Race And Class In Katrina's Aftermath
August 28, 2006— -- In looking back at the year since Hurricane Katrina ABC News took a look at the issue of race and class that was exposed after the storm. We asked a number of Americans, some notable national figures and others who are less well known but who live and work in the region, about these issues. The question we asked:
"Hurricane Katrina highlighted the problems of race and class, both in the affected region and nationally. After the storm, there were calls to deal with those problems. Has any progress been made over the last year? Who is leading positive efforts, and who's to blame for a lack of progress? What do you think could/should be done to address these issues?"
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON
Author and Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities
University of Pennsylvania
Very little progress. The tragic reality is that America failed to take advantage of a wonderful opportunity to engage in discussions about race, class, and poverty and further to do something substantive about that. So in the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the nation, an even more foreboding man-made disaster has occurred and that is indifference to the plight of the poor or barely registered concern about the fundamental issues that make poor people poor-- lack of access to education, incredible social and economic inequality that prevail and, in New Orleans in particular, the failure to rehabilitate that community so that the most vulnerable citizens will be able to thrive.
Many of the positive efforts are being made by grass roots organizations in and around New Orleans where people are exercising extraordinary self investment to protect themselves and to furthermore highlight and underscore some of the major problems in their areas. Beyond that I think that certain institutions of higher education which have tried to focus a big spotlight on these problems are working in the right direction, as well as certain media outlets that refuse to let the government or politicians off the hook.
On the other hand, there has been little movement in the federal government for the relief of the poor. I think there's been a huge failure among politicians and policymakers, and as a result of the failure of imagination among them, I think we're inching closer toward the fear that critics had at the beginning of Katrina that it would become whiter and richer and more conservative and that African-American interests would be progressively closed out. While it's too early to say that's indeed the case, it does appear that the poor people are having a much tougher time.
What could be done is that the federal government could take a much more aggressive role in 1) filtering resources directly into the gulf region, 2) making certain that there is a strong relationship between local, municipal and state government, and the federal government, in the delivery of resources. Three, I think that there could be a greater emphasis upon programs that will have long term effect on the economic rehabilitation of the region. Fourthly, I think what's very important is to understand that while New Orleans may no longer be the "Chocolate City" of old, it is at least a peanut butter city now in the sense of browns and blacks coming in stronger numbers, browns because of the work opportunities there, Latinos and the like. Which means that the Vietnamese fishers who live there, the Native American fishers and farmers, along with the Latinos and African-Americans constitute a very strong minority presence and there's a strong possibility that the government could enable those populations to become more strongly tied to the local economy and it would be reciprocally helpful. It would help the local economy in terms of the jobs that need to be filled that very few people want to fill and on the other hand it could boost the prospects of those working class and working poor people by giving them a decent wage and allowing them to rebuild the infrastructure of the communities that they find dear.
More broadly what should be done is that this nation has to have a conversation about race, class, and poverty. Obviously you can't force people to think about these issues in one particular fashion, but you can invite them to become critical about the means toward the American dream that we have adopted. Are we doing the right thing? Why are so many people who are poor locked out of that American Dream, and it's not because they are lazy or dumb or stupid or disinclined to work, it's because we've failed as a nation to provide opportunity to the most vulnerable. So a real conversation on poverty would be helpful.
One of the tragedies of New Orleans is that there is such concentrated poverty and poor black communities are stocked with poor black schools. Which mean that poor black people in poor black neighborhoods who attend poor black schools have a poorer level or standard of existence. If we can address those issues, a lot of the problems can be addressed.
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU, D-LA
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were colorblind. Lives, hopes, dreams and neighborhoods were destroyed, regardless of race or class. But the fact remains that lower income people, as well as seniors living on small fixed-incomes, are often more vulnerable to the losses caused by major natural disasters because they often lack the means to afford long-term displacement, family relocation, job interruption and loss of income, not to mention medical care and uncompensated property damage.
The effects of these catastrophic hurricanes sadly demonstrated so many of life's inequities, but out of the destruction and suffering people did come together and they forged common bonds that cut across racial, class and regional lines.
BRUCE GORDON
NAACP President & CEO
Those are big questions as I'm sure you realize. The first thing I would say to you is that I think that there has been very little progress on addressing the race and class problems that Katrina exposed. Very little progress in terms of what is happening nationally. At the gulf coast level, the restoration process is painfully slow. Schools are not reopening at any meaningful pace, homes are not being rebuilt, people are not being able to, if not rebuild their homes, recover the equity or the value of their assets so that they can move on with their lives, jobs are not being created. The environment in the gulf coast, particularly in New Orleans, does not indicate at all that there is a commitment to really turning the situation around. So there is very little progress.
On a national basis when you focus on the class issue, a perfect example of little progress is the fact that the minimum wage rate has still not been increased. There has been an attempt to do that for a couple of years. The fact that the minimum wage was not increased most recently through the House and the Senate because it was tied to a state tax relief suggests that trying to tie the needs of the poor with the unnecessary, at this point in time, increased advantage to the rich really demonstrates that there is a class system that is focused on advantaging those who are already advantaged at the expense of those who are struggling to make ends meet. So I think that there is very little progress since last year.
As I focus on the gulf region I think that the number one cause of the problem is the failure of the federal, state and local government agencies involved in restoration to work together to cut through the bureaucracy and actually get things accomplished.
On a national basis, I would suggest that we have competing priorities and that dealing with these issues of the poor in this country right now is a low priority. There is more attention, there are more resources being invested in international policy and not sufficient attention being focused on domestic policy. So I don't believe that the issue of race and class in America is a priority issue and therefore it's not getting attention.
I still believe that particularly as I think of the Gulf Region there are solvable problems there. The conditions that people are struggling with are addressable. All it takes is a clear focus, a clear commitment, it takes some creativity, and it takes some determination.
