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Reflecting on lessons storm taught about race and poverty
Associated Press
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To explore the racial and economic dimensions of Hurricane
Katrina and its aftermath, The Associated Press asked notable Americans
who know the stricken region well to share their thoughts on a broad
set of questions:
"Katrina exposed a deep divide of race and poverty - along the Gulf
Coast and in America. Has that divide narrowed at all in the past year?
And do you find reason to hope that it will narrow in the future?"
Here are their words:
---
THE REV. ANDREW YOUNG, a New Orleans native who worked alongside Martin
Luther King Jr., served as a congressman, United Nations ambassador and
mayor of Atlanta.
I don't think it's been narrowed in the past year. I don't think we've even admitted it.
Race and poverty are not two different things in the Gulf. That was one
of the things that I was sure of, even though we saw black people's
pictures on television at the Dome. There's never been a racial
identification of the body count.
And from what I know about where people lived in that region, I would
be willing to bet that more white people died than black people, and
that in the areas that flooded along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and
bayou, there were more white people. Black people got on television,
but white people died. So I don't think we ought to look at this as a
race issue, but as a poverty issue.
We almost can't deal with poverty because of race. I think that's still
the case in New Orleans and I don't see anybody even admitting that.
Even poor white people don't admit that they are suffering as much - if
not more - than poor black people. Poor white people are ignoring the
fact that they are the amongst the most exploited people in America.
It's one of the things I don't see any hope about yet. Unfortunately,
both blacks and whites have racialized the issues about New Orleans.
Once they get racialized, they get buried.
---
CHEF LEAH CHASE, 83, known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine. She and
husband of 60 years, Dooky, are restoring their hurricane-damaged
restaurant, Dooky Chase's, which was a gathering place during the civil
rights movement. They live in a FEMA trailer across from the restaurant.
People get mad at me because I don't talk about race or racism. To me,
poverty is the thing. If you don't have money, you're going to have a
hard time at everything, no matter what your skin color is.
I was in Birmingham (where she and her husband evacuated during
Katrina) and I looked at those poor people wading through that flood
water and it just broke my heart. They were there because they were
poor. They didn't have money, or a vehicle, or a way to get out of town.
That situation in the Superdome was horrible, heartbreaking. The people
there were poor. And sometimes people will hit me with, "They're poor
because they're black," and I can't always go along with that.
When I looked at everything on television, I said, "Well, I didn't do
my duty. I didn't try to tell these people, like my parents told me -
`Pick yourself up out of this poverty.'"
... Find a way to get some money. Get yourself a job, or if you get a
welfare check, don't spend it all on groceries. Find a way to put some
of it away, save it up and get yourself a vehicle. Find a way to raise
yourself up. ... Start a business. I was never ashamed of anything I
ever did for work, be it washing, ironing, cooking. Do something and
use it to get ahead.
That talk about a "Chocolate City," that was so silly. If it's a
chocolate city, where is the green going to come from? Because most of
us don't have a lot of that. The color this city really needs to think
about is green.
---
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, a New Orleans resident and professor of history at
Tulane University, is the author of more than 15 books, most recently,
"The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi
Gulf Coast."
When writing "The Great Deluge," I was uplifted by hearing how many
white Americans recognized that racial bias existed in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina and wanted to openly address the dilemma.
Sara Roberts, for example, an accountant from Lake Charles, La., had
helped organize the Cajun Navy, a flotilla of recreational fishing
boats aimed at saving lives in flooded-out New Orleans East. As a white
woman, Roberts was proud that she was pulling African-Americans out of
attics and off of balconies. She prided herself in not being a bigot.
An event occurred, however, which forced her to think more
introspectively on the issue of racism in America:
On one boat rescue ..., Roberts saw two African-Americans coming out of
a Rite Aid with big bags full of merchandise. She had seen looters on
her TV back in Lake Charles and now they were in front of her very
eyes. Her blood boiled. Creeps! Swine! Degenerates! People all around
were dying, and they wanted things.
It made her stomach turn. She later confessed to being extremely
"judgmental," convinced that their bags were full of radios, CDs, and
cameras ...
"Later that day I saw those same black guys in a 15-story high-rise,"
she recalled. "They had taken those supplies and were passing them out
among these elderly people that had been left behind, people that were
desperate for Gatorade, energy bars, medical supplies and things of
that nature. It made me very ashamed.
"At that moment I realized they were taking care of the people they
loved. I put myself in their position: If I had an elderly mother or
partner or friend or child that was in trouble, I would stop at nothing
- nothing - to help them. How wrong was I to judge..."
