Capitalism: An Unnatural Disaster

“Katrina”: An Unnatural Disaster “I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, “They’re looting.” You see a white family, it says, “They’re looking for food.” And, you know, it’s been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help — with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way — and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us! […] George Bush doesn’t care about black people!”

– Kanye West (September 2nd 2005)West’s “Gold digger” has been remixed by the rap duo Legendary K.O. This remix which criticzes Bush is available as an mp3 here: http://www.k-otix.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=2

Grassroots/Low-income/People of Color-led Hurricane Katrina Relief

New Orleans Indymedia (often down, but sometimes there)

Common Ground Collective (offering temporary assistance and mutual aid to the citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas)

WWOZ New Orleans 90.7 FM Jazz and Heritage Station (in exile)

if so, click here for more information

Links On This Page

Spot the Difference

America Hates You

News on Hurricane Katrina

Stories and Insights into the Ongoing Tragedy

Background Material

Links to Othe Hurricane Katrina Pages

Spot the Difference

Liberals have been talking about how the media wrongly framed what was going on in New Orleans in racist terms, describing Black people meeting their needs as “looters” while white people were described as “survivors”. They are right that this is racist, but they are wrong when they act like it is mistaken or an accident; this kind of double-speak is exactly what America is based on – literally. If Christopher Columbus – the man responsible for tens of millions of deaths in the “New World” – can be said to have “discovered America”, doesn’t that tell you something? If the guy who initiated the theft of an entire continent can claim he just picked it up in history’s “lost and found”, do you really expect a couple of white people who need to eat to survive will be categorized as “looters”? By the same token, if Black people – who built the American economy through their labour, whose exploitation made the American Dream possible – can be accused of asking for handouts or being parasities (as they are, every day of every week, by politicans and journalists and academics and “hard-working white folk”) is it any wonder that anything they do to survive – even just taking some pepsi so they have something to drink other that toxic sludge – can be described as “theft”? I recently saw a pretty good gangster movie from South Africa, called Dollars and White Pipes. The lead character is an amoral opportunist by the name of Bernard Baaitjies, who dreams of being rich like J.R. Ewing on Dallas. To do this he realizes that he must go around scamming and stealing, not from the rich but from people who think he’s their friend. He steals a pair of shoes from a mentally retarded guy, convincing him that it is better for his feet to go barefoot. Next, he steals the guys job, but then manages to get him re-hired at half the wage. Each step of the way he gets ahead by exploiting other people, and each step of the way he frames this as him doing them a favour – and they often believe him. He even fools himself: once he no longer needs the guy whose shoes and job he stole he tells himself that he “can’t aford to carry any dead weight”. Although it is a South African movie, to me Bernard Baaitjies sums up what America is about.

“Having a jail is the first step to making this city normal again.” -CNN September 12th 2005

America Hates You “No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver – no, not I. I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare…. “ — Malcolm X, April 3rd 1964 “They are not refugees. And I hope that everybody in this country and the world stops calling them refugees, because they are not. They are survivors and we, the people, will not let them stand alone. They are Americans.” — Oprah Winfrey, September 6th 2005

For the past nine days America has been transfixed by the sight of people dying in the streets of New Orleans. The shock is overwhelming to many who had assumed that by some God Ordained Rule of the Universe stuff like this only happened in Africa or Asia or some other place where real people don’t live. For the first several days the journalists were all bleating “I’ve seen this many times before, I just never thought I’d see it here.” And yet this is not Asia or Africa or some place that Americans like to think God has forsaken, nor is this “Mother Nature” or something alien intruding on the land of the free. No, this is a Real American tragedy, plain and simple. Not only because the U.S. is the main opponent of any effort to put the brakes on global warming. Not only because the U.S. trumpets this neo-liberal (same as the old liberal) ideology of not investing in infrastructure, just armies and prisons. But also and especially in the response, the leaving people to die, the racist media coverage and the faux-shock (“oh my god, it never occurred to me that those people might be poor!”), this has been a quintessentially American event. A point of confusion enters the picture for many, because if this is indeed America, then why couldn’t the good people of New Orleans be saved? Why could all the kings horses and all the kings men not even airdrop enough food, or airlift patients in critical condition, or even find out that there were people at the Convention Centre? I mean, duct tape or no duct tape, a lot of folks are thinking Homeland Security dropped the ball on this one. As right-wing loonie New Gingrich asked, “if we can’t respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we’re prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?” So to the likes of Gingrich, this “American nightmare”, this “Made in USA” disaster that has unfolded in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast over the past nine days makes no sense at all. But to many of us it is perfectly natural. If you want to understand the response, just keep these things in mind:

America Hates Poor People

America Hates Black People

America Hates Unlucky People

Keep on repeating that to yourself, and the world begins to make sense. And remember too that, in the spirit of efficiency, America tries to save on its hate by making sure these three categories overlap as much as possible. Note that when i say “America” i mean the country, the nation, the ideal… as in “the American Dream”, “the American Century”, “American Knowhow” and “American Resilience”… both major political parties and all of the journalists (“liberal” and “conservative” alike)… you see, i mean what the country is all about. I do not mean people who happen to live there, or people who have been fooled into thinking that they and King George belong to the same nation, or at least not all of them. Certainly today there are many people living in America who must understand exactly what Malcolm X was saying in the quote above. But for Americans, for the ones who love their flag and their nation and their faith and their history of blood and death, we know this must be an unsettling time. It is too dangerous to treat all these overnight homeless refugees the same way “normal” homeless people and refugees get treated – there’ll be no “bum fight videos” starring the newly disposessed from the Big Easy, no detention centres or mandatory deportations, at least not until things simmer down a bit… and if there are, we’ll be told to call them “news footage” and “shelters” and “relocation”… For the moment it is too dangerous to carry on as usual because all of these angry people are together, too many other angry people are paying attention, many thinking “there but for the grace of god go i”. You even have people with guns willing to take potshots at the army and cops! It has taken a lot of “benign neglect” and “integration” and “urban planing” and “liberal progress” (and police raids, and assassinations, and the CIA dumping drugs in the neighbourhood…) to try and destroy the Black community, all that effort to avoid precisely this kind of situation. At the moment America is like a thief in the night, and the person they are robbing has stirred in their sleep – America is nervous, it has got to be very very quiet right now and hope they think it’s just a dream, got to hope they doze off again… So the secret joy with which America greets the news of every homeless person who freezes in the cold or bakes to death in the sun (like 14 did in Phoenix earlier this summer) is going to be kept under wraps. The secret joy that America feels when Black people die is going to be hushed up. And the absolute glee, the orgasmic rapture, that America feels when poor neighbourhoods are destroyed will be muted. Just for the time being… Some of the refugees (sorry, i don’t want to insult them by calling them “American citizens”) will “get on with their lives”, and we’ll be meeting them again on CNN or Fox or whatnot for the foreseeable future – we’ll be told how they “turned adversity into opportunity”, “overcame hardship” and yadayadayada. I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or even a meteorologist, to guess what is going to be on tv every Labour Day for the next few years. They’ll be the proof that America “works”, even if not as well as it does for Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice. They may not get to spend $10,000 on shoes, but they’ll make for useful propaganda nevertheless. Of course, no matter how much the ruling class pretends otherwise, the majority will never feel like “this is working out pretty good for them.” This is an unmitigated and previously unimaginable disaster in their lives, even for those who did not lose loved ones. We can only hope that as many as possible will recover, will be able to get their lives back, but we know that if they do it will be because of their own strength and their own traditions of resiliency, traditions and strength that America has tried time and time again to destroy. So those who get through this will do so despite America, not because of it; and sadly, we know that many will not be able to manage ok. But when we meet them again – as someone panhandling for change, or self-medicating, or fucked up from their trauma and their loss – they won’t have politicians and journalists gushing about how “they are our fellow citizens”. No, no, no! Because then they’ll be people who live that way and behave that way because they have a “culture of poverty”, because they come from “dysfunctional families”, because they’re part of this “intractable underclass”. Trust me, it’s all tried and true at this point… There’s some chatter about how this may be an opportunity to “turn things around”, to “get our priorities right” and to finally educate people who “had no idea” about racism and poverty in America. Dream on! Poor people and Black people already know about racism and poverty, they don’t need any wake up call, and America already knows too – i mean that’s what makes their wealth so meaningful, that’s what gives their lifestyles that added edge: it’s the masses of people whose blood they suck. Their mentally damaged economists will tell it to you straight: “How can you be rich if someone else isn’t poor?” There’s also been a lot of blathering on about bureaucracy and red tape, like the reason all of this happened was there were too many forms to fill out and too many regulations to follow. America the Shameless is saying “unchain me and this will never happen again”… but America is unchained – i mean have you ever seen an America as unchained and uninhibited and mad with power than this sparkling dying 21st century monstrosity? It wasn’t Big Government or Bureaucracy that kept the “invisible hand” from maintaining the levees, any more than it was Red Tape that had sheriffs deputies shooting at refugees who were trying to make their way out of Floodtown. If you could travel ten years back in time and warn America about what was going to happen, do you really think it would have made a difference? “If they stay, they get what they deserve” would have been the national refrain. So we should see this for what it is: a big storm that needn’t have killed a soul (Cuba managed to evacuate over a million people last year when a similar storm was heading its way.) A flood which did not have to happen (all of those levees could have been built up for a fraction of the money rich folks spend on stupid things every year). An emerging health disaster that is still preventable (but probably won’t be prevented, just subsumed into “those people’s” bad health). In other words, this is something that is as American as apple pie.

The Lord is going to come on time — if we just wait. – Condoleezza Rice (September 5th 2005)

News

Disabled Folk in Hurricane Katrina Dave Reynolds Inclusion Daily Express August 31st 2005Hastert Questions Rebuilding New Orleans Associated Press September 1st 2005NCAI Coordinating Hurricane Relief Fund for Tribes in Gulf Region Adam McMullin September 1st 2005Condoleeza Rice Spends The Week At Broadway Shows and Shopping On Fifth Avenue Yeshim Deniz September 2nd 2005 Troops Begin Combat Operations in New Orleans Joseph R. Chenelly Army Times September 2nd 2005Met By Despair Not Violence Scott Gould Los Angeles Times, September 3rd 2005Living Paycheck to Paycheck Made Leaving Impossible Wil Haygood September 4th 2005Statement by Fidel Castro September 4th 2005Five Dead Were Army Workers: Report (Sydney Herald Sun 5 Sept. 2005)Barbara Bush: Things Working Out “Very Well” for Poor Evacuees From New Orleans Editor and Publisher Staff, September 5th 2005Displaced New Orleans Community Demands Action, Accountability and Initiates A People’s Hurricane Fund Becky Belcore September 6th 2005Murder and Rape – Fact or Ficton? Gary Younge The Guadian, September 6th 2005New Orleans Black Community Leaders Charge Racism in Government Neglect of Hurricane Survivors September 6th 2005 From Inside New Orleans Old Line Families Escape Worst of Floor and Plot the Future Christopher Cooper Wall Street Journal September 8th 2005Bechtel, Fluor Will Help Erect Emergency Facilities; Bush Suspends Wage Rules Yochi J. Dreazen Wall Street Journal September 9th 2005New Orleans Gets a Makeshift Jail Alan Zarembo Los Angeles Times September 9th 2005Firms with White House ties get Katrina Contracts Reuters Septembe 10th 2005After Katrina, Where Have All the Hondurans Gone? Dafodil Altan Pacific News Service September 13th 2005Holy Rollers — The Church Van Is Hero of Katrina Recovery for Blacks Kevin Weston Pacific News Service September 13th 2005Katrina Survivors Tell Their Story Sonsyrea Tate Washington Informer September 13th 2005 From Inside New Orleans Bring the Ruckus Responds to Katrina Crisis Bring The Ruckus September 13th 2005Louisiana NAACP Head Urges Shelter Denizens to Organize Branden Coyle The New Standard September 14th 2005Poor folks pitted against the not as poor in Baton Rouge, LA Kelly Brewington The Baltimore Sun September 16th 2005Some Firms Hired in Katrina’s Wake Have Checkered Pasts Yochi J. Dreazen Wall Street Journal September 20th 2005People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition Calls for Volunteers September 20th 2005 From Inside New Orleans New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters; Officers Deserted a Jail Building, Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells Human Rights Watch September 22nd 2005

What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this – this is working very well for them. – Barbara Bush

the above is a poster produced by the Revolutionary Communist Party USA – a group i do not always agree with but they do some nice work and have great bookstores! to download the poster, follow this link: RCP “Wanted For Mass Murder” Poster

Stories and Insights

photo from protest in San Francisco

The Wall Street Journal reported that Representative Richard Baker of Baton Rouge was overheard telling lobbyists: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” (New York Times September 10th 2005)

