01
Sep
Race, class and Katrina
“Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the “human storm” - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation’s history, it’s striking how often political turbulence followed.”
That’s conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks writing about the as yet unrealized aftermath of the devastation created by Hurrican Katrina. He ends his column on the relationship between great natural disasters and social change by urging his readers to “take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come.”
It’s a safe bet that anyone watching the wall-to-wall coverage of this disaster has in fact noticed that nearly everyone trapped in New Orleans, dead or alive, is black. But as Slate’s Jack Shafer notes, television reporters have largely avoided the subjects of race and class, preferring to stick with a unitary vision of America.
When disaster strikes, Americans—especially journalists—like to pretend that no matter who gets hit, no matter what race, color, creed, or socioeconomic level they hail from, we’re all in it together. This spirit informs the 1997 disaster flick Volcano, in which a “can’t we all just get along” moment arrives at the film’s end: Volcanic ash covers every face in the big crowd scene, and everybody realizes that we’re all members of one united race.But we aren’t one united race, we aren’t one united class, and Katrina didn’t hit all folks equally. By failing to acknowledge upfront that black New Orleanians—and perhaps black Mississippians—suffered more from Katrina than whites, the TV talkers may escape potential accusations that they’re racist. But by ignoring race and class, they boot the journalistic opportunity to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of a whole definable segment of the population. What I wouldn’t pay to hear a Fox anchor ask, “Say, Bob, why are these African-Americans so poor to begin with?”
Brooks is a conservative Republican; his last stop before the Times was the neoconservative Weekly Standard. Shafer says he’s a Libertarian. Neither writer addresses the question of social justice, although Brooks perhaps come closer with his recognition that Katrina is far from the only natural great disaster to disproportionately affect the poor. It’s significant, though, that these two stories arise from quarters not typically associated with questions of racial and class equality.
Because they went to press before it occurred, the two columnists didn’t have opportunity to address New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin’s decision to divert police from search and rescue efforts to combatting the widespread looting in the city, a decision that with the exception of protecting hospitals and shelters cannot but be interpreted as valuing property over life in a city where people, mostly poor, mostly black, are still dying because there are not enough rescue workers to save them all.
Brooks points to the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood of 1889 and the 1927 Mississippi flood, another New Orleans disaster, as pivotal social events, with the former propelling the class-related fury that led to the trust-busting presidency of Teddy Roosevelt and the latter contributing to the rise of populist Louisiana governor and, before his assassination, likely presidential candidate Huey Long. He could well have added another disaster, albeit not a natural one: The Great Depression, which led to Franklin Roosevelt’s massive, unprecedented social engineering schemes.
Whether Katrina will lead to another outbreak of national introspection and social change remains to be seen, but the Shafer and Brooks stories, coming so soon after the storm, suggest at least the possibility. And it seems increasingly likely that the shortage of rescue and security personnel exacerbated by the deployment to Iraq of some 10,000 National Guard troops from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama will lead to yet deeper public disillusion with that war and the drain on our resources it represents.
But America has become a country in which introspection is unfashionable and the sort of political courage required to address questions of race and class is in short supply. It’s difficult to picture leading Democrats, who remain so terrified of controversy that they refuse even to acknowledge the public majority who reject the president’s handling of Iraq, standing up to denounce the economic and social inequalities so dramatically highlighted by the storm. If there’s to be an examination of those issues, the impetus will have to arise elsewhere.
One measure of where we are on those questions may come when the government begins exploring compensation for Katrina’s victims. The 911 compensation fund paid out an average of nearly $2 million to survivors of the victims, who were overwhelmingly white professionals, and the spokespersons who emerged among the survivors to push for compensation and the establishment of the 911 commission were also mostly white, educated and articulate. What can the poor and uninsured among the survivors of Katrina expect? And who will speak for them?
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On a mostly unrelated note: Bush just said that no one anticipated the levees in New Orleans might collapse. Is comment required?
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UPDATE: The BBC World Service is all over the decision to move police from rescue operations to looting control in New Orleans.
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Struck me initially that the NO mayor is facing a Sophie’s Choice situation, and, after thinking about it, realized both he and Gov. Blanco have been pushed into this law and order stance because of the initial media coverage of the looting.
At one point, I read some NO cop official saying that they don’t shoot looters, also read about cops helping to transport “liberated” bottled water, Pampers, etc., to areas of town where no one could get near any provisions. Sounded like a great idea to me.
