Video surfaces of Obama in 2007 suggesting racism slowed aid to post-Katrina New Orleans - Part 1

It's the Obama speech on race you probably haven't heard.

In June 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama told a mostly black audience of ministers that the country's leaders "don't care about" New Orleans residents, suggesting the city was neglected in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina because of institutional racism, according to a video uncovered by The Daily Caller.

In the address, delivered during the upswing of the Democratic presidential primary season, candidate Obama specifically criticizes in outspoken terms the decision not to waive a federal law known as the Stafford Act that requires communities hit by disasters to match 10 percent of federal aid.

"When 9/11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act. ... And that was the right thing to do," he tells the crowd at Hampton University in Virginia. "When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, 'Look at this devastation. We don't expect you to come up with your own money. Here, here's the money to rebuild. We're not going wait for you to scratch it together, because you're part of the American family.' "

Obama, echoing rapper Kanye West's infamous anti-Bush remarks a couple years earlier, then argues that New Orleans was treated differently, suggesting the reason was that the city is mostly black.

"What's happening down in New Orleans? Where's your dollar? Where's your Stafford Act money?" Obama says. "Makes no sense. ... Tells me that somehow the people down in New Orleans they don't care about as much."

The speech was reported on at the time, but the Daily Caller said it had obtained clips from the speech that had never aired. It posted what it said was the complete speech on the website.

FoxNews.com asked the Obama campaign to comment on the the Daily Caller report and the video but has yet to receive a response.

By January 2007, nearly a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina hit, the federal government had committed $110 billion to relief efforts in areas hit by Katrina through a variety of programs, including Community Development Block Grants, funding for the Corps of Engineers and Small Business Administration loans, according to a report that May by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic and Statistics Administration.

But at the time of Obama's speech, there were still concerns about federal response to the disaster under the Stafford Act, which governs relief efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was unwilling to waive the law's 10 percent local match provision for aid, like it did after the Sept. 11 attacks and other hurricanes.

"One reason cited for FEMA's reluctance to waive the 10 percent match in New Orleans is concern about corruption," the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies said in a 2008 report on the relief efforts.

That report also noted that then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco was pushing in early 2007 for a federal law eliminating the 10 percent match. The House passed the bill, but it stalled in the Senate and President Bush had threatened to veto it.

The video of Obama's 2007 speech, surfacing barely a month before the presidential election and the night before Obama's first debate with Republican rival Mitt Romney, could complicate Obama's efforts to avoid a politically risky debate over race that partly ensnared him during the 2008 race. Four years ago, his fiery pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, became a political liability over videos that showed Wright making controversial statements.

Obama, after initially defending him, eventually was forced to condemn Wright publicly, and the controversy prompted Obama to deliver his much-heralded 2008 address on race in Philadelphia.

Wright reportedly attended the 2007 speech, and in the video obtained by the Daily Caller, Obama is heard calling Wright "my pastor, the guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He's a friend and a great leader. Not just in Chicago, but all across the country."

The Daily Caller also highlighted a segment in which Obama questions federal priorities in transportation spending.

"We need additional federal public transportation dollars flowing to the highest-need communities. We don't need to build more highways out in the suburbs. If we have people in the cities right now who want to work but have no way to get into those jobs, we've got to help connect them to the jobs that exist," Obama said. "We should be investing in minority-owned businesses, in our neighborhoods, so people don't have to travel from miles away."

• Category

  News & Politics

[argaucho]

No doubt the Democratic party and the mainstream media are responsible for the moral, economic collapse of America as we know it. Romney is a true American!

[markusbrownicus01]

Obama is an all-out liar. This speech was given on June 5, 2007. Two weeks earlier on May 24, the Senate voted 80-14 to waive the Stafford Act for the city of New Orleans. Of the 14 people who opposed the waiver, Barack Obama was one. So two weeks later, he gets up in front of a black audience and decries how racist America is for not-waiving the Stafford Act (which it did) and omitted the fact that he voted against the waiver. This is what a Community Organizer does.

[jason decker]

yea good job on history buddy. how does that apply to today? rich white people fucked other races long time ago therefore stick it to whites now to get even? how does this make any sense. Racism isnt nearly as strong as it used tobe in white community, grouping the entire white race in 2013 for crimes committed long before most of us were born. Fuck racism coming out of a white or black mouth. today we are all equal.

[Darwin Xavier]

You're pathetic, liberals are retarded. I'm not big on conservatives either, but liberals are freaking retarded.

[Darren Brown]

Republicans are always trying to discredit black people...modern day Nazi's

[Darren Brown]

Fox News is pathetic!

[Andrew Mclean]

obama is a true nigga white people mad because hes been using his white voice now his negro voice came out aha i love it i truely do .. he can say anything when hes running but now test him and see the true him

[Teo MC]

LOL Romney supports everything Obama did

[raceand faith]

Notice he said in the case of Katrina it is not true but not period. The Government has always hated black people and support all attacks on them.

[thedavid00100]

I really oppose racism whether from Afro Americans or White Americans, but please enough with this constant accusation of Obama being racist. When you read American history, the most horrifying and inhumane acts have all been carried out by white Americans not black Americans.

[Nobama Period]

What a stupid answer. You talk the same way to anybody which means who you really are unless you have 2 or more faces.