Katrina
Okay, there have been crazy and maybe occasionally ridiculous topics in this blog to balance the serious. But this is neither crazy nor ridiculous. This IS serious.
Last night was the first two acts of Spike's Katrina documentary "When the Levees Broke:A Requiem in Four Acts." I highly recommend you watch it. The documentary concludes tonight with the final two acts.
Being a member of the media, I smile or groan (with increasing frequency) when we collectively get the story right or grossly wrong. This extensive documentary filters the hundreds of stories, news reports, photography, footage and interviews just prior to, during and after Katrina's second U.S. landfall. What makes it most successful is the manner in which the horrorific experience is told. Juxtaposed with politicians' face-saving words are those of the people who lived it: mostly Black, many poor or working poor and the harrowing reality they faced to survive the storm, survive the flooding and then survive in squalor, putrid conditions with no water or food.
The topics associated with the Katrina disaster fly and Spike addresses them all: the warnings (with the ominous declaration that residents who stayed would essentially be on their own); the buses that never arrived to evacuate people before the storm; the time-wasting political wrangling; classism; racism; looting; rumors that the levees were blown; the baffling lack of informed national politicians and most of all, the searing knowledge that the government of the so-called greatest, richest nation on the planet provided aid to strangers half a world away within 24 hours, but for them, help did not arrive for five days. Nothing else in the documentary is more intense than the obvious disappointment and sheer rage of being forgotten. Ignored. Devalued.
The documentary reminded me of two things:
1. Any human tragedy involving people of African descent curiously receives little U.S. attention, outrage or assistance. Rwanda. Haiti. Sub-Saharan AIDS crisis. Darfur. Katrina. When you look at the attention paid to the Middle East, the Indian floods and Asian tsunamis, the Bosnian conflict and liberating Afghanistan, I can't help but wonder the federal reaction and public interest if those faces were Black.
2. We can't really expect much difference in government response in the event of a terrorist attack. Why should we? If you are poor in this country and there is a national tragedy, you are very much on your own.
Last night was the first two acts of Spike's Katrina documentary "When the Levees Broke:A Requiem in Four Acts." I highly recommend you watch it. The documentary concludes tonight with the final two acts.
Being a member of the media, I smile or groan (with increasing frequency) when we collectively get the story right or grossly wrong. This extensive documentary filters the hundreds of stories, news reports, photography, footage and interviews just prior to, during and after Katrina's second U.S. landfall. What makes it most successful is the manner in which the horrorific experience is told. Juxtaposed with politicians' face-saving words are those of the people who lived it: mostly Black, many poor or working poor and the harrowing reality they faced to survive the storm, survive the flooding and then survive in squalor, putrid conditions with no water or food.
The topics associated with the Katrina disaster fly and Spike addresses them all: the warnings (with the ominous declaration that residents who stayed would essentially be on their own); the buses that never arrived to evacuate people before the storm; the time-wasting political wrangling; classism; racism; looting; rumors that the levees were blown; the baffling lack of informed national politicians and most of all, the searing knowledge that the government of the so-called greatest, richest nation on the planet provided aid to strangers half a world away within 24 hours, but for them, help did not arrive for five days. Nothing else in the documentary is more intense than the obvious disappointment and sheer rage of being forgotten. Ignored. Devalued.
The documentary reminded me of two things:
1. Any human tragedy involving people of African descent curiously receives little U.S. attention, outrage or assistance. Rwanda. Haiti. Sub-Saharan AIDS crisis. Darfur. Katrina. When you look at the attention paid to the Middle East, the Indian floods and Asian tsunamis, the Bosnian conflict and liberating Afghanistan, I can't help but wonder the federal reaction and public interest if those faces were Black.
2. We can't really expect much difference in government response in the event of a terrorist attack. Why should we? If you are poor in this country and there is a national tragedy, you are very much on your own.
posted by DNastyOne at 8:41:00 AM
2 comments
