacuate because they did not believe such distruction were truly possible. As for the resucees firing at the rescuers...New orleans has a murder rate of 10 times the national average, and has led the nation several years. Is this also a racist statement? Well, since statistically the African-Americans are murdering...guess who...other African-Americans I would think not. New Orleans is now just as it was before this disaster, a very dangerous, poverty stricken, and sub-standard city which is overlooked by the precence of Mardi-Gras, jazz music, and creole cooking. New Orleans has been this way for decades, and the horrible disaster that Katrina left behind only uncovered the existing issues that N.O. had. Sixty-Seven percent of New Orleans is African-American and thirty percent is below the poverty line. There were whites, blacks, and other races alike trapped in the Superdome, Civic Center, and their homes. The whites were not rescued before the blacks. Racism is a distinct preference or exclusion to one race over another. I have seen no indication of one race being favored over another during the evacuation processes or any other process. The only issue here is that the government did not respond as effieciently as we think the ought to have, but when they did respond, they did not respond with favor for the caucasions. I would very much like to be oblivious to the fact that racism is still a factor in this vast country called the United States, but posts like this and comments by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are a definite reminder that, no matter how disguisting, racism is not only alive but thriving. My only concern is that we are keeping racism alive by making ignorant accusations as to racism being the cause of many un-related problems.