But the cable shouters were going on and on about the lawlessness, the looting, the AP labeled photo of black guy with bag of stuff as “looting” and white couple with stuff as “finding” bread.
The class/race distinctions are always there.
Where are the National Guard who could be posted on each block? Oh, yeah, BushCo’s War of Choice.
Oh, regarding “is any comment necessary” concerning Bush saying no one could have anticipated (read “imagined”) hurricanes causing storm surges and heavy rains and rising water levels and levee breaches: Did his interviewer make any comment about flooding of NO being one of the top 3 most possible and dire emergencies for the nation to plan for?
Probably not, right?
September 1st, 2005 at 3:38 amOne other major historical development as a result of the Great Flood of 1927 was the culmination of the Great Migration. Southern blacks, first hauled to the levees to defend them and then left to rot when the levees collapsed, fled the flooded zones for Chicago.
Huey Long’s brand of American populism was truly born during that flood, and was so successful that it very well might have swept Roosevelt out of office. (How Long might have handled foreign policy is something I cannot determine.)
However, Long’s assassination essentially ended that strain in American politics. Perhaps a new voice for progressive populism will emerge from these troubled waters.
That voice doesn’t seem to be rising out of the Senate Democrats, though.
September 1st, 2005 at 3:45 amPossibly. But possibly not.
But if the reports that lots of people had been getting guns and ammo are reasonably true, than there would seem to be a requirement to get law and order down there. And evidently at least one cop was shot in the head by a looter — I would not expect the cops or government to take that lightly. And today there are reports of shooting at the helicopters coming to rescue people.
Think about what one of our complaints about Rummy was during the looting of Iraq, he didn’t crack down on looting fast enough.
The problem is not that the government is trying to stop looting, the problem is that the government is so undermanned that it cannot focus on both rescue and looting at the same time.
September 1st, 2005 at 3:53 am“mayor Ray Nagin’s decision to divert police from search and rescue efforts to combatting the widespread looting in the city, a decision that with the exception of protecting hospitals and shelters cannot but be interpreted as valuing property over life ”
I disagree. If the looting gets bad enough, violence follows. In fact, it seems to me that the reason for the get tough stance is just that - the looting got violent. If they let it go now, it seems as though it will escalate (at the very least, that is a good and sincere guess). I do not believe _anyone_ gives a darn about all those flat screen TVs or DVD players. My .02
September 1st, 2005 at 3:54 am“Perhaps a new voice for progressive populism will emerge from these troubled waters.”
Trouble is that part of the bargain in choosing to become that voice is that it most likely will get you killed. I hope I don’t have to run down the list. Would you sign up for a job knowing that somebody else is going to retire you from it without warning?
September 1st, 2005 at 3:55 amJason: The problem is that there aren’t enough personnel to go around. There are places that have to be protected, as with the Superdome and hospitals, but otherwise you’re trading the lives of people who are still trapped with no water, food or medical attention for the sake of stopping the looting. There are something like 10,000 National Guard troops on the way and they can help deal with the looters.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:05 amReports this morning were that armed gangs were active in the city. Now, that may be horseshit; I don’t know. If it’s true, however, then I think the mayor’s decision to combat this is not simply a decision to “value property over life,” because escalating violence is every bit a threat to life as the floodwaters. Moreover, there’s a value to preserving some semblance of social order.
Of course, the real question is: Why was a choice between restoring order and rescuing survivors necessary in the first place? Why weren’t sufficient personnel in place before the storm, or at the very least, flown in the next day? The failure of leadership here is becoming apparent.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:09 am‘No One Anticipated’ the Levees Would Break?
I heard Bush say in an NPR sound bite that “no one anticipated” that the levees would break in New Orleans. (The only copy I can find on the web yet with minimal searching is on this blog.) WTF? As…
September 1st, 2005 at 4:09 amGentlemen, the “looting” by black persons and “finding” by white persons shall continue until some semblance of regular supplies and provisions make their way into the city. The “armed gangs” or “armed thugs” are being forced into existence to allow the people to fend for themselves while the police and the National Guard thwart all attempts at survival in the name of property rights.
We know the attempts at survival are being consciously and willfully stopped because we have neither pictures or stories of people walking or attempting to drive the remnants of I-10 or US 90 in order to reach civilization. Not to mention that those who took the “personal resposibility” to actually leave are being denied refuge at the Astrodome.
All the while we on the outside are being prepared for, effectively, permanent abandonment of the nation’s most critical petrochemical port and the city surrounding it.
In a year $5/gallon gas will sound cheap, and we will all have former residents of Nola for neighbors.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:31 amImagine if this had been a massive terrorist attack instead of a natural disaster? 4 years and billions of Homeland Security dollars after 9/11, and our country is no better prepared for disaster than it was then. If this doesn’t starkly illustrate the incompetence of the Bush Administration, then nothing does.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:50 amthere should be political fallout over Katrina
Kevin Drum says both conservatives and liberals ought to avoid political infighting over Hurricane Katrina. I happen to disagree. Bush needs to be held accountable not only for hurricane lack of preparedness, but having National Guard troops who coul…
September 1st, 2005 at 4:52 amI’m still trying to confirm this and have not yet been able to so take that into consideration. I have heard from 2 different sources today that President Bush reduced the amount of money to repair and maintain the levies in New Orleans so that he could pump up the dollars for Iraq. Anyone else heard this?
September 1st, 2005 at 5:09 amThere are two good reasons for moving police to control looters.
1. Rescuing is not their business. There should be federal and state level people doing that and the mayor of NO should not be covering their lapses.
2. The violence will hinder the rescue efforts. They cannot evacuate people when other people are shooting at the rescue workers.
So it might be a bit more complex that you are suggesting.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:19 amMy searching has paid off. I answer my own question. While Katrina may have been an “act of God”, much of the death and destruction was an “act of Bush”.
On nine occasions in 2004 and 2005, The New Orleans Times-Picayune specifically cited the cost of the Iraq War as a reason for the shortfall in hurricane- and flood-control funds. The levees that gave way under Katrina’s pressure were supposed to be upgraded with money that ended up in Halliburton’s coffers.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:21 amYou might want to see my Op-Ed piece in today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution. The federal, state, and city policy was set at least as far back as July, 2005, saying: We will not help anyone evacuate New Orleans in case of a hurricane. The reason given: We have a lack of resources. That meant the poor, aged, carless and infirm would left to their own devices.
This of course is unconscionable. Here is what I said at my blog PJNet.org .
September 1st, 2005 at 5:24 amThe other reason for quelling the looting was to stop people who evacuated coming back to protect their property. There also were people who stayed behind to protect small businesses and such. It would be hard to get them to leave without the area being secure.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:51 amit’s not true that “nearly everybody” still in New Orleans is black. I’ve got good friends from New Orleans, white folks, and have heard lots of news re: their family, friends, neighbors still there — lots of older folks who didn’t feel comfortable getting in that traffic jam out of the city, and the “I’ve been living through hurricanes for 50 years now” types.
BUT these people are in their own homes — mostly in better-off neighborhoods on higher ground — they are NOT walking about desperately dying on the streets.
See this, from the from Times-Picayune breaking news blog, to help confirm my point:
Alert in Algiers
Wednesday, 10:05 p.m
Several residents of Algiers Point have posted door signs telling would-be trespassers that they are home and have guns to defend themselves. Resident Vnnie Pervel, former Algiers Point Association president, said he and a few other residents had been trying to sleep by day and patrol the streets at night.
Oh gee, no preview.
September 1st, 2005 at 7:35 amGross Negligence
Dear Mr. Chertoff, I’m officially petitioning American Heritage Dictionary to place a Wall Street Journal style picture of you next to the word “incompetent” in their next release. Until your interview on NPR this evening I was willing to give…
September 1st, 2005 at 2:47 pmIt did not take long for the “blame Bush” crowd to point their arrows at the President. I too have been very concernd about the delay in getting help to the victims of Katrina. Yet, this disaster is unprecented in American History. Many people, businesses and relief agencies are moving forward to provide help. Others, however, choose to take the opportunity to sit back and complain. These are the same kind of people who think that the government should supply everything for everybody all the time and that all problems can be prevented (by other people) This is nonsense. If an asteroid were to come our way tomorrow, Bush, FEMA, and others would be blamed for that too. In the mean time, I am so thankful for those who are trying to help. Lead,follow or get the heck out of the way.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:50 pmIn 1998, the Army Engineers recommended that the levees of New Orleans be upgraded to withstand a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, and President Clinton denied them the money necessary to complete the upgrade. There is enough partisanship in this country, and there are ways to blame both the Democrats and the Republicans for the escallation of this disaster. I thing that the finger-pointing needs to stop, the thugs currently acting as a de-facto government in New Orleans need to be stopped, aid must be administered, and the city needs to begin the long, arduous process of rebuilding.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:51 pmKevin Drum, rightly, has changed his tune.
