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Race, Poverty and Katrina

According to a poll taken a week after the hurricane by the Pew Research Center, two thirds of African Americans said they thought that the government would have reacted faster had most of the storm victims been white. Among whites, 77 percent said the race of the victims made no difference.

A live studio audience joins in a conversation with leading thinkers on the lessons Hurricane Katrina offers, about race and class in American society.

Guests:

Juan Williams, NPR senior correspondent

John McWhorter, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute

Tricia Rose, professor of American Studies at UC Santa Cruz

David Shipler, author of The Working Poor: Invisible in America

Douglas Besharov, scholar in Social Welfare Studies at the American Enterprise Institute

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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