Grappling with Katrina: Two Days Later

Diary of a Young Black Professor

8/31/05 12:39 P.M.(Los Angeles)

Taking a moment this afternoon to clear my head...as if that’s even possible this week. Three days ago, Hurricane Katrina barrelled into Mississippi, Lousiana, Alabama and Florida. And the results of the storm are indeed unimagineable. I am writing from Los Angeles, but my mind and heart are with those miles away—with family in Illinois who are trying to contact family and friends in Mississippi. And what has been most gripping for me:

Roofs of houses barely peeking out from standing water
Buildings, cars, debris, streetlights, bridges, highways broken and crumbeled like pop-cicle sticks and aluminum cans.

The eerie sight of Mississippi neighborhoods with no signs of life, no movement.
Yet contrast with New Orleans rooftops, streets, sewage-steeped waters, stores and Superdome filled and filled with Blackness...and I don’t mean Black dirt or sewage...yeah that’s there...but I mean filled to the brim with BLACK LIVES.

If i’m struck by another thing, I am struck by Black young and old sitting atop roofs, hammering out neighbors, holding on to emergency lifts and even running out of local stores with pampers, snicker bars and whatever else they could grab as they headed for higher ground.

I am struck, astonished, just dumbfounded by how Black the New Orleans crisis is/And how white the Mississippi tragedy is as the news recounts events occurring in each place...and ironically it’s the most I’ve seen Black folk on TV in years...
Every individual lifted, laying across overpasses, pushing relatives in large yellow dumpters is ALIVE...despite the odds, despite the insane smell, stench, lack of resources, and few possibilities for people to be fed, helped, treated for injuries, receive medicines... PEOPLE ARE STILL ALIVE.

I am writing because I don’t know what else to do, really. I’ve prayed and wondered and listened and watched and cried...cried so much yesterday that it took time for sleep to overcome the pain and pounding in my head from all those tears and worrying. And now I write because it is the only things that soothes me most days, but especially now.

Just writing to get my fears and concerns down for the sake of communicating to others what the moment looked like and felt like from a sister very very far away.

I write for those without power in their limbs or in their homes. I write for those without light, without food, without hope, without a way to communicate....and for those who are not quite clear as to how they will survive this.

WE SEE YOU BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND MOTHERS AND PAW-PAWS AND BABIES. WE SEE YOU ON ROOFTOPS. WE SEE YOU WADING IN SHOULDER HIGH WATER. WE SEE YOU TAKING WHAT YOU NEED TO SURVIVE THE UNSURVIVABLE.

KNOW THAT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US IS THAT WE DO HAVE HOMES AND WARMTH AND FOOD AND SOME SENSE OF SECURITY TODAY, BUT WE FEEL SO HELPLESS. WE ACHE FOR YOU AND EVEN AS WE WRITE CHECKS TO GET AID TO YOU WE JUST WANT TO DO MORE.

I believe that many of us of all hues, shapes, wish we could do something more, ANYTHING more to help you all get through this. And as the extent of the damage mounts, I have not doubt that we will all be called to do our part over the months and years to come.

But don’t we fear as well, yall. Yeah, we are fearful. As the government and states and military plot and plan, fear does grip our hearts in those small weak pockets of fear and distrust and memory that are so much a part of the Black American experience.

We fear that as long as the New Orleans story has a black face, we fear that this is why help is slow to come. We fear that scenes of young Black looters will harden the hearts of those who may want to help, but end up saying "look at those niggas..." without remembering that you now have absolutely nothing.

We fear that your portion of the recovery assistance will be smaller than others who have fair skin and a history of priveledge in the South. We fear a government that knows how to wage wars AGAINST brown-skinned folk globally may not wage a war of survival FOR Black New Orleneans.

I write because white commentators are the ones who are narrating the story on the news, but they won’t say the things I need to hear.

Spiritually, I am also transformed. How do we make sense of such tragedy and loss and struggle in the United States? On some level, one of the things this hurricane has done is called us home. We, Americans, are now trying to come to terms with a devastating series of events still unfolding for which we all will pay a price. The Old South is a land steeped in blood and history. It is now steeped in unfathomable amounts of water and sewage and tears.

Mama always says that as a nation we won’t have peace HERE as long as we do not concern ourselves with peace and injustice in other parts of the world. I believe she is indeed on to something as I don’t discount her years of experience and her lifetime on looking at how America does its business.

What I’ll say is that it is a bit ironic...maddening...excruciating that in states where Blacks had to fight so long and hard to vote and be counted in this last elections (2000 & 2004), it will be interesting to see how Florida and Texas in particular deal with Katrina’s black refugees...Dear, Lord, have mercy on us!

I am a woman of faith who does indeed believe that God is reminding America once again that HE IS STILL GOD. It also seems to be a reminder that until we learn how to REALLY live together and work for equity and fairness and uplift for ALL, not just for the wealthy or priveledged, we will ALL suffer such storms as these together.

There is a reason why so many Blacks stayed and whites fled. There are reasons why some had the means to leave and other had to stay and weather the storm and ultimately gave their lives to it.

Jack Fine, and noted musician in New Orleans spoke on CNN yesterday about the waste, the loss, the impact on the cultural and artistic community of New Orleans sharing his reflections with Paula Zahn as he himself was stranded in a gated community in an exclusive part of New Orleans. And he makes the point that so many make in thinking about so many of our urban centers. His concern was for the culture and the arts and where artists would play their music.

And it just seems to me that as long as the focus is on preservation of infrastructure/buildings/things over the uplift of people, we remain clueless about what Katrina has tried to teach us. If nothing else, all of us now have a better sense of what it must feel like to live in Baghdad, Mosul Takrit, and Darfur each and every day.

Ok, yall, gotta go back to prepping for classes...wrapping up the first installment of what promises to the beginning of a very long story.

Keep praying, do/give what you can and take good care!

—Nicole!