‘Getting over’ Katrina
7th September 2011 · 0 Comments
In late October of 2005, as unsecured loan with no credit if on cue, national conservative media hosts began calling for the people of New Orleans, especially the Black citizens, to “get over” the effects of Hurricane Katrina…an odd request from folks who today can’t seem to “get over” Michele Obama wearing sleeveless dresses…or more to the point, the reality of having a Black man in the White House.
Six years later, getting past the worst human caused disaster in U.S. history is still difficult, but it shouldn’t have been. The United States has both the resources and the responsibility to have completely restored all of the neighborhoods and provided for the swift return of all those who wanted to.
In fact, the opposite has happened. A process that should have been finished in two years still drags on today, hampered by a potent combination of administrative incompetence and political/ethnic/class hostility. Six years later people who owned homes are still jumping through hoops, fighting to return.
Some have died trying.
John Kennedy is often quoted as saying that cash advance flatwoods ky the Chinese symbol for crisis is a combination of the symbols for “danger” and “opportunity.”
The story of Katrina will be a story of missed opportunities that could have a happy ending, but not without a fight.
The Katrina disaster was an opportunity for the U.S. Government to openly acknowledge its deadly negligence of the levees and make fair restitution to all who suffered from it. This has yet to happen. Instead of taking the moral high ground the government has been adversarial and punitive toward victims. What was done right was the rebuilding of a stronger, better levee system.
Katrina was an opportunity for those in power to rise above their petty prejudices and demonstrate to the world the goodness of the human spirit. Instead, from the beginning we saw how mean-spirited and uncaring all levels of government, law enforcement, media and other sectors of this society could be. People were forcefully prevented from fleeing the flood by sheriffs in neighboring parishes. Lives were lost, property taken and San Antonio 78214 cash advance harm was done by those sworn to protect and to serve.
Katrina was an opportunity to show the world the awesome things that could be accomplished if all sectors of a city pulled together to make it work for everyone. It should have been a story of how a city united to overcome its greatest test. Instead New Orleans has been made the petrie dish for racial gentrification that borders on ethnic cleansing. Irrational but hasty decisions in housing, education, business and healthcare made it clear that, to those in control this was, indeed all about race and racial domination.
The still-decimated Black neighborhoods across the city refute, or at least qualify, the rhetoric of rebuilding. The sense of betrayal, exclusion and oppression is palpable. Blacks too young to remember what white people call the “good ole days” are now starting to understand why their grandparents have no interest in returning to those times. To many, NOPD has been reduced to a local terrorist organization that defies accountability for the actions of its officers.
But within this slimy mess still lies a pearl of an opportunity. Beneath this mountain of darkness rests a diamond, a chance to create a better outcome.
Black people still have the raw numbers to alter the complexion of the local leadership and to create a greater political equity. With vision, organization and education, the collective pain of the community can be turned into a passion to create a city that is better for all than the one that existed before the hurricane.
Be not deceived: New Orleans will never be better because the few continue to prosper at the expense of the many. Now that truly is the old way of operating.
The “new” New Orleans will only be better when all groups fairly share the power, resources and prosperity that this great city has to offer. And that is absolutely possible.
This article originally published in the September 5, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
