By Kristen Clarke:

Just three years ago, the world watched in horror as news cameras exposed the devastation that washed over the City of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The vast majority of the storm’s victims were African American, poor and marginalized, and their suffering played out in dramatic fashion on major news stations for all the world to see.

Most disturbing was the slow pace of the recovery and relief effort. The days it took for the federal government to effectively respond provoked many to compare New Orleanians’ plight to that of a devastated Third World nation. Many also drew a direct connection between the sluggish pace of the relief and recovery effort and the race and poverty of the storm’s most desperate victims.

Given the searing experience of Katrina, it’s hauntingly disturbing to now witness the horrific humanitarian crisis unfolding in Haiti. In late summer, Haiti was battered by a series of unrelenting storms including Tropical Storm Fay, Hurricane Gustav, Tropical Storm Hanna and Hurricane Ike. Over 800 people were left dead, more than a million left homeless, and in some areas, the country’s already vulnerable infrastructure was left  close to complete ruin. The United Nations World Food Programme reports that the storm destroyed more than 60 percent of Haiti’s crops, a loss exacerbated by the fact that relief supplies were slow reaching the country’s more remote areas. Food prices  have risen dramatically, and reports of increasing malnutrition among children have become common.

The most poignant symbol of the storms’ impact was the collapse earlier this month of a three-story school located right outside the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince, that killed at least 90 students and teachers and injured another 150.  In the aftermath, reports indicated that the school, College La Promesse Evangelique, had been poorly constructed – much like other schools around the country.

At first glance, these two calamities might seem to have little in common. After all, one occurred within the richest, most powerful country in the world; the other, within one of the weakest and least powerful. Yet, in both crises, the race and the desperate poverty of those suffering the greatest hardships bear a striking resemblance. Haiti is one of the least-developed countries in the Americas: It has a literacy rate of just 53 percent and nearly 80 percent of the population lives in poverty. Louisiana has one of America’ s lowest performing school systems and highest poverty rates – 19.6 percent of its people live in poverty, compared to 12.4 percent of the total U.S. population.

This begs the question: are we willing to tolerate despair and destruction when faced by groups that are already teetering on the margins?  The speed with which the federal government crafted an aid package to help bailout corporations tangled in the growing economic crisis certainly suggests that America’s leadership is capable of providing quick and significant relief – when such aid is deemed necessary – to reduce the impact of disaster. But the sluggish response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and to those now suffering in Haiti suggests that there are limits to our benevolence as a nation.

Our neighbors in Haiti, only 600 miles south of southern Florida, desperately need meaningful intervention and assistance from the international community – assistance that, to date, has not come fast enough. The recent experience from Hurricane Katrina should serve as a call to arms and propel us to deploy every resource necessary to bring immediate relief and aid to those suffering in Haiti.

Kristen Clarke is Co-Director, Voter Protection Practice Group at LDF.