Common Ground: Katrina and Karma

October 2005

Katrina and Karma

Waking up to Responsibility

by Maia Duerr

When I heard the news that Hurricane Katrina had New Orleans in its path, the first thing I thought of was the good times I had experienced during my travels to the city, the beautiful architecture, and the mix of grit, grace, and soul that had resiliently withstood the soul-numbing effects of corporate culture. Life in New Orleans, it seemed to me, was raw, vital, and on the edge, for better or for worse.

Sure, I had noticed the poverty. It’s hard to miss. I had noticed the thousands of people living in squalid conditions in the city. But they weren’t my first thought when the storm hit. I’d had the privilege of visiting New Orleans as a tourist — a white woman with economic means — and then returning to my comfortable life in the Bay Area. I had the luxury of having a self-centered relationship to New Orleans and her citizens.

Then Hurricane Katrina hit and it became clear that more was at stake than my nostalgic vacation memories. People were dying by the thousands, and they were overwhelmingly black, poor, and disenfranchised. How could I have initially overlooked that?

Apparently, that same ignorance was magnified a thousand-fold by the Bush administration. Or perhaps the indifference wasn’t so unconscious. This combination of ignorance plus privilege and power is called racism. It’s a word that we white people don’t think applies to our good, liberal selves. But racism is not like a hat that we put on or take off at will. It’s more like the air that we breathe every day — we have no choice but to take it in, often unaware of its effect on us.

To witness the suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced and abandoned Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is heartbreaking beyond belief. And outrageous.

Phrases came to mind but, at first, I thought them too inflammatory to spell out. But I will because we need to wake up. They are: “Genocide,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” “Economic Cleansing.” What else to call it when thousands of poor, mostly people of color are allowed to die in front of our eyes? And not just any death — excruciating deaths, brought about by lack of food or clean water; and drowning deaths as people waited for rooftop rescues that never came and watched corpses float by — children dying, elders dying, the disabled and infirm dying.

This is the United States. The richest country in the world. A country supposedly prepared to handle all kinds of terrorist attacks. As horrible as September 11, 2001 was, the loss of lives, homes, and livelihoods in the wake of Hurricane Katrina will be far more extensive and long lasting. And yet, unlike the residents of New York, the residents of New Orleans were left to fend for themselves. In some cases, they were even blamed for their fate. Michael Brown, the ex-director of FEMA, attributed the death toll to “people who did not heed the advance warnings.” He continued: “I don’t make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.”

Really? One clear description of the situation comes from a September 2 New York Times article by reporter David Gonzalez:

The victims…were largely black and poor, those who toiled in the background of the tourist havens, living in tumbledown neighborhoods that were long known to be vulnerable to disaster if the levees failed. Without so much as a car or bus fare to escape ahead of time, they found themselves left behind by a failure to plan for their rescue.

The decimation of New Orleans is a great tragedy that shames America and, particularly, the Bush administration. We don’t need “terrorists” to take us down; this empire is crumbling from within.

How did this come to pass? In line with the dharma truth of interconnection, there are dozens of threads that led to this horrible event. In the interest of “waking up,” these stand out:

• The distribution of national resources to favor military spending over critical domestic tasks. Budgets for disaster preparedness have actually been reduced. Last year, President Bush’s budget cut $71 million for flood control in New Orleans alone. Meanwhile, more than $200 billion has been spent in Iraq.

• Between 35-40% of Louisiana’s and Mississippi’s National Guards troops were deployed in Iraq, on missions of death, instead of back home where they are so desperately needed.

• The intersection of institutionalized poverty and racism created living conditions that exposed our neediest citizens to disproportionate danger and death.

• Global warming, fed by industrial pollution and auto emissions may well have contributed to the severity of the hurricane. The waters of the Gulf had warmed to an astonishing 90ºF.

I am not the first to note that the media has been exacerbating racial stereotypes. Black residents pictured hauling goods from a store were labeled “looters” while white survivors were portrayed as “finding food.” On September 2, Louisiana National Guard Brig. Gen. Gary Jones promised to lead a “combat operation to… take this city back,” and added: “This place is going to look like Little Somalia.” On September 12, Dean Nugent, an official with the state Coroner’s Department warned reporters to stay away from body recovery operations in Bywater. “The cockroaches come out at night,” Nugent warned. “They’ll kill you.” Nugent, who is white, confessed that he has never visited the Bywater neighborhood.

My practice as a socially engaged Buddhist asks me to not exclude myself from the circle of accountability. All of us in U.S. dharma communities are part of this karma. Those of us who are white, middle/upper class, or in positions of privilege are particularly called on to examine our role in this system. How can we pay taxes to a government that feeds a vast and deadly war machine but refuses to feed the poor or to provide support for the survival of our cities?

People in the US and around the world have offered emergency assistance to survivors — financial donations, offers of housing and jobs, emotional support — but here are some other actions we can take:

• Support the city’s grassroots, progressive organizations so that rebuilding efforts don’t turn New Orleans into a corporate-sponsored shell of its former self.

• Demand accountability from all government officials, including President Bush. Just as Gold Star Mother for Peace Cindy Sheehan’s courageous actions ignited a massive grassroots movement, we can do the same by making our voices heard through calls to Congress and the White House, writing letters to newspapers, and sitting in public vigils.

• Address issues of classism and racism as they are expressed within our own organizations and sanghas, by holding councils, trainings, and workshops around how these issues separate us and cause harm.

The deep wounds of class, race, and environmental degradation will not be healed by quick actions. We are bearing witness to yet another sad, unjust, and deplorable chapter in U.S. history. All of us are being called to respond. Whether we choose to wake up or go back to sleep will determine the legacy we leave for our children.

Maia Duerr is Executive Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (www.bpf.org). She thanks Mushim Ikeda-Nash and Diana Lion for their input on this article.

The Buddhist Peace Fellowship also recommends The Refuge Project (refugeproject.org) as one way to offer a compassionate response. It is bringing multiracial, cross-class, interfaith teams to a youth camp in Selma, Alabama, converted into temporary housing for 100 evacuees. Its purpose is to develop a community of care that will provide the long-term support necessary for healing and moving forward. Donations (made payable to Urban Peace) may be sent to: 6431 Outlook Avenue, Oakland, CA 94605.

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