The hope of race relations in post-Katrina America depends on all of us
confronting our inner demons ... We must stop always snapping in
knee-jerk fashion that racism doesn't exist. It does. And it takes
courage to admit bias. ... That is where the healing begins.
---
STEPHANIE MINGO, 44, lived in New Orleans' St. Bernard housing project
until Katrina; her family evacuated, floating children in a
refrigerator with the door removed. Mingo, who works for Orleans Parish
Schools, has organized protests against tearing down public housing.
The mayor says he wants a chocolate city. You know what happens with
chocolate when you leave it out too long? It melts. All of us are gonna
end up melting and disappearing. We're gonna wind up melting if the
mayor don't do nothing about it, and they haven't done nothing.
They're not doing nothing for us because we're black and we're poor.
They just can't get in their heads that the poorest people spend the
most money. They spend the most money, and they're the hardest working
people.
The black politicians, they're forgetting about their history books. ...
Since Katrina, I think it's gotten worse for poor people. I really do.
Even with all those jobs they say they have available, some people say
they still can't find work. But the first thing I always tell people
is, 'Don't feel sorry for yourself. Just get up and do what you need to
do.'
Many days, I want to cry, but it's like, 'Stephanie, Just get up and do what you gotta do.'
You sleep at night. You wake up in the morning. You take your grandbaby to school. You send your children off to camp.
I'm really blessed. I've been fighting and I continue to fight. I'm
just praying and asking the Lord to give me strength, and he's been
answering my prayers.
---
ANDREI CODRESCU, author of "New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of
Writing from the City," is the MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of
English at Louisiana State University. A regular commentator on NPR, he
divides his time between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Katrina tore away the thin veneer of the unstated agreement to not talk publicly about race. ...
"Race" has become a code for poverty and crime that is used by
conservative politicians to vote against social change. Black leaders
have also soft-pedaled the issue of race because they were afraid of
losing what social programs were left.
Katrina revealed that there are people in America much poorer than it is publicly acknowledged. ...
The nation didn't know just how segregated we are. Now they know.
The nation didn't know just how bad our segregated schools are. Now they know.
Katrina also taught us that the government does not care much about the
black and the poor unless they are embarrassed by the media in front of
the whole world.
I was hoping that some social political awareness would come out of
this, but the government has thrown oodles of money at our state and
city officials, enough to corrupt them even if they were straight
before. Instead of an organized effort to rebuild both houses and
communities, we are going to have a frenzied free-for-all for the cash,
like a Mardi Gras mob yelling for beads.
I'm not sure what the spirit of New Orleans is, but if it's any
indication from the past, it is one of dancing drunk while your pockets
are being picked. That spirit thrives unbroken. Everything else will be
there, for show, but it will be brand-new, like Vegas.
---
WILLIAM F. WINTER, 83, who as Mississippi governor (1980-84) championed
reforms to raise public school standards, led President Clinton's
national initiative on racial reconciliation.
While the devastating force of nature played no favorites ..., its
impact has had a disproportionately harsh effect on those who had the
least.
... The emotional trauma that comes from seeing all of one's physical
possessions swept away, made more tragic in many instances by the loss
of loved ones, is hard enough to deal with in every situation, but it
must surely be almost unbearably difficult when there is absolutely
nothing left. That was the case for so many families.
What the storm also revealed, though, was the magnitude of generosity
and philanthropy of people and organizations from all over the world
who rushed in as first responders to alleviate the suffering and
despair. We must rebuild the Coast in the same generous and
compassionate spirit.
I had the privilege of working with the Gov.'s Commission on Recovery,
Rebuilding and Renewal under the superb leadership of Jim Barksdale,
(which ensured that in rebuilding Mississippi's losses) there had to be
the widest possible inclusion of people in the process. Those outside
the normal corridors of influence and power had to be involved in the
decision-making...
The ultimate success of the rebuilding of the Coast will be measured by
more than its visible physical structures. It will perhaps more
importantly be measured by how well there is established a way of life
that is based on inclusiveness, tolerance, fairness and equity for all
who live there.
---
CHARLES REAGAN WILSON is a historian and director of the Center for the
Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
He is general editor of "The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture" and
editor of six more volumes on Southern cultural history.
Images of African-Americans trapped in flooded New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina will long haunt this country. Crying for help from
rooftops and from the streets outside the Superdome and the Convention
Center, the people remaining in New Orleans were not only
African-Americans, they were poor...
The storm surge leveled everything on or near the Mississippi coastline
(where fewer blacks lived), leaving less of a distinctively racial
impact than in New Orleans. Still, the poor in Mississippi will have a
harder time of recovery than the well off. ...
Americans who have visited the Gulf Coast for the cultural pleasures of
the French Quarter, the excitement of Mississippi's casinos or the
relaxation of the beaches discovered last year the racial and economic
disparities that marked these places. A year later, racial and economic
divisions have in many ways grown worse, especially in New Orleans.
