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On what the White
House said was his ninth trip to Louisiana, Obama will meet with
people who lived through the storm and recovered, heralding a
city reborn.
Obama, who as a presidential candidate in 2008 sharply
criticized Republican President George W. Bush for his
administration's handling of the storm, will touch on that past
again, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the
White House.
"What started out as a natural disaster became a manmade one, a
failure of government to look out for its own citizens," Obama
will say.
"But what that storm revealed was another tragedy, one that had
been brewing for decades. New Orleans had long been plagued by
structural inequality that left too many people, especially poor
people of color, without good jobs or affordable health care or
decent housing."
With 1-1/2 years left in his presidency and a slew of recent
racially charged incidents of gun violence and police use of
force against minorities, Obama has spent increasing amounts of
time publicly addressing racial inequalities.
Obama will note that the city has progressed since then.
"We acknowledge this loss, this pain, not to harp on what
happened, but to memorialize it," he will say. "We do this not
in order to dwell in the past, but in order to keep moving
forward."
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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