Hurricane Katrina Lays Bare Structural Inequalities in U.S. — Obama

Washington (PNA/Xinhua) — U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday Hurricane Katrina that battered New Orleans a decade ago laid bare “a deeper tragedy” of structural inequalities confronting the local African-American community.

“What started out as a natural disaster became a man-made disaster, a failure of government to look out for its own citizens,” said Obama during his visit to New Orleans to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the killer hurricane that killed at least 1,700 and displaced tens of thousands.

“New Orleans had long been plagued by structural inequality that left too many people, especially poor people, especially people of color, without good jobs or affordable health care or decent housing,” said Obama.

For Obama, the “structural inequality” apparently had a causal relationship with the devastation and slow recovery experienced by impoverished communities locally.

“Too many kids grew up surrounded by violent crime, cycling through substandard schools where few had a shot to break out of poverty. And so like a body weakened already, undernourished already when the storm hit, there’s no resources to fall back on,” said Obama.

As he is entering the final stage of his presidency, Obama, the country’s first African-American president who once remained mainly silent on racial issues during his first term in office, becomes more vocal about his thoughts on the searing racial issues in the country.

His most blistering remarks on racial issues so far came earlier this year after a white gunman killed nine African-American churchgoers out of racial motives.

In an interview with comedian Marc Maron for his popular podcast “WTF” in June, Obama said that racism was still embedded in the United States and the legacy of slavery still remained part of the DNA that had passed on. (PNA/Xinhua) JBP/EBP