Katrina thoughts from my friend Viktor/Tim ...
Living in a city where there is now a lot of talk about levees and that sort of thing (Sacramento is built in a floodplain at the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers), I can really imagine the next catastrophe very easily. After all, before moving out a ways from the city, I lived in a place where the Maidu never had. They knew better.
The "racism" that Masala Cook talks about is an interesting notion. While I might differ with her about the term used, preferring the term "classism," the effect is the same. The disenfranchised remained very much at risk. This institutionalized classism breaks the heart of all idealists who dream the great egalitarian dream. I suspect, though, that unless we want to return to hunter-gatherer times, the social class is something to be reckoned with. It has been used as an instrument to subjugate ever since the first agricultural chiefdoms wittingly fostered its development through the extraction of surplus (in the form of taxes).
Why such social class would cut across "racial" (an anthropological fiction) lines is a continuing wonder. Why social class should be based on some visible external detail is a mystery. However, we do the same thing to animals. The taxonomists tend to classify species according to visible details rather than, say, DNA homology (or some other abstract marker). We are just very visual animals.
Also, as a member of the "flighty whitey" class, I think it's important to note that many (most?) of the rescuers who have put out the effort are also white. One might argue that they are coerced or duty-bound or whatever. However, most interviews with cops I have heard have illustrated a real sense of dread and compassion. In other words, don't blame the people, blame the institutions.
The larger question is the one you rightly put forth (and is the one that administration officials are beginning to put forth today). If the press (or Harry Connick Jr.) could get through, then where was the organized relief effort? While it is tempting to raise the spectre of racism/classism as a legitimate claim, I think that perhaps the larger question is the question of competency.
The first thought that ran through my head is that if this was the approach that was taken in Iraq, no wonder there was so much looting and unrest in Baghdad after its conquest. We don't do crowd control very well unless it's the French Quarter or oil wells in Tikrit. For this administration, if there aren't dollars to be protected, then c'est la vie. A laissez-faire approach is taken.
This disaster though has underscored one other thought I have had about Iraq over the last several years. That thought is this. Even if one agrees with the premise that the US needed to project its power in the Middle East to make sure that its interests were served in procuring valuable resources (or preserving democracy—you can choose your own rhetoric) indefinitely into the future (a premise, by the way, that I find shaky), then one must begin to conclude that this administration was not the bunch to pull this off. They were not up to the task. [To be fair, perhaps it would have been beyond the scope of capability for any administration.] What is more is if this task is beyond American capability, then we better rethink our position of projecting American optimism, America's can-do spirit, into every corner of the globe. Unfortunately, with the questionable status of failure/success in Iraq and the seeming negligence in New Orleans, the only real victim in all of this is America's image in the world.
We are looking more like grandiose bumblers all the time.
The "racism" that Masala Cook talks about is an interesting notion. While I might differ with her about the term used, preferring the term "classism," the effect is the same. The disenfranchised remained very much at risk. This institutionalized classism breaks the heart of all idealists who dream the great egalitarian dream. I suspect, though, that unless we want to return to hunter-gatherer times, the social class is something to be reckoned with. It has been used as an instrument to subjugate ever since the first agricultural chiefdoms wittingly fostered its development through the extraction of surplus (in the form of taxes).
Why such social class would cut across "racial" (an anthropological fiction) lines is a continuing wonder. Why social class should be based on some visible external detail is a mystery. However, we do the same thing to animals. The taxonomists tend to classify species according to visible details rather than, say, DNA homology (or some other abstract marker). We are just very visual animals.
Also, as a member of the "flighty whitey" class, I think it's important to note that many (most?) of the rescuers who have put out the effort are also white. One might argue that they are coerced or duty-bound or whatever. However, most interviews with cops I have heard have illustrated a real sense of dread and compassion. In other words, don't blame the people, blame the institutions.
The larger question is the one you rightly put forth (and is the one that administration officials are beginning to put forth today). If the press (or Harry Connick Jr.) could get through, then where was the organized relief effort? While it is tempting to raise the spectre of racism/classism as a legitimate claim, I think that perhaps the larger question is the question of competency.
The first thought that ran through my head is that if this was the approach that was taken in Iraq, no wonder there was so much looting and unrest in Baghdad after its conquest. We don't do crowd control very well unless it's the French Quarter or oil wells in Tikrit. For this administration, if there aren't dollars to be protected, then c'est la vie. A laissez-faire approach is taken.
This disaster though has underscored one other thought I have had about Iraq over the last several years. That thought is this. Even if one agrees with the premise that the US needed to project its power in the Middle East to make sure that its interests were served in procuring valuable resources (or preserving democracy—you can choose your own rhetoric) indefinitely into the future (a premise, by the way, that I find shaky), then one must begin to conclude that this administration was not the bunch to pull this off. They were not up to the task. [To be fair, perhaps it would have been beyond the scope of capability for any administration.] What is more is if this task is beyond American capability, then we better rethink our position of projecting American optimism, America's can-do spirit, into every corner of the globe. Unfortunately, with the questionable status of failure/success in Iraq and the seeming negligence in New Orleans, the only real victim in all of this is America's image in the world.
We are looking more like grandiose bumblers all the time.
posted by Jho at 9:48 PM
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