Hurricane Katrina - Where are we now?

Two years ago, I remember watching the insane images on television of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and being in disbelief about the completely ineffective government response from this Republican administration.

Two years later, why isn't America remembering this devastating catastrophe? Why aren't the racial and socio-economic issues raised by Katrina and the inept response being discussed? There hasn't been much media coverage. Is the aid getting to the victims? If it is, how is it being used?

Last year, I took Michael Eric Dyson's class where we read and discussed his book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster, which I recommend you read. From Publishers Weekly:

The first major book to be released about Hurricane Katrina, Dyson's volume not only chronicles what happened when, it also argues that the nation's failure to offer timely aid to Katrina's victims indicates deeper problems in race and class relations. Dyson's time lines will surely be disputed, his indictments of specific New Orleans failures defended or whitewashed. But these points are secondary. More important are the larger questions Dyson (Between God and Gangsta Rap, etc.) poses, such as "What do politicians sold on the idea of limited governance offer to folk who need, and deserve, the government to come to their aid?" "Does George Bush care about black people?" and "Do well-off black people care about poor black people?" With its abundance of buzz-worthy coinages, like "Aframnesia" and "Afristocracy," Dyson's populist style sometimes gets too cute. But his contention that Katrina exposed a dominant culture pervaded not only by "active malice" toward poor blacks but also by a long history of "passive indifference" to their problems is both powerful and unsettling. Through this history of neglect, Dyson suggests, America has broken its social contract with poor blacks who, since Emancipation, have assumed that government will protect all its citizens. Yet when disaster struck the poor, the cavalry arrived four days late.

Here are two music videos that we watched in class that I found quite poignant.

Jay-Z Minority Report
Mos Def - Katrina Klap (Dollar Day)

~BT