September 01, 2006

Why Katrina Hurts

The past week has brought us countless stories on the state of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast one year after the most devastating natural disaster in American history. That superlative is not only appropriate based on the terrible loss of human life, displacement of entire communities and enormous damage to property, but also because with its blistering winds and unquenchable thirst for destruction, Hurricane Katrina bruised the American psyche in an unprecedented way.

Though certainly Katrina was a monster storm, it was not the first hurricane to bring extensive damage and death to American shores. The names Hugo and Andrew still make citizens in Charleston and Miami tremble. But Katrina and its aftermath cut deeper, affecting not only those along the Gulf Coast, but all Americans. Why does Katrina hurt so badly?

In one week, Hurricane Katrina exploded myths of American ingenuity and craftsmanship and exposed inequalities many of us willfully ignore, forcing us to confront the reality that we, as a country, are not exactly what we think ourselves to be.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Americans imagine our country to be one of boundless opportunity where everyone has the chance to hit the lottery. The gap between wealthy and poor, however, continues to expand and threatens to create a permanently impoverished and undereducated class of citizens with a very low ceiling on what they can achieve in the United States. Although most of the time, the elements of the community stuck in this rut are confined to certain parts of the city and heard from only on the local news when being interviewed regarding a neighborhood crime, after Katrina, all over the country Americans were forced to confront the poverty that our nation tolerates. For several weeks, the individuals our society does least to protect were brought out from the shadows and onto their rooftops with pleas for help.

The way Katrina's human toll cut along racial and economic lines exposed for all to see the second America that John Edwards so eloquently brought to life with his "Two Americas" speeches. During Katrina, the haves, the have-a-littles, and the have-a-whole-lots got a glimpse of the have-nots struggling to get by in this country. Katrina brought America face-to-face with its greatest vice, inequality, and many Americans were shocked and repulsed. In this land of supposedly boundless opportunity where anyone can make it through hard work, Katrina drove home the fact that some Americans have it a whole lot better than others.

In addition, the completely bungled response by all levels of government to the unfolding disaster exposed all that is wrong with a current leadership class that is focused more on elections than on governing, more on appearing to help than on actually helping. Such bogus leadership escapes unmasking until a moment of crisis comes along, at which point the empty heads and suits in leadership positions are reduced to impotent spectators. Katrina did a heckuva job of lifting the mask on all levels of government failure.

Add to the leadership vacuum Katrina exposed the extreme slowness and inability of the government to either protect or rescue citizens and you get a genuine national embarrassment. Here we were, the most powerful country on the planet, unable to reach our own citizens in a major city several days after the storm.

And then there was that group of citizens, themselves embarrassing the country by taking advantage of the anarchy of the times to rob, loot and threaten for their own pecuniary gain. They reflected a culture of selfish thuggery where crime is a badge of honor and laws and law-abiding citizens are inconveniences that would best be disposed of. They are not the majority of Americans, but they are part of the American underbelly exposed by Katrina.

Why does Katrina hurt? Because it slaps us in the face with the reality that we are not doing as well as a nation as we think we are. A year later, that reality still stings.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is another well written piece with a lot of truths but there are a few comments I would like to make.

While you correctly point out all levels of government performed badly, it is not true that all the agencies within each level performed badly. One story not told enough is the amazing job the Coast Guard did in rescuing close to 35,000 people. Unlike other government agencies, they were prepared and ready for the storm when it hit. Before word of the broken levies was even known to the mayor, they were on the scene with their boats and helicopters. A good reason casualties were not 10-25,000 as predicted is because of the Coast Guard's work. I don't think there are too many countries that could have mounted that kind of rescue effort on that scale as quickly as we did. So while there was a good deal of ineptitude at the Federal, State, and local level, some agencies like the Coast Guard and the CDC did amazing jobs.

And this brings me to my second point which is the media. The media seems to present narratives that are narrow, conformist, and often inaccurate and this is what happened with Katrina. While there is no doubt that Katrina exposed the nation to the terrible poverty and hopelessness of many poor black people (images we are not accustomed to seeing on a daily basis) contrary to the story presented by the media, black people did not suffer disproportionately and the problems in protecting and rescuing them were a result of government ineptitude at all levels and not racism. Katrina was an equal opportunity destroyer. If any group of people suffered disproportionately to their numbers it was old people both white and black.

Uneven Kiel said...

Thanks Phil. I appreciate your pointing out the work of the Coast Guard. I do think there are quite a few good stories about Katrina, particularly of the rescue variety, and it is often difficult when things go terribly wrong to remember that they truly could have been a lot worse.

On your second point, I'll preface by saying that overall I think the media stinks. Its interests ($$$) are not lined up in any way with the citizens it holds itself out as protecting by being the watchdog of the government, etc. And with Katrina, I don't think there is any doubt that it was an equal opportunity destroyer regardless of whatever the media focused on for its own benefit. However, I would argue that, more than the storm and immediate aftermath itself, the rebuilding effort has been disproportionately difficult for African Americans - there was a recent New Yorker article along these lines, laying out the ways some decisions were made during the rebuilding that seem to indicate a lack of consideration of the interests of those African Americans most effected. I would not call it racism because I don't believe there is anumus involved, but it should not be written off as coincidence - there are reasons African Americans get the short end of the stick more often than other groups (and some fault lies within the African American community itself) and those reasons should be addressed.