Joined with him … voices over in the libertarian/conservative Volokh Conspiracy Blog with one post saying it all: “Where’s George.”
Brooks on the News Hour tonight sounded like his “thesis” was a bit too stretched — disasters further movements, but the social movements he mentioned were a factor of much more than a few natural disasters.
The failure of gov’t — again we find out we actually want the darn thing — was better expressed on that episode.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:54 pmYou can’t be “concerned” and not also “blame” people — you are “concerned” that not enough is being done. As to FEMA, if you read the criticisms, you will see it has been hurt specifically under Bush years vis-a-vis the reign of James D. Witt … who was actually a footnote in the anti-Gore campaign, people saying he lied about being at an appearance with him.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:58 pmJames Lee Witt.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:59 pmInteresting new revelation==a person can’t be “concerned” without assigning “blame.” Perhaps a nice philisophical argument but… Just a bit wide of relevant to anything.
PS.I am concerned about my childrens’ future — and yet I have not blamed anyone. How did I do it?
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:13 pmRE: Race, Class & Katrina
Unfortunately, race, wealth and social standing are often factors that affect the outcome of circumstances in the U.S. It is true that the Katrina victims will be “snubbed” and will not receive monetary compensation like the 911 victims, but not necessarily for reasons of race. Awarding millions of dollars to the families of 911 victims was a politically motivated big mistake. Many people in this country and others have suffered from disasters–natural and manmade. There isn’t enough money in the world to pay out large sums of money to “deserving” victims regardless of ethnicity or class or wealth or circumstance.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:13 pmAnd although racism surely exists both in and outside the media, no one news organization has a hold on compassion or owns the patent for racial sympathy. And jumping to conclusions without knowing the facts is not only irresponsible, it is silly. There actually is a functional difference between “finding” and “looting” in a disaster such as this–no matter the color of the person involved. Searching for and taking water and food during a disaster is a reasonable action. Loading up on stereo equipment is not.
Certainly socio-economic inqualities persist in this country; likely always will. But speaking from experience, disasters do indeed affect all segments of society. Try to tell a middle class woman who lost her husband in Gulf Port that she has not been affected as much as the poor. Some New Orleans citizens did not evacuate for good reasons. Some people, black and white, made the decision to stay and bet wrong. Instead of counting the racial distribution of persons making this unfortunate decision we should just…. Hey, here’s an idea, lets provide disaster aid to all who need it right now and PRAISE ALL of those who are trying their best to provide relief.
Corey: Lots of people lost someone and some things. The city is gone for everyone, pretty much. The point is that officials at every level knew in advance that a whole lot of people, mostly black, didn’t have the resources to get out of town, and they were left to fend for themselves. People with cars and money had the opportunity to leave or find shelter in hotels; people with no cars and no money didn’t, and they didn’t have anywhere safe to go.
Lots of people are doing their best to save lives. But a much smaller group of people who are responsible for directing that effort did a very bad job of planning for this, and they should be held accountable now, particularly the ones trying to fob off responsibility on the victims.
Before dismissing the 911 compensation fund as a politically motivated mistake, ask yourself why the victims and survivors had the clout to warrant that political response. Would the political response have been the same, and would the survivors have enjoyed the same advocacy and access if the planes had missed their marks and gone down north of 125th Street? Maybe so, but unless they hit Clinton’s office building, I doubt it.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:50 pmre the concern/blame, a bit lame, but I didn’t mean in all cases … I meant in this specific situation. If said person was “concerned” w/o finding any fault (a bit hard in the current situation unlike your children’s future scenarios), my apologizes.
Nah, I should have kept my mouth shut. :-X
September 3rd, 2005 at 7:19 pmI just scanned a few of the posts. Here are some realities about New Orleans.
In Louisiana there was a great move by the poor farm workers to the large towns and few cities in the 1950’s & 1960’s due to being replaced by machines. They had few skills and no place to work.
