WASHINGTON, Sept 3: The ever-sensitive question of race in the United States has exploded into a furious debate over the government’s handling of the disaster unfolding in New Orleans. Critics have accused President George Bush’s administration of abandoning the overwhelmingly black and poor people to death and anarchy in the fetid floodwaters of America’s fabled jazz city.

“You want to know why all those black people are stuck down there dying?” said Yvette Brown, a black refugee from the city.

“If they were white, they’d be gone. They’d be sending in an army of helicopters, jets and boats,” she said.

Another black, Lakeshia Evans, demurred.

“There were white people on their houses too. A lot of people pull the racist card but I think (the hurricane) affected everyone,” she said.

Rapper Kanye West, however, was in no doubt that racism was a factor.

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people!” he said, breaking from the script at a television fundraiser on Friday for victims of the deadly storm.

Before floodwaters burst through the levees protecting New Orleans on Tuesday, the city had one of the largest — and poorest — black populations in the United States.

Census figures showed 67.3 per cent of the city’s 500,000 people were black, with 30 per cent living below the poverty line — against national averages of 13 per cent and 12.7 per cent respectively.

Craig Colten, professor of geography at Louisiana State University in nearby Baton Rouge, said the flood’s impact was always going to hit the black and poor the hardest.

“In New Orleans, those with power and money purchase houses on the highest ground. African Americans have been hammered in this event,” he said.

Given the anger of people who have lost everything, all sorts of accusations are now being levelled.

“Black people are mad because they feel the reason for the slow response is because those people are black and they didn’t support George Bush,” said Ron Walters, professor of government at the University of Maryland.

“And I don’t expect that feeling to go away anytime soon.”

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore, one of Mr Bush’s most visceral opponents, issued a scornful open letter to the president.

“C’mon, they’re black! I mean, it’s not like this happened to Kennebunkport,” he said in reference to the wealthy seaside resort in Maine where the Bush family has a holiday home.

“Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don’t make me laugh!” the ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ director fumed. —AFP