Americans like to believe that “we are all in the same
boat” when disaster strikes. Using a Du Boisian framework, this
article provides a multivariate analysis of survey data from victims of
Hurricane Katrina to determine whether there were racial differences in
their perceptions about rescue and relief efforts. The data collected from
survivors show that Blacks and Whites drew very different lessons from the
tragedy. There was widespread agreement among Black survivors that the
government's response to the crisis would have been faster if most of
the storm's victims had been White. Whites, in contrast, were more
likely to feel that the race of the victims did not make a difference in
the government's response. Less than half of White victims, but more
than three-quarters of Black victims, held that Hurricane Katrina pointed
out persisting problems of racial inequality. There were, however, few
racial differences in perceptions about the role of income in the
aftermath of Katrina. Most Blacks and Whites agreed with the idea that
low-income and middle-income victims of the hurricane received similar
treatment. But when asked a similar question about the role of race,
racial differences reemerged. Also, rather than this being a difference of
opinion only between poor Blacks and middle-class Whites, these results
suggest that there were also differences between the lowest-income Blacks
and middle-income Blacks and perhaps an even larger difference between
middle-income Blacks and middle-income Whites in terms of how they viewed
the government's response. Income and other sociodemographic
differences did not explain racial differences in perceptions about the
role of race in the aftermath of the hurricane. The article concludes that
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina exposed the wide gulf between the
nation's haves and have-nots as well as the nation's persistent
racial divide.