According to the Census, the population of New Orleans in 2000 was 485,000 of whom 326,000 were black, 136,000 white, and the remaining ten thousand or so each, Asian or Hispanic. If 75-80 percent of the population evacuated the city safely before the storm hit, as everybody is reporting, that means that far more than half the black population escaped safely before the storm slammed into the city. Even if all those who did not evacuate were black — and that is manifestly not true — 2 percent of the total population is only 121,000. Twenty percent is 96,000. By far the majority of blacks in New Orleans, who numbered as the storm began some 326,000, evacuated in advance.
I've received a few emails from readers wondering if they are the only ones who are sympathied-out. I don't think they are --I think the whining leadership vacuum in NO has that effect, unfortunately-- but Novak goes another way: he thinks we need more compassion for more groups of Katrina's victims. A Christian gentleman!
