Weather Crash Moment
OK, so with so much talk about Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans (and other places along the Gulf Coast) and racism, I wanted to take a moment to sound off.
It's obvious that there are discrepancies in responses in the wake of this monster storm. Based on all reports - media outlets, congressional reports, and online sources - those who are poor and black (for the most part) were left behind when help finally came to the region. Even now, months later, it seems like those who were left out in the elements, if you will, are still suffering from abandonment. Many of these are displaced children living in cities hundreds of miles from home.
But the news reports got me thinking...if race wasn't the primary reason for a poor response, why are so many of the faces and voices African-American? It finally struck me while this looks like active racism (and I'm NOT subsrcibing to conspiracy theories at the moment), maybe it's something else, something closely related to racism. I've never known Mother Nature to just pick on the darkest among us, although that tsunami of a year ago didn't strike any American suburbs...
Anyway, what struck me was the idea of the legacy of racism, which is the flip-side of the white privilege coin (for interesting and in-depth discussion about owning white privilege, take a look at Tim Wise's work). In most parts of the country, maybe the world, waterfront property is the bastion of the wealthy. Not the case with New Orleans and southeastern Louisiana. Why? Well, think about it. Why would the wealthy not want to live close to the water? Reminder: the water we're talking about is the Mississippi River -- lifeline of the east, and shipping lane and dumping ground of industry. All of this ends in delta lands -- land that is muddy, below sea level, and a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other disease-carrying vectors. In other words, land unfit for rich folk (that's code, by the way) but great for working poor (more code). As time passes, and laws change, New Orleans' role in the slave trade as well as its development of a community for free African-Americans allowed for many Blacks to settle here, so that by the 2000 Census, more than 67% of all New Orleans residents are African-American and 20% of all residents are below the poverty line. Now imagine you can't afford insurance (so you don't want to leave your valuables behind), you can't afford to leave, or, if relocated, won't be able to afford to return. I'm neither a mathematician nor a statistician, but if one were to run the numbers, you'd see a correlation. In the end, given the history of this country around race and class, it was not surprising that the majority of the visible victims of Katrina were black.
One can expect the public outpouring of compassion to wane now that we're several months away from the event. Wonder if it will disappear completely with this week's news that Hurricane Katrina was more than likely a Category 3 storm and not at Category 4 as originally believed...
OK, so with so much talk about Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans (and other places along the Gulf Coast) and racism, I wanted to take a moment to sound off.
It's obvious that there are discrepancies in responses in the wake of this monster storm. Based on all reports - media outlets, congressional reports, and online sources - those who are poor and black (for the most part) were left behind when help finally came to the region. Even now, months later, it seems like those who were left out in the elements, if you will, are still suffering from abandonment. Many of these are displaced children living in cities hundreds of miles from home.
But the news reports got me thinking...if race wasn't the primary reason for a poor response, why are so many of the faces and voices African-American? It finally struck me while this looks like active racism (and I'm NOT subsrcibing to conspiracy theories at the moment), maybe it's something else, something closely related to racism. I've never known Mother Nature to just pick on the darkest among us, although that tsunami of a year ago didn't strike any American suburbs...
Anyway, what struck me was the idea of the legacy of racism, which is the flip-side of the white privilege coin (for interesting and in-depth discussion about owning white privilege, take a look at Tim Wise's work). In most parts of the country, maybe the world, waterfront property is the bastion of the wealthy. Not the case with New Orleans and southeastern Louisiana. Why? Well, think about it. Why would the wealthy not want to live close to the water? Reminder: the water we're talking about is the Mississippi River -- lifeline of the east, and shipping lane and dumping ground of industry. All of this ends in delta lands -- land that is muddy, below sea level, and a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other disease-carrying vectors. In other words, land unfit for rich folk (that's code, by the way) but great for working poor (more code). As time passes, and laws change, New Orleans' role in the slave trade as well as its development of a community for free African-Americans allowed for many Blacks to settle here, so that by the 2000 Census, more than 67% of all New Orleans residents are African-American and 20% of all residents are below the poverty line. Now imagine you can't afford insurance (so you don't want to leave your valuables behind), you can't afford to leave, or, if relocated, won't be able to afford to return. I'm neither a mathematician nor a statistician, but if one were to run the numbers, you'd see a correlation. In the end, given the history of this country around race and class, it was not surprising that the majority of the visible victims of Katrina were black.
One can expect the public outpouring of compassion to wane now that we're several months away from the event. Wonder if it will disappear completely with this week's news that Hurricane Katrina was more than likely a Category 3 storm and not at Category 4 as originally believed...
posted by A. D. Thinker at 7:16 PM
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