The entire context of race relations has shifted. The biggest factor is
that 350,000 people who used to be New Orleans residents have not
returned since Katrina, and 80 percent of those are black. ...
The demographic context for discussing race and poverty in New Orleans
includes a 25 percent larger Hispanic population now than before the
storm, with itinerant workers doing much of the rebuilding because they
are willing to accept low wages...
The work of faith-based groups seems to offer the best glimmer of hope
that Americans have sought not only to aid in recovery but to address
the divisions of race and poverty...
---
ANNE M. MILLING, a community activist in New Orleans and past chairman
of the Loyola University Board of Trustees, is a founder of Women of
the Storm, a group responsible for bringing many members of Congress to
visit post-Katrina New Orleans.
A year later, there are glimmers of hope. Will we eradicate urban
poverty or solve centuries of racial tensions? Positively no! Yet, a
new reality now bridges the deep racial and economic divide: Eighty
percent of our homes were severely damaged; families and friends are
still dispersed across America. This reality presents a rare
opportunity to alter past grievances as we seek innovative solutions to
mutual problems.
Women of the Storm, a recently formed grassroots organization,
epitomizes the new paradigm. Frustrated by the lackluster response from
members of Congress and their unwillingness to tour the
hurricane-ravaged area, 130 women of diverse ethnic and economic
backgrounds chartered a flight to Washington, where we hand-delivered
personal invitations on Capitol Hill.
... We were bonded by post-Katrina pain. Each is passionate about
rebuilding her community. This spontaneous esprit de corps among
mothers, grandmothers, housewives and businesswomen underscores an
awakening - a new hope in the city.
Women of the Storm is not a unique example. Racially mixed
neighborhoods are undertaking a massive rebuilding effort, shaping the
future while maintaining European, African and Caribbean influences
that define the soul of New Orleans. The planning process, an in-depth,
honest dialogue among ALL neighbors, is succeeding...
Katrina's devastation is also the catalyst for a radical upgrade of a
school system, shattered more by decades of neglect than by the
storm....
Unprecedented challenges face New Orleans. No city has had to address
simultaneously the plethora of critical needs. Will we succeed?
Absolutely!
---
NORMAN FRANCIS, son of a barber in Lafayette, La., became president of
Xavier University in 1968. Still in that position and working to
rebuild Xavier after Katrina, he is chairman of Gov. Kathleen Blanco's
Louisiana Recovery Authority.
A lot of people who had become comfortable thinking we had made
significant progress in race relations were taken aback, because they
felt that America had solved the major problems of racial disparities.
They were shocked to discover the depth of poverty and helplessness.
They had seen the statistics, but had never seen them in human terms.
...
In this last year we've seen an opportunity to have a clear discussion
without code words, without the accusations of racism, on both sides,
that often stop these kinds of productive conversations in their
tracks. ...
I can't say what percentage of people have been enlightened, though. I
still see people who aren't willing to have those honest discussions,
both white and black. I had a cab driver tell me he thinks the levees
were bombed. I could only say, 'I hope you don't believe that.' We as
African-Americans don't help ourselves by believing that sort of thing,
because then we ignore what the real problems are.
What the last year has highlighted is, hopefully, a greater
understanding of what some of us have been saying all along:
Disparities are still out there, and we cannot live under the belief
that race doesn't matter. It does. Let's get on with the business of
saying, 'Where does it matter, and where can we address and close those
disparities?"
---
JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN, 91, a professor emeritus at Duke University,
assisted Thurgood Marshall on the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v.
Board of Education and, half a century later, chaired President
Clinton's Initiative on Race.
... The New Orleans tragedy speaks in a loud but eloquent voice that
racial inequities in the United States persist. One need only to visit
Uptown, in the neighborhood of Tulane University, and the Ninth Ward, a
remarkable concentration of African-Americans, to conclude that in the
pre-Katrina days it was racial disparities as usual. There were low
wages for blacks, as well as poor housing, a false romanticism
surrounding Mardi Gras, and a lack of general support for education and
social well being.
As far as race in America is concerned, Katrina was just another
example of the failure of the people of the United States to come to
terms with a centuries-old problem ... and make a forthright effort to
solve it. Thus, it ranks with the failure of our schools to serve the
needs of blacks and whites alike. ... It is a bed-mate with the
disparities in housing, not only in New Orleans but across the nation.
...
There are many lessons to be learned from Katrina. Perhaps the most
important one is ... an appreciation for the common threads that bind
all mankind together (and that) the best way to achieve a better world
is to treat all mankind as decent human beings.
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