UCONN Prof Jelani Cobb: Still ‘Racism in High Places’ of Government

On MSNBC’s Saturday show “Melissa Harris-Perry,” associate professor of History and director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut Jelani Cobb explained that the problems in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are equivalent to the flood in Denver in 1963, as well as the flood in Mississippi in 1927 in that there is still the “same degree of bureaucratic ineptitude and racism in high places,” which allows vulnerable populations to be impacted and displaced.

“What happens in 2005 is a replay of what happened in 1965, there’s a replay of what happened with the great flood of 1927 with those same sorts of vulnerable populations, the same sorts of questions about the levees, the same sorts of people who wind up being disproportionately impacted and displaced. And most disturbing, the same degree of bureaucratic ineptitude and racism in high places that allows this to continue and be exaggerated.”