Jay-Z & Diddy Donate $1 Million, But Racism Said To Be .

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Jay-Z & Diddy Donate $1 Million, But Racism Said To Be Thwarting Hurricane Relief Efforts


Last night, two of music's biggest names, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, joined together to donate $1 million to the American Red Cross. However, reports of racism on behalf of relief workers is said to be thwarting efforts to get desperately needed water, food and medical supplies to the people of New Orleans.

Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter and Sean "Diddy" Combs join together to donate $1 million to the American Red Cross to help the victims and refugees of this national disaster. In addition, both stars have pledged immediate donations of clothing from the Roc-a-wear and Sean John clothing collections, in order to provide essential dry clothing to those who have lost everything.

The stars remarked that, as African American men, they could not stand by and do nothing as communities they knew waited for help.

"This event has devastated hundreds of thousands of people. We, as African American men and leaders of our community felt it was a necessity to join forces and help. Diddy and I are committed to supporting our people in whichever way we can," said Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter.

But much needed aide has failed to get to the areas most desperately affected, namely the New Orleans Superdome where necessary food and water has not reached the mainly African-American population of women, men and infants in four days. Many, including Chris Matthews of NBC's Hardball, are calling the failures "racial."

"We talk about 'the big one' out in San Francisco.... Well the big one in America is race -- that's the San Andreas fault of this country. And to see it so vividly displayed between poverty and middle class and white and black, right out there with those people begging for water, a basic human need, and to see that in way that looks like it's racial, really rips the scab off of this country," said Matthews on The Today Show this morning. "This is the thing we don't want to face, and now we're going to have to face it."

This morning, President Bush stated in an address that "the results are not acceptable." He will tour Biloxi Mississippi but will only fly over New Orleans, supposedly over security concerns.

Carl Quintanilla, a reporter in New Orleans, spoke on the Today Show about the overblown reports that the New Orleans area is "a riot zone."

"This is not a death trap, these people are not criminals, they need help and all of their frustrations are centered around that."

Quintanilla also remarked that his news crews went outside the city to where ambulances and buses with relief are staged doing nothing. "I'm not going in there," Quintanilla reports one relief workers as saying, "I've told my wife I'm not going in there."

The racial theme became a headline early on in the disaster, starting from disparities in the captions of pictures on Yahoo showing desperate black and white people trying to get food. The captions on the photos of white people stated they "found bread" whereas the black people where captioned as "looters." Yahoo issued this statement:

"Since the controversy began, the supplier of one of the photos - AFP - has asked all its clients to remove the photo from their databases. Yahoo! News has complied with the AFP request. Yahoo! News regrets that these photos and captions, viewed together, may have suggested a racial bias on our part."

NBC Photojournalist Tony Zumbado, spoke to the Today Show this morning about the desperation he captured as he toured the Superdome with his cameras calling the filth, death, despair and devastation he saw "the saddest situation I've ever seen, stateside." He refuted reports of lawlessness saying that people were helping one another and that "There is no security problem in this area at all."

"Imagine a bathroom in a baseball stadium not operating for 4 days with 25,000 people using it," said Zumbado. "Katie, I could not videotape half of the things I saw... it was the most horrific thing I've seen."