A Nation's Castaways

Katrina Blew In, and Tossed Up Reminders of a Tattered Racial Legacy

By Lynne Duke and Teresa Wiltz

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page D01

On TV, we watch them: His braids are flying above his head and he's got a wild look on his face. He's running, one arm clutching a load of looted clothes, the other reaching back to tug at his pants, which are in danger of sliding past his rump. She's crying and forlorn and too young to be carrying a baby in her arms, but carrying one she is, and both are dirty and sweaty and hungry, reduced to an animal-like state of waiting and starving and begging for help. We see them through our respective prisms of race, and call them "refugees," as if they are foreigners in their own land.