http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...ina-poll_x.htm
Poll shows racial divide on storm response
WASHINGTON — A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds a stark racial divide in Americans' attitudes toward the plight of Hurricane Katrina's victims, the performance of President Bush and the reasons the government's early response was wanting.
Six in 10 African-Americans say the fact that most hurricane victims were poor and black was one factor behind the failure of the federal government to come to their rescue quickly. Nearly nine in 10 non-Hispanic whites say those weren't factors.
Bush, in downtown New Orleans for the first time since the hurricane hit, on Monday denied race played a role. "My attitude is this: The storm didn't discriminate, and neither will the recovery effort," he said. "When those Coast Guard choppers ... were pulling people off roofs, they didn't check the color of a person's skin. They wanted to save lives."
But Rae Clifton, 52, a Web designer in Atlanta who is black and was among those surveyed, is certain that race and class did count. "If it had been a 17-year-old white cheerleader who was caught in the water, somebody would have tried to get there faster," she says. "But because it was poor people ... it was, 'OK, we'll get there after a while.' "
The racial divide — which underscores the different perspectives whites and blacks continue to have on some aspects of life in America — could affect the debate over addressing poverty and rebuilding the region.
"Some of the concern I'm hearing (from blacks) is that New Orleans is going to be rebuilt but gentrified in such a way that they can't go back," says Michael Fauntroy, a political scientist at George Mason University who has studied relations between blacks and the GOP. The administration needs to allay those fears, he says.
In any case, Republican efforts this year to reach out to black voters have been set back. In the survey, African-Americans by 74%-16% have an unfavorable opinion of the GOP. By more than 3-1, they say Bush doesn't care about black people. By more than 2-1, whites say he does...
