Description
Book SynopsisQuestions the efficