“This administration was colorblind in its incompetence,” Obama said at a conference of black clergy, “but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane…All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see,” he said.

“Those ‘quiet riots’ that take place every day are born from the same place as the fires and the destruction and the police decked out in riot gear and the deaths,” Obama said. “They happen when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people all across this country look at the way the world is and believe that things are never going to get any better.”

chris and i (with co-authors kelly fawcett and kristin bates) have a chapter coming out about race and voter disenfranchisement in the south, with particular focus on new orleans after hurricane katrina. the problems are enormous. will we find the political will to address them before the potential “quiet riots” erupt into further devastation?