With the natural disaster that has devastated the country of Haiti, the world has come together to aid the desperate peoples of that nation with food, supplies, health care and money. The earthquake presented an opportunity for President Obama to convey to the public his desire to help and restore the stricken country. The government’s immediate and swift action toward Haiti left me, and many others, remembering a tragedy closer to home: 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Not only have the similarities of these two tragedies become linked, but questions and opinions are beginning to be voiced in regard to the swiftness of Haiti’s relief versus the delayed response to New Orleans.
 Although both were catastrophic, the earthquake that has devastated Haiti has literally ruined the country’s ability to function. Before the United States government and 30 other nations intervened, the Haitian government was not able to fully attend to its people. In regard to Hurricane Katrina, this event caused damage mainly along the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama; roughly 100 miles of the United States. Our government provided necessary relief, albeit in a slower fashion than in Haiti, because only a small region had been affected. Essentially, the natural disaster in Katrina did not devastate an entire nation, unlike Haiti.
 There has been speculation regarding the president and whether President Obama and his background and politics are key factors in the relief Haiti has received. Many of us remember the infamous statement made by rapper Kanye West while he was participating in a telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief. West said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” While this outlandish statement was an exaggeration, many thought that it held some truth because the primary victims with Katrina happened to be African- American and the response to some of the hardest hit areas took a while. However, in the situation in Haiti, the U.S. government, led by President Obama, an African-American, saw an immediate and organized call to action. While the idea that President Obama’s race may have affected his sensitivity toward the situation in Haiti and triggered his urgency to help an already-faulty nation maybe preferential or even a bit racist, President Bush’s delayed reaction may have been fueled by his belief that the levees could withstand Hurricane Katrina.
 When it comes to the aid that was supplied to the devastated areas, it matters not how long it took, but that it eventually got there; although immediate aid during Hurricane Katrina would have saved more lives and, consequently, brighter futures, our nation took away many lessons from that catastrophe and applied this knowledge to the earthquake in Haiti. So when it comes down to the center of the matter, it seems pretty petty to make comparisons between life-changing events; what we should be assessing is how we are going to better the lives of the Haitian people with what we have learned from previous occasions and what we will learn from this tragedy.