New Orleans' racial makeup up in air

The local paper, the Houston Chronicle, actually has some news. This is quite surprising as the front "news section" has shrunk and shrunk under this ownership; the last Chronicle front page I held in my hands had only 10 pages with three full pages of ads plus the rest of the ads.

Anyhow, check out what a Bush cabinet official had to say in a meeting with the Chron's editorial board.

(And they make a point to tell us he's black, so I'm gonna make that point, too. Like we haven't all met black "racists" who look down on their poorer brethren. I think the term "self-hating" is what I'm after here. Sure that pissed somebody off.)

It will be years before New Orleans regains the half-million population it had before Hurricane Katrina, and the population might never again be predominantly black, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said Wednesday during a visit to Houston.

"Whether we like it or not, New Orleans is not going to be 500,000 people for a long time," he said. "New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again." .....

"I wish that the so-called black leadership would stop running around this country, like Jesse and the rest of them, making this a racial issue," the HUD chief said. .....

Alphonso Jackson predicted New Orleans will slowly draw back as many as 375,000 people, but that only 35 to 40 percent of the post-Katrina population would be black.

Jackson said that's because the worst-hit areas were low-income black neighborhoods that may never fully be repopulated.

Prior to Katrina, the population was 67 percent black and 28 percent white.

"I'm telling you, as HUD secretary and having been a developer and a planner, that's how its going to be," he said.

Jackson said he has been asked by President Bush to help New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin rebuild the city.

Freakin' unbelievable.