Baton Rouge, La. ? From the storm-created squalor of New Orleans to the polished halls of Congress, the ticklish issue of race erupted Friday in connection with the government’s slow relief response for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

It arose because of riveting scenes showing thousands of mostly black victims suffering for days with little food, water or medicine while no one came to their rescue – images that will not go away quickly in the wake of the hurricane’s mighty assault on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

“You want to know why all those black people are stuck down there dying?” asked Yvette Brown, a black evacuee from New Orleans. “If they were white, they’d be gone. They’d be sending in an army of helicopters, jets and boats.”

Brown saw potential racial bias in the fact that thousands of people were trapped at the convention center for days, crying out for help. Some were elderly and sick, some were children in need of baby formula.

In New Orleans, the city’s mostly black, mostly poor seventh ward was mired in hip-deep water and its residents tired, thirsty, hungry and angry. Race played a role, some said, and so did economics. “Every time there’s a flood here, it always goes through the poor people,” said Richard Boissiere, 60.

Military troops give aid to an injured woman on the sidewalk near the convention center Friday in downtown New Orleans. A huge military presence has arrived in the city, restoring order and bringing food and water to feed thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina.

But not all held the view that racism was involved. “I don’t think it was racist,” said Edith Thibodeaux, 40, of New Orleans’ east side. “They were just trying to save the area for the tourists. It’s about how much money they can make in this city. They don’t care about us.” Both Boissiere and Thibodeaux are black.

At the River Center in downtown Baton Rouge, La., evacuees from New Orleans sat idly on cots and folding chairs. Lakeshia Evans, 29, who is black, said race did not play a factor in the rescue effort. She was brought to the state capital Thursday from the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.

“There were white people on their houses, too,” she said. “A lot of people pull the racist card, but I think it (the storm and the conditions) affected everyone.”

Congressional leaders

In Washington, though, congressional leaders focused their criticism on the race and class issues raised by the vivid scenes of suffering.

“We cannot allow it to be said that the difference between those who lived and died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age or skin color,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters in Washington.

He also had a message for President Bush, saying that “God cannot be pleased” at the relief delays. Later in an interview, Cummings said: “What motivates a person, it’s hard to say. But you can look at the results.”

Black congressional leaders shied away from directly blaming racism for the slow evacuation. Instead, they said that because blacks trapped in the city without transportation are poor and powerless, they were more easily ignored. But they did not deny race was part of the picture.

“People see class, and they also see race,” Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., another Black Caucus member, said in an interview. “It (the conditions in New Orleans) just tended to dramatize the plight of a segment of the population that has been left out and behind.”

Rice to visit area

Suggestions that race might have been a factor in the relief response seemed to prompt the Bush administration to send out one of its top Cabinet officials, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, herself black, to say that such allegations are not true.

“That Americans would somehow, in a color-affected way, decide who to help and who not to help – I just don’t believe it,” she told reporters at the State Department. A native of Alabama, Rice said she would tour the devastated area on Sunday “for a president who cares deeply about what is going on in the Gulf region but can’t be everywhere.”

Rice said of any racial implications: “I think everybody’s very emotional. It’s hard to watch pictures of any American going through this. And yes, the African-American community has obviously been very heavily affected.”

Bush himself toured the region on Friday, and showed his displeasure with the delayed U.S. government response.

Project 21, an organization of black conservatives, took issue with statements by Congressional Black Caucus members that race contributed to the delays in relief. Project 21 said in a statement that such a claim amounted to “racially politicizing a natural catastrophe.”

Flood victims receive food and water Friday from the National Guard at the convention center area where they have been waiting for days to be evacuated from New Orleans.

And not all the evacuees in Baton Rouge saw race as a factor. “I just think they don’t have enough boats and helicopters to rescue them,” said evacuee Ore Butler.

Jesse Jackson criticizes efforts

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., criticized the slow relief operations and said the federal government should have had the nation’s airlines move the victims to cities around the country. He said the victims should not be put in tent cities or in sports stadiums, but rather in hotel rooms. “Where are the hotels of America, the airlines?” he asked.

But Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., took a more measured approach, saying in Chicago that while it was not a coincidence that so many blacks were left behind in New Orleans, it is not a conspiracy.

“What’s true in this country is what’s true across the world, which is in the midst of natural disasters the poor and the vulnerable end up getting hit the hardest,” he said.

Emergency planning in the future must take into account people who can’t afford a car or a plane ticket, he said.

“If they had been white, middle-class Americans, they would have had the ability to push the right levers to make things happen quicker,” Lewis said.

Refugees or homeless?

Jean Selders, another evacuee in Baton Rouge, took issue with some commentators calling them refugees. “We’re homeless,” she said. “It makes us sound like we’re from another country. We’re from this country, born and raised here.”

Cummings and other Black Caucus members also took issue with calling the victims refugees. Cummings suggested that perhaps some displaced people could be housed in shuttered military bases.

Bruce Gordon, president and chief executive of the NAACP, said he is going to the Gulf Coast states this weekend to speak with federal emergency officials, the Red Cross and black community leaders “to make sure there is a more sensitive approach” in relocating victims.

Rapper speaks out

“When all is said and done, it’s hard to avoid race in this situation,” Gordon said in an interview. It is a matter of both race and economic class, he said. “The issue is sociological. It cannot be ignored. It cannot be denied. People have to be accountable for what happened.”

Others had a harsher assessment. The Associated Press reported that rapper Kanye West, appearing on “A Concert for Hurricane Relief” simulcast Friday night from New York on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and Pax, said America was set up “to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible.”

Comedian Mike Myers was paired with West for a 90-second segment that began with Myers speaking of Katrina’s devastation. Then, to Myers’ evident surprise, West began a rant by saying, “I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they’re looting. See a white family, it says they’re looking for food.”

While allowing that “the Red Cross is doing everything they can,” West – who delivered an emotional outburst at the American Music Awards after he was snubbed for an award – declared that government authorities are intentionally dragging their feet on aid to the Gulf Coast. Without getting specific, he added, “They’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us.”

After he stated, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people. Please call – ” the camera cut away to comedian Chris Tucker.