Housing discrimination rampant in New Orleans

I'm saddened, but not surprised.

Blacks already feeling the pinch from a housing shortage in the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina are facing racial discrimination in their search for rental property, a survey by housing advocates found.

The survey sent black and white "testers" — paired by matching incomes, careers, family types and rental histories — to inquire about openings at 40 rental properties in metropolitan New Orleans.

The findings, released Tuesday by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, found blacks encountered "less favorable treatment" than their white counterparts in 57.5 percent of those tests.

It's bad enough that New Orleanians, especially in African-American communities, have been abandoned by the Bush crime syndicate. But to face this kind of abuse of the system from their own neighbors is salt in the wounds.

I know racism is a fact in many cities, particularly in the South. But I suppose it was just wishful thinking to believe that the unifying aspects of Katrina, the shared misery, might overcome something as heinously entrenched as racism.