Federal rescue troops reached Katrina victims slower than Rodney King rioters.

Evidence

It was rumored that the Bush administration directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to delay its response in order to amplify the destructive reward for those who would benefit. Whether he actually did that is unknown, but it hardly mattered because FEMA did delay, and millions suffered because of it. While national reporters quickly reached the city and captured for their cameras thousands of residents of the predominantly Black Ninth Ward trapped on roofs and in the Superdome, federal officials made excuses for their delays. It took three days to deploy rescue troops to the Gulf Coast region, more time than it took to get troops on the ground to quell the 1992 Rodney King rebellion, and the result was deadly. “I believe it was racism,” said a paramedic who witnessed the death spiral in New Orleans. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1200

Categorization

• SHARE: The three-day Katrina deployment vs. 1992 Rodney King riot deployment comparison is a striking single datapoint for someone tracking disaster-response and racial timelines.