How Black is New Orleans? New census figures don't tell the whole story.(GULF COAST UPDATE)(Report)

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE ACCURATE of Mayor Ray Nagin had he declared New Orleans a milk chocolate city rather than a chocolate one. The U.S. Census Bureau finally released numbers confirming what many people have already seen for themselves: the devastation begun by Hurricane Katrina and continued by inept and/or racist politicians and policies has displaced more Black citizens than white ones, resulting in a noticeable shift in the racial status quo. New Orleans, much to the glee of developers, is now a whiter, older and better-educated city with more pocket change after the hurricane than before.

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The data, compiled and analyzed in a new report entitled "Resettling New Orleans" released by the Brookings Institution, provides a snapshot of the city in 2005 before the hurricane hit and then a year later in 2006. The numbers are as follows: in the city of New Orleans, the Black population dropped from 67 percent to 58 percent while the white composition of the city jumped from 26 percent to 34 percent. These figures mean that Blacks suffered a 57-percent population loss, whereas whites experienced a 36-percent decline.

"What happened is that people who had more money and more resources--both financial and social--who could have gotten out before the storm, did," said Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at Brookings and co-author of the report. For poorer, Black residents, the "choice" to stay was hampered by means as well as actual places where they could go, because most of their kin were in a similar situation. "People's networks didn't allow them to make a move [in or near New Orleans]," Singer added.

Disparities also exist in the destinations of the displaced ...