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I certainly don't believe racism was a motivating factor, but don't expect these numbers to convince anyone. The actual deaths are largely nursing home residents. The reason many of them are white is because while New Orleans is mostly black, there are many whites in the suburbs who tend to go into the city, as they do for most things except affordable housing in safe neighborhoods, for nursing homes.

The complaint about racial discrimination is not focussed on who died, or allegations that they were lifting out white people but not black people. Rather, the notion is that the federal governments' response would have been better if the people at risk were wealthier or whiter. And yes, many poor black people do conflate race and economic class, believing that rich/white people would do more for poor people if they were more like themselves. And Republicans hurt themselves if they treat this association as illogical; there's a lot of poor white people, but what inner-city blacks see of the world is poor black people and the rich, white people who drive past them.

Further, New Orleans is, itself, a city known for poor, black people. Its residents will compare itself to the wealthy "white" people of lower Manhattan. The presence of non-white immigrants in lower Manhattan doesn't help Manhattan to be seen as a less white city. And Harlem in the North of Manhattan simply isn't the same city.

Republicans aren't going to make any headway against this argument that they are uncaring rich, white people this way. Nor will they by attacking Nagin. (His failures are self-evident to anyone who might be swayed.) Rather, they simply need to emphasize what they did do, but that people don't know that they did... like the air left of so many people to safety (what was it, 80,000?), the plans to fortify the levees which the city rejected, and the successful efforts of the non-governmental actions. Let's not forget that we are the party of concerned, God-fearing people voluntarily doing what we can, against the party of "leave it all up to the government."

"The nine scariest words in the English langauge [are] 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'... Government is not the solution to our problems, government IS the problem."

-- Ronald Reagan.

"the notion is that the federal governments' response would have been better if the people at risk were wealthier or whiter. And yes, many poor black people do conflate race and economic class, believing that rich/white people would do more for poor people if they were more like themselves."

Sometimes there's not much incentive for elected officials in poor black municipalities to work constructively with an administration. They get called sell-outs by political rivals. How do you get re-elected when you're Hitler's house negro?

If those municipalities would be friendlier to the federal government, then yeah, the government's response might be better than if there was an adversarial relationship.