Natural Disasters in Black and White: How Racial Cues Influenced Public Response to Hurricane Katrina

This paper extends findings on implicit racial bias to public opinion concerning natural disasters. Using an online experiment, we show that racial cues embedded in news coverage of Hurricane Katrina influenced public support for governmental disaster assistance. First, exposure to a white rather than African-American hurricane victim made participants more likely to cite the federal government than private relief organizations or individual victims as the appropriate source of assistance. Second, participants awarded higher levels of disaster assistance and for longer periods of time after reading about the white victim. We obtained parallel effects, although on a smaller scale, by substituting a news report about crime and looting in New Orleans during the immediate aftermath of the hurricane for one that focused exclusively on the scope of the destruction.