I live in part in New York City. I live 6 blocks from ground zero. I witnessed first hand, on the front line, what happened on September 11th and what happened in the aftermath to turn it around. The movement, the pace of movement, the level of commitment, the commitment to resources, all of the things that were necessary to turn around a devastating situation in lower Manhattan, all those things they happened. Until that commitment really exists in the Gulf Region comparable to what existed in lower Manhattan, I believe that we will continue to be disappointed month after month, year after year. And the poor and disadvantaged and working class of the Gulf Coast will be no better off than they were prior to Katrina.
JED HORNE
Times Picayune Metro Editor
At the local level I do think there has been progress. For all the ugliness of some of the ways of racial thinking and racism manifested itself in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Here on the ground I think a lot of groups within the city have been thrown together and stirred together in the giant blender that was Katrina in ways that have actually contributed to understanding across barriers of race and class.
There is very little leadership here on the ground and that's the sad truth of it which has resulted in a stalling out of the recovery effort in a lot of different ways. The progress is made at the grass roots level as neighborhood organizations come together, as neighbors come together, as issues are addressed collectively by people here on the ground perhaps in the absence of municipal leadership we've been seeing an invigorated neighborhood leadership.
I think the flip side of the progress at the grass roots level is the sometimes foolish rhetoric that we hear from of the mayor, of from federal leadership where there's race bating in attempts to pander racially to different groups. We had an election unfortunately in the middle of our recovery effort which resulted in the usual follies that one can expect from politicians. The Nagin "Chocolate City" speech was generally regretted and apologized for by the mayor but that was really only the most absurd manifestation of the kind of racial pandering and race bating that has occurred here from on high.
Race is a problem that has bedeviled life in the United States and in the South for hundreds of years. I don't pretend to have a quick and easy prescription for eliminating it from our discourse and from our decision making. I think it requires vigilance and intelligence of people t simply expose themselves to the reality, the human reality, of city life and to be vigilant about the copout that is represented by stereotypical thinking and racism. The failure of imagination, we've seen a failure of initiative at the federal level in terms of responding to the crisis that was Katrina. We need to work on those problems by a failure of imagination in which we see all of ourselves as human beings confronting an enormous municipal challenge.
ROMUALDO GONZALEZ
Immigration Attorney in New Orleans
I saw this morning on one of the television stations, the focus was on the black and white race division. The first thing that came to mind was I'm sorry they're leaving out the Brown. There seems to be such a touchy factor that nobody wants to touch it, like it's nonexistent at the moment. I think it's going to become very acute, because there is the injection of a complete new migration into this area, which I'm specifically referring to the workers that have come here to participate in the rebuilding of New Orleans. It has brought a complete new complexion to this already serious problem by injecting a whole new class into the gumbo. It's frightening that nobody wants to face it. On the one side you have people who say we need these workers to come in, but they don't want to say that publicly.
You know we had our Mayor say something derogatory, his comments about 'not wanting Mexicans to get all the jobs'. I thought that was a horrendous thing to say at the moment, it didn't matter what color their skin was, or whether they spoke at all, we needed bodies here. I thought it was a time when our politicians should be facing the issue, seeing how to accommodate this manpower need versus immigration problems our country has. I felt it was about time a crisis like this would highlight this overall problem and perhaps get some action. I thought it was a good opportunity for our state and our area. It's perception not reality that drives racial problems. And if the perception is that the Mexicans are taking all the jobs, that's bad for overall relations because it all of a sudden pits one group against the other.
I think we need to get past all that and our politicians have to assume compassion and leadership at the same time. They need to say we have a city to bring out of the muck, we had a bad run last year, let's go forward. And everybody who wants to help is welcome.
MARC MORIAL
National Urban League President
Former Mayor of New Orleans
There is slow progress. I mean, where there is progress it's because of the nerve, ingenuity and desire of individuals and community based institutions to help people return. The foot-dragging, and to some extent lack of coordination which has really slowed down the recovery, has taken place at all levels of government. And you've got to distinguish between Mississippi and Louisiana. Louisiana, of course, was far more devastated than Mississippi, but Mississippi was significantly damaged and Mississippi's recovery has moved ahead a lot faster it seems, although both are slow. I think you've got to place responsibility at all levels of government.
I believed from the very beginning that the government, the federal government, should have created a super reconstruction agency, a gulf coast authority, to help coordinate this. Because you've got so many government agencies trying to do so many different things that you just don't get a sense that everybody's on the same page and that's why it's been slow. But you can't take away the fact that there are many, many individuals who on their own, on their own motion, on their own volition are rebuilding their homes and rebuilding their lives.
I think there needs to be more of a sense of urgency at every level of government. And I think that, for example, in New Orleans it's inconceivable to me that a year after Katrina they've not come up with a comprehensive rebuilding plan, that they're still fighting over who will be in charge of the plan, they're fighting over who in fact will oversee the plan, what the contours and the specifics of the plan are going to be. And that's because there's a battle in New Orleans that was started right after Katrina when a number of business leaders really pursued a course that I thought was morally wrong. And that was a course to shrink the city to prevent certain neighborhoods from being rebuilt. It just so happens that not all of those neighborhoods, but a majority of those neighborhoods were African-American neighborhoods. That provoked, I think, a very expected and necessary response where people said no that's not right, I have just as much of a right to return and rebuild my home and my neighborhood as you do. So that's been the tension. It's been a tension somewhat of race, it's been a tension of class, it's been a political tension, it's been a fight amongst neighborhoods. I have said from the beginning, it's my view, that all neighborhoods should have and equal opportunity to rebuild and that government should not unilaterally redline or write off any neighborhood in this process.
Related Stories
ABC News Live