"New Orleans wasn't built just on a swamp. It was built, too, on the backs of black laborers. White supremacy helped make New Orleans an important place. In recent decades it has become a curiosity of little real import. If the city never recovers, it won't be just because of the natural environment. It will be because long ago the whites of New Orleans, and whites in Washington and around the nation, made a bargain with the devil of white supremacy, and now they, we, will have now lost it all."
A situation like Katrina could have been limited in terms of disaster. Through the reading of this article and the reading of the other Katrina article, along with #3 on the Zweig "Six Points on Class" I can't help but think this true. I feel as if through the centuries of greed and then the years of neglect, New Orleans became a horror story over a stormy night. Having only poor black folk, taking up the majority of the city, of a state that does not contribute much to the function of this country gives clear reason as to why they did not receive flood and water control over the years of asking for it. I really do believe that if it was a white state asking for it, they would have received the help long ago.
Of course class and race play a significant factor as well. Most of the black people being poor made them easy targets for Katrina. How can someone, renting out a space to live in with there family, whom has no disposable income and no means of transportation,evacuate that area. Its an extremely troubling thing to imagine. One of the reasons as to why they are so poor is because they live in an extremely poor part of the country. Which again goes along with the same level of how there state was termed as not important enough to build a levee that could potentially protect hundreds of thousands of people, homes, and centuries of culture.
It's just sad to read about how much damage that happened due to Katrina could have been alleviated. Louisiana was in good hands when the rich white people were present, but once they left, it all ended. Instead black people were neglected and the state was neglected as a whole... except with the common tourist of course. Perhaps what is more disgusting is the fact that certain people of high privilege think that the African Americans standard of living was so low in Louisiana that:“So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this—this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.” Sorry, but that is false. Granted I am assuming something... but I'm sure many of the "underprivileged" would have rathered been in there respective homes, sleeping on there own bed, being dirt poor-but alive and healthy-rather than sharing a bathroom with 100,000 other people going through the same tragedy as the next...
David,
ReplyDeleteYes, the consequences were not natural but constructed. Social and economic structures, over 2 centuries, assured that poor people and people of color had no power and no assets. Consider that their inability to escape was not limited to economic assets - what is the relevance of social and cultural capital?
You've neglected the bigger question here - what is the value of a class analysis?
I agree that this disaster could have been avoided. I read a book last semester which quite clearly stated that the portion of New Orleans which was flooded was an area which was flooded about every 100 years like clockwork, just long enough to escape typical human memory. This pattern, however, may have contributed to the fact that this area was a low income area of the city since no building could survive for over 100 years. I have never heard of a "rich person" building their house in a sure to flood area.
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