Research Catalog

Title

What lies beneath : Katrina, race, and the state of the nation / edited by the South End Press Collective.

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : South End Press, c2007.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

South End Press.

Description

xviii, 180 p.; 22 cm.

Summary

In August 2005, thousands of New Orleans residents-overwhelmingly poor, largely people of color, the majority black-were left to face one of the worst "natural" disasters in US history on their own. They were left to die in prisons, in nursing homes, and on the street. Survivors were criminalized as "looters" for struggling to obtain food, water, diapers, medicine, and other essentials of life that no one else could or would provide. As Katrina's waters receded and the body count soared, an ugly truth (re)surfaced: The lives of those who are poor, who are vulnerable, and who are not white are not valued by the US government. While commentators across the political spectrum, celebrities, and other observers expressed outrage that the US government would let this happen to Americans-even "those Americans"--Millions outside of New Orleans live without adequate health insurance; clean air and water; decent education, housing, nutrition, health care, and work; and freedom from police brutality and state repression. And thousands are deported, displaced, and dying in prisons and illegal wars from coast to coast, gulf to gulf. Short and accessible, this anthology, featuring such voices as Vandana Shiva, Glen Ford, Jordan Flaherty, and Robert Bullard, takes readers beyond the Superdome. It explores the complexity of this turning point in US history as representative of the nation's direction and priorities. --Publisher.

Subject

• Disaster relief > Social aspects > New Orleans
• Hurricane Katrina, 2005 > Social aspects
• Marginality, Social > New Orleans
• New Orleans (La.) > Race relations
• People with social disabilities > Government policy > United States
• United States > Race relations

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction : below the water line / Kalamu Ya Salaam -- A raging flood of tears / Ewuare Osayande -- Slum clearance / Lewis H. Lapham -- Nature fights back / Ross Gelbspan -- How we survived the flood / Charmaine Neville -- To render ourselves visible / Alisa Bierria, Mayaba Liebenthal, and Incite! -- Wade in the water / Tiffany Brown -- Southerners on new ground / Mandy Carter -- This is criminal / Malik Rahim -- The birth of the clinic / Roger Benham -- Common ground relief / Sue Hilderbrand, Scott Crow, and Lisa Fithian -- Corporate reconstruction and grassroots resistance / Jordan Flaherty -- The obscurity of black suffering / Jared Sexton -- The meaning of "disaster" under the dominance of white life / Dylan Rodríguez -- Afterword : political literacy and voice / Joy James -- On refuge and language / Suheir Hammad.

ISBN

• 9780896087675 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0896087670 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2006033608

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library