The lessons of Katrina

By Pamela K. Taylor

We have all been horrified by the events surrounding hurricane Katrina – the scenes of death and destruction, the ineptitude of the government’s preparation and response, the self-righteous and self-justifying comments from the Bush administration. And that horror has resulted in a huge outpouring of generosity, from residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast using their personal boats to save neighbors, to people from other parts of the state and country opening their homes to refugees from the storm, from truckloads of clothes, food, diapers and blankets, to cash donations of millions of dollars.

The question remains, however: will the hurricane and the horrific suffering it has caused serve as a wakeup call to our society, or will we, in a few short weeks, return to life as normal, congratulating ourselves for our generosity when people were in the most dire need? If we are to avoid repeats of the disaster – in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast or in other cities across America – we need to take a long, hard look at our economic system, our national prejudices, and the systemic racism that underpins our entire society, and then move to correct them.

Poverty

Reports are that 35% of black families living in New Orleans did not have a car and up to 25% percent of the population (black, white, Latino, etc) did not have enough cash on hand to buy a bus ticket. Will America move from mourning the terrible divide between the rich and the poor in our country to taking concrete steps to close the gap? Steps like:

• Mandating a livable minimum wage (our current minimum wage generates a monthly income of $824 for a 40 hour work week, no wonder so many couldn't afford gas or bus tickets)
• Closing loopholes in our tax code that allow the hyperwealthy to pay minimal or no taxes, and maintaining our commitment to a progressive tax code
• fixing problems with the estate tax by exempting family farms under a certain acreage and small business with an annual profit below a determined point rather than eliminating it completely, once again giving a windfall to the rich at the expense of the poor
• Changing the way we fund our schools so that schools in poor, urban districts are funded as abundantly as schools in rich, suburban districts
• Maintaining and renewing our commitment to affirmative action programs that have been instrumental in helping eliminate the effects of systemic discrimination
• Offering reparations to the African American community for the lingering disadvantages created by slavery and segregation, and compensation for the exploitation of the lives and labor of their ancestors that enriched our country without enriching their community.
• Perhaps most important of all, will we finally say no to spending billions of dollars a day in ill-thought out military adventures overseas (whether was/is in Vietnam, Central America or Iraq). Such adventures may be good for certain corporations, but they aren't good for Americans -- for the schools and highways that need those resources; for the poor who need job training, support systems, medicaid; for the elderly who depend on social security for their survival; for cities whose infrastructures are aging; for the soldiers who are killed or wounded, whose families must live without them. If we had put even a tiny fraction of what we are spending on the Iraq war into the levees and into buses for people to evacuate and supplies for those who were in shelters, we would not be talking about thousands of dead people. These deaths should be counted as part of cost of the Iraq war as well.

National Chauvinism

The parallels between Katrina and the December tsunami are haunting. Of course, the Tsunami was on a far, far greater scale, killing far more people. But in some ways, Katrina created a worse mess – with much of New Orleans forecast to be underwater and uninhabitable for weeks, if not months. Comparisons of this sort are abounding – but the truest parallel to be seen is that none of us is exempt from natural dangers and sudden reversals of fortune, any one of us may find ourselves a refugee from natural disasters at any time.

Some of the refugees from Katrina (and, yes, I will call them refugees) have objected to using that word to describe them. One refugee is quoted as saying “The image I have in my mind is people in a Third World country, the babies in Africa that have all the flies and are starving to death. That's not me.” Even our elected officials are echoing the line. Diane Watson, a democratic representative from California said, “‘Refugee’ calls up to mind people that come from different lands and have to be taken care of. These are American citizens.” The news media is no better. Mark Effron, vice president of news and daytime programming at MSNBC is quoted as saying, “There was a sense in the word 'refugee' that it somehow made these United States citizens, people who live in Louisiana and Mississippi, into aliens or foreigners or something less than they are.”

This horrifying national chauvinism should hit any humane person squarely in the gut. For decades people have been decrying American indifference to suffering in other countries, particularly to medical epidemics, extreme poverty, and underdevelopment that can be laid at the feet of globalism, exploitative multinational corporations, a culture of materialism, and personal greed and parochialism. Americans, in return, have pointed to our generosity at times of need. We have justified our preoccupation with our own lives as taking care of family and community, and our lack corrective action by saying we have no control over the government or huge corporations.

Statements such as those about refugees expose the ugly underbelly of national chauvism in a concrete, undeniable, and unjustifiable way. American indifference can no longer be explained away as product of unmanageable and impersonal forces. It clearly stems from deep-seated national bigotry at a personal and individual level. Will we use the similarities of Katrina and the tsunami, and the evidence of our own prejudice hanging out in the wind for all to see, to spur us to counter such blatant chauvinism and its effects? Will we:

• help more Americans develop a sense of all humanity as equals through education, intercultural outreach, and international programs?
• Actively challenge bigotry when we hear it coming from the mouths of our neighbors, or more importantly, from our own mouths?
• Hold radio hosts who spew hateful bias as a marketing tactic responsible for their inflammatory style?
• Demand our elected representatives consider human welfare before American welfare?
• Rein in multinationals bent on exploiting the planets resources to benefit themselves, and take a hard look at our own consumerism?

Systemic Racism

While blatant racism is widely acknowledged as a problem that remains a major issue in much of American society, systemic racism is an equal, but often ignored and denied, evil. The fact that the overwhelming majority of people left behind in New Orleans were people of color, predominantly blacks, should sound a claxon in our consciences. Will the scenes of black people wading flooded streets, fainting and crying out for help in the Convention Center or the Astrodome drive us to examine the underlying causes of poverty and underdevelopment in the African American community? Will we:

• Correct the inequalities that vast sections of the African American community, and other minority populations, experience in terms of education and opportunity
• Fund schools across the nation equitably and fully
• Correct inequalities in the criminal justice system that result in discriminatory practices that disproportionately impact people of color
• Promote programs that work to remove barriers created by systemic racism, such as affirmative action and incentives for minority owned-businesses
• Demand enforcement of civil rights laws
• Invest in the infrastructure of our predominantly black or Latino neighborhoods to the same degree as we do for predominantly white communities
• Confront subtle and blatant racism within the workplace, the marketplace, the government and educational institutions
• Strive for proportionate representation of racial minorities within all aspects of our society, particularly in the seats of power.
• Peer into our hearts and confront our own racist tendencies, whether they be minor or significant, and eradicate vestiges of racism from within.

There are those who have been calling Katrina a sign from God, a wake-up call to eradicate sinfulness from our midst. I would say to them, maybe you are right, but it is not the sinfulness of the residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast we should be pointing to, rather the sinfulness of our own selves and our government that allows such poverty, bigotry, and racism to go unchecked. Let us turn over a new leaf. Confront the problems in our society, and implement real programs to change the state of our country. The suggestions I’ve made are intended to suggest some directions we might go; my list is neither comprehensive nor complete, but hopefully, if we can pursue even a few of them, we can make life better for millions of people.