Our governor was elected by the poor underclass, especially New Orleans, no question about it. Locally, we think that she broken under pressure. There are severre questions about her administrations communicating with our Federal Government. At the same time one of our U.S. Senators, another woman, was undoubtly elected by the poor underclass, of New Orelans in particulare, and has served us well during this time of need of leadership.
FEMA’s former head has now been employed by our governor and has stated publicly that the New Orleans disaster was far worse than trial assessments performed in the 1990’s under his administration.
The U.S. legislature does not seem to understand the extreme need for restoring Coastal Louisiana and how it affects the nation’s no. 1 estuarial fishery. We provided levee protection years ago for the lower Mississippi River which cut off the replenishment of silt to the delta. The Mississippi did in recent history try to change its course to the Atchafalya River above Baton Rouge in the mid 1970’s.
New Orleans proper has been frought with extreme corruption over the bast 20 years and its present mayor has done much to correct this. It is reported to be still present.
On a local news broadcast (Baton Rouge) a soon to be former NOPD lieutnant advised that the NOPD precincts had no emergency supplies and no firearms other than the issued pistols.
For anyone comparing the logists to that of Iraq, plese keep in mind how many months it took to make ready for the Iraq invasion. I can assure you that it did not take one week. Let us consider that the area affected is more than 1/2 the area that Iraq occupies and that Iraq has large areas of desert, and flooding in the hurricane area makes it logistically impossible to compare the two no matter what the area comparison is.
If there is caution about the evacuees in Baton Rouge it has some deserving qualities. For instance, my wife, a former New Orleanian was in a local bank on Thursday helping her brother, from New Orleans, get some banking taken care of and one of New Orleans “finest” stole her cell phone in the bank lobby. Calls to that number revealed an accent of the answering thief which was undeniable about what type of person that was. The answer for any question was “Yo mamma.” Since that time the milling about in Baton Rouge has considerably subsided. The comment, aired publicly, by our mayor and chief of police (both of a “minority” race), who are highly esteemed in the local populace, may have had a lot to do with this.
In my own opinion, greed and corruption, not race has had a lot to do with the sinking of New Orleans for the last 30 years, not the last 6 days. Only some ignorant to Louisiana and New Orleans could say such a thing. However, I may be wrong.
September 4th, 2005 at 6:51 amKermit, just one comment: It took a day to get the Berlin Airlift started: One day. Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana a week ago yesterday, authorizing FEMA to get down there and “save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe.” I saw the Jefferson Parish guy on Meet the Press talking about FEMA turning help away from his people. I guess my point is Louisiana isn’t Iraq, and a lot of resources were just a few hours away.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:34 amSobering news coming from a very old American city. Is this the time to debate social injustices in this country? Perhaps, perhaps not. Around the world mankind continues to treat each other with disregard, many times due to race, and many times more due to religion. As for this disaster, it didn’t discriminate — it picked a latitude and longitude and swept everything up in its path, black, white, rich, poor. Those not able to evacuate in New Orleans were mostly poor, elderly, and at least a few of the stubborn persuasion. I don’t believe asking the news media to report the stories any differently is the answer – you would rather have them say we are NOT in this together? Great, then I’ll tune in SportsCenter…no, the answer is to report this as an American tragedy, and to treat this or to report this as another instance of racial inequality is an insult to those who are suffering (black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, Cajun, …).
The fact is, this is a disaster of unprecedented proportions, with unforeseen consequences (levees – yes, there is always a known danger, but in fact it wasn’t the levees that broke but the flood walls along the canals); as the Guard commander pointed out, it is a DISASTER, that is why things are so messy. There apparently was no real plans in place at the local, state, or federal level to evacuate the poor and elderly from the city (see Professor Leonard Witt’s comments and op-ed) due to lack of funding and resources. This wasn’t something planned because the potential evacuees were black and poor. This is simply a lack of money at all levels, a lack of priorities, whatever. Had this area been Beverly Hills, of course there would have been different results – the wealthy there would of course be more vocal in the politics and have had better access to their representatives. But it wasn’t Beverly Hills, it was a major US city with a largely black and lower middle-class population. That’s reality – now, let’s pull together and fix the process but not tear ourselves apart with race bating comments and finger pointing and holier-than-thou proclamations. I say we ARE in this together and need to fix it, together!
September 5th, 2005 at 2:11 am