Katrina

On August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as a Category 3 storm. This was the worst hurricane to ever hit the gulf coast and many say it was the biggest natural disaster on American Soil. Over 80% of the city was under water due to the breach in the levies and tens of thousands of people were left stranded without food, water, shelter or medical attention. For days and weeks on end the people of New Orleans who were unable to make it out before the storm(which was the majority of them), were stuck in dire conditions with no resources or help from the federal government. Even six years later our questions remain unanswered. Why didn't Louisiana provide transportation out of the city to the thousands of low income citizens who did not own any kind of vehicles? Why were the residents of the lower ninth ward and other neighborhoods forgotten about? Why were helicopters picking up whites before they would pick up black residents? Why did it take the federal government nearly a week to provide simple items like food and water to the thousands of stranded people, but when Asia experienced the tsunami a year earlier, FEMA and other agencies were over there within hours? Why weren't these levies secured decades ago when it was proven that they would not withstand a catastrophic hurricane? Why did the government fail to proactively do something to prevent something like this from happening? Why even years after the storm have the majority of these people not seen a penny from the government or help rebuilding their homes and city? It seems the answers to these and many more questions will never be answered.
The biggest issues that has rose out of Katrina were the obvious injustices that were rooted deep in the history of New Orleans. These inequalities and problems were present long before the storm, but Katrina The storm allowed these injustices to show themselves for the rest of the world to see. In the days and weeks following the storm chaos took over the city and it was apparent that low-income African Americans were at the front lines of this tragedy. When thousands of residents began entering flooded stores and markets to take what they could get, whether it was food, water, clothes or appliances, the media portrayed whites and blacks very differently.
Whites were seen taking these items and characterized as victims of the storm just trying to survive, while blacks were called looters, and criminals. Blacks were being arrested and beaten for stealing items from these places, while thousands of others were drowning, and dying because the police were too busy to help them. Like Flahtery states in Fields of Resistance “After Katrina, young black men in New Orleans were portrayed solely as perpetrators of violence (Flahtery). False reports were broadcast all over the world that black men were raping babies and children, killing, assaulting and looting left and right. Apparently it was more important to catch the “thieves” at the corner market than for the government to take responsibility for this catastrophe and to move into action in order to bring in some relief. At this same time members of the police force and National Guard were committing atrocious acts of police brutality and failing to protect the people of their own country. Flahtery discussed how he witnessed first hand the racism and unequal treatment of African Americans in the days after Katrina “I still believe that race played a major role. I saw it personally. These National Guard troops were scared to death because of race. They were mostly from rural areas and for them their knowledge of African Americans came from TV shows like Cops. They pointed guns at many people, and there were plenty of racial slurs". He speaks vividly of his experience in realizing that white privilege is a very real thing, and the tragedy that so many New Orleans residents experienced happened because they were lower-class blacks, plain and simple. In an attempt by the government to cover up their behavior and lack of initiative for the city of New Orleans, these residents were framed as dumb, undeserving criminals. Before, during and after Katrina it was very hard to deny the fact that white was much more valued than black.