It might not be the case. It might be because they think of these people as rude teenagers instead of cute little babies, or because they can't imagine reasons for staying behind - I can, starting with bad ones (they were stupid) and ending with a lot of good ones (they were poor and don't have a car and weren't able to leave).

But for a lot of the actual negative responses, I think race is part of it, even if the people aren't admitting it to themselves. After all, as we all know by now, white people *find* food while black people *loot*.