It’s Time To Talk About Katrina

by dday

There’s been a lot of reflection on the fact that Barack Obama’s nomination as the Democratic Party’s candidate for President will fall on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. But there’s another, more recent milestone associated with the late August time frame. The day after August 28, 2008 will be the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, and the third anniversary of the catastrophic levee failure that caused a man-made disaster in one of America’s great cities.

The aftermath of Katrina and Gulf Coast reconstruction has been confined to the outer edges of the Presidential election debate, if it has any presence at all. This is hauntingly familiar to me. In May 2004, the Abu Ghraib pictures first reached the public eye, and after the round of assurances that they were the work of “a few bad apples,” the issue receded, and the Democratic nominee remained silent about it for the duration of the fall campaign. Abu Ghraib (and to a lesser extent, Enron) was the Great Unmentionable of the 2004 Election. I’m sure you can come up with a thousand reasons why, but a lot of them went to this pervasive myth that Democrats didn’t want to insult the military when their nominee was running on his military record. Never mind that we now know that Abu Ghraib and other torture scandals came directly out of the White House and were often carried out by contractors and the CIA.

I’m seeing Katrina become the Abu Ghraib of 2008, and there’s undeniably a racial component to that. We have a disaster that completely discredits conservative theories of governance, but because it disproportionately affected poor black people in New Orleans, our African-American nominee, who has to play by the Jackie Robinson Rules, would be presumed by a clueless media to be stirring up racial warfare, or “playing the race card,” or whatever.

It would be a crime if Katrina got lost in the national conversation this year. The failure in the Gulf was not solely attributable to President Bush, it was a conservative failure, a full blooming of their beliefs in laissez-faire, “you’re on your own” government that can be drowned in the bathtub, as well as shock doctrine politics in the aftermath, which approve of housing projects to be bulldozed to make way for developers, which foreground the whims of the rich and connected to take precedence over the needs of the struggling and the suffering.

In fact, there’s a new documentary being released right before the anniversary of the storm that could catalyze this conversation, and I had the privilege of seeing a preview yesterday. Trouble The Water, a Sundance Grand Jury prize-winner directed and produced by the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, follows two residents of the 9th Ward, Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott, as they survive the hurricane and the flood and struggle to survive what comes after. Kimberly picked up a video camera just a week before the storm and documented the events of August 29th from her attic, eliciting stunning footage and an entirely new perspective. First of all, the conservative myth that black Katrina victims were a bunch of whiners and moaners while white flood victims in Iowa “worked together” and showed their true American-ness is revealed as utter bullshit. Kimberly and Scott, along with their fellow residents left behind in the 9th Ward, were nothing short of heroic, saving their neighbors, pulling them from their houses and eventually bringing them to safety. One man, who used an old punching bag as a life raft to save dozens of people, remarks in the film “I never thought God had a purpose for me until that day.” This is the story of a community brought together by the violence of the flood and the neglect of the government, forced to become their own first responders.

At one point, in an episode that I certainly never heard before, Kimberly and Scott walk about a mile through the water to a near-abandoned Navy base that was marked for closure and had hundreds of beds. With several dozen 9th Ward residents at the gates, the Navy personnel pulled out ammunition, cocked their rifles and turned their guns on the crowd, saying “Get off our property or we’re going to start shooting.” Months later the base received a COMMENDATION from Bush for “protecting the integrity of the base.”

At its heart, this is actually a deeply conservative in some respects. Thrust into extraordinary circumstances, this couple, which has stayed together for 10 years and raised a family, made their own opportunities, in the face of a government that seemed to be actively working against them, and lifted themselves up in the face of adversity, returning to New Orleans and literally rebuilding the city (Scott becomes a contractor). They entered the storm hustlers and came out activists, organizers, and community symbols. They reflected the best values of America and proved more than deserving of equality of opportunity and access to pursue their dreams.

But that never came. And so while this is a very empowering and affecting film, it also reveals the hollow heartlessness that conservative policies reflect. The makers of Trouble the Water, including executive producer Danny Glover (who was on hand at yesterday’s screening) see this film as an opportunity to broaden the conversation and ignite community development and organizing around the underlying issues that the failure of the levees forced into the public consciousness. As Glover said:

“When the hurricane struck the Gulf and the floodwaters rose and tore through New Orleans, it did not turn the region into a Third World country… it revealed one.”

You can do something to further the goals of this powerful film. But the most important thing you can do is to not let this region and this catastrophe be forgotten. This is the first Presidential election since Katrina, and despite that the issues have been almost invisible in the national debate. Aside from the fact that John McCain was celebrating his birthday with George Bush and some cake on the day of the storm, and indeed his entire record with respect to post-Katrina reconstruction, there are serious issues surrounding reconstruction and the suffering of the urban underclass, that never reach the highest levels of the debate because those most affected are essentially voiceless. This film amplifies that voice, and we should all contribute to that effort by refusing to let Katrina fall down the memory hole.

Trouble the Water opens in these cities starting August 22 and throughout the fall. Don’t miss it, petition your local theaters for a screening, request a copy for your own organization and tell this story to everyone you know.

UPDATE: Just as an FYI, Katrina does make an appearance in the Democratic platform, and it’s an OK statement as far as it goes:

For many in America, Hurricane Katrina conjures up the memory of a time when America’s government failed its citizens. When the winds blew and the floodwaters came, we learned that for all of our wealth and power, something wasn’t right with
Washington. Our government’s response during Hurricane Katrina is a national shame–and yet three years later, the government has still failed to keep its promise to rebuild.

The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are heroes for returning and rebuilding, and they shouldn’t face these challenges alone. We will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina and restore the region economically. We will create jobs and training opportunities for returning and displaced workers and contracting opportunities for local businesses to help create stronger, safer, and more equitable communities. We will increase funding for affordable housing and home ownership opportunities for returning families, workers, and residents moving out of unsafe trailers. We will reinvest in infrastructure in New Orleans: we will construct levees that work, fight crime by rebuilding local police departments and courthouses, invest and hospitals and rebuild the public school system.

Fine. Now say that every day on the campaign trail for two months.

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