Background Documents

Poor, Black, and Left Behind Mike Davis September 24th 2005 – read this analysis of Hurricane Ivan and the “evacuation” of New Orleans in September 2004…Gender and Natural Disasters – focussing on the Asian tsunamiGreater New Orleans Community Development Center – an excellent resource for facts about the structural racism and inequality underlying this tragedySurviving Domestic Violence and Disasters Elaine Enarson, Visiting Scholar, Disaster Preparedness Resources Centre, University of British Columbia, January 1998 The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Naomi Klein April 19th 2005Spatial Deconcentration by Yolanda WardReproductive Health Response in Conflict Consortium an NGO that deals with “increasing acess to quality reproductive health for refugees and internally displaced people worldwide”Making Shelters Safe for Transgender Evacuees Lambda Legal, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, Nationnal Center for Transgender Equality

World Health Organization Documents of Interest (PDFs)

Interpersonal Violene and Disasters with a focus on violence against women and childrenClinical Management of survivors of rape developing protocols for use with refugees and internally displaced persons

Hurricanes Have Grown More Intense Since 1970, Researchers Say, and Global Warming Is a Prime Suspect Michael Monatersky Chronicle of Higher Education September 16th 2005Scientific American: Drowning New Orleans [ CIVIL ENGINEERING ] Four years ago Scientific American wrote “A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city…” – you can read the entire article on their website linked to hereNew Orleans is Sinking by Jim Wilson Popular Mechanics September 11th 2001This is global warming, says environmental chief Michael McCarthy The Independent September 23rd 2005Car Trouble — Tension Grows Worldwide Between Those With Autos and Those Without Philip Cunningham, New America Media, September 23rd 2005Hurricanes, Climate, and Katrina:Research, Reviews, and Articles from Science Online Tsunami Caused Natural Disasters Death Toll to Triple in 2004 Wall Street Journal, October 4th 2005

Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove’s book Root Shock explores urban renewal programs between 1949 and 1973. These federal programs, spearheaded by business and real estate interests, destroyed 1,600 Black neighborhoods in cities across the United States. Focusing on three very different urban settings—the Hill District of Pittsburgh, the Central Ward in Newark, and the small Virginia city of Roanoke—Dr. Fullilove argues powerfully that the twenty-first century will be one of displacement and of continual demolition and reconstruction. The trauma of this experience she calls “root shock”. Here arte two book reviews:‘Root Shock’: Urban Renewal and Black Neighborhoods on National Public Radio – Dr Mindy Fullilove is interviewed by NPR’s Tavis Smiley“Urban thunder” tears black communities asunder; displacement and development whittle away at the collective psyche, a review of Root Shock by Daphne Muse in Black Issues Book Review March-April 2005

Links to Other Hurricane Katrina Pages

Socially Responsible Katrina Relief The New York Collective of Radical Educators has produced a curriculum for teachers to deal with the tragedy in the Gulf Coast in an honest and responsible manner – it can be downloaded in PDF or Word format from their siteKatrina and the State on the anarchist Infoshop siteKerul Relief Blog a member of the radical Oxygen Collective heads off the the Gulf Coast to see what she can dp to help…Listen to th People the Neo-Griot New Orleans ProjectWhirlwind is a special publication about the Hurricane’s aftermanth put out by the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist CommunistsNew Orleans Survivor Stories: Oral Histories Real Reports of Katrina Relief Eyewitness, politically charged, on-the-ground truth telling from New Orleans, southern Louisiana and Mississippi. Naomi Archer is a global justice organizer and freelance writer from Asheville, NC working on community-led relief efforts.Recording Katrina collection of survivors’ stories and non-traditional reporting on the recovery effort in the Gulf.Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences Wikipedia Hurricane Katrina Page

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Capitalism: An Unnatural Disaster

Grassroots/Low-income/People of Color-led Hurricane Katrina Relief

New Orleans Indymedia (often down, but sometimes there)

Common Ground Collective (offering temporary assistance and mutual aid to the citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas)

WWOZ New Orleans 90.7 FM Jazz and Heritage Station (in exile)

if so, click here for more information

Spot the Difference

America Hates You

News on Hurricane Katrina

Stories and Insights into the Ongoing Tragedy

Background Material

Links to Othe Hurricane Katrina Pages

News

Stories and Insights

Background Documents

World Health Organization Documents of Interest (PDFs)

Related

Links to Other Hurricane Katrina Pages

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