Weak response to Katrina is a deal-breaker
By Jasmyne A. Cannick
Guest Columnist
Those black Christian pastors who urged their congregations to support President Bush because of his views on abortion and gay rights have got to be kicking themselves for their blind allegiance to his moral agenda.
The world, including black pastors, watched the cavalier disregard that Bush showed for the black poor in New Orleans with shock and awe. The shocked and disgusted certainly includes many black Christians in New Orleans, whom Bush has relentlessly courted, and who were key to his trek back to the White House.
Bush and right-hand man Karl Rove expect big things from them in 2006 and 2008. Louisiana is a key part of the Bible Belt South, and though New Orleans has a reputation as a liberal, free-swinging oasis in the South, many of the city’s blacks, including the poorest of the poor, are devout Christians. They are the ones that Bush and Rove consider key support allies. But what did they get for that support? Thousands of lives and homes lost, billions in lost income, and an utter disregard for their safety.
Bush and his black supporters pulled out all stops to woo black Christian evangelical voters to the GOP tent in 2004. Bush used the issues of gay marriage and abortion to catapult his standing in the black Christian community and garner votes for his re-election.
A Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies poll in 2004 found that blacks opposed gay marriage at a higher number than the overall population. Many blacks also detested Kerry’s supposed support of abortion. In polls, Kerry got 20 percent less support from black conservative evangelicals than Democratic presidential contender Al Gore received in 2000.
In 2004, more than 10 percent of blacks voted for Bush, and in Ohio, it was 20 percent.
However, the honeymoon is over for black evangelicals and Bush, as he now is perceived as having abandoned the same blacks that helped put him back into office. Bush’s unwillingness to save the lives of poor blacks in New Orleans has been laid out for the world to see.
Blacks everywhere have been affected directly or indirectly by Katrina.
The heart-wrenching pleas for help from the residents of New Orleans hit home with blacks who are young, elderly, conservative, liberal, Christian, non-Christian, gay and straight.
The issue of race and class has been re-visited in a most distasteful way for African Americans, with a blatant reminder that America doesn’t care for its poorest citizens.
Realizing that a national disaster could happen anywhere at any time, blacks are reflecting on their own situations regarding the federal government. This should have a devastating affect on Bush’s newfound common ground with black evangelicals.
Will the devout black pastors who trekked dutifully to the White House the past few years seeking faith-based money continue to blindly follow a man that the overwhelming majority of black Americans feel abandoned them in the greatest moment of need?
And will Bush be able to look these black pastors in the eye again and say with a straight face, “I did everything I could to help you in your greatest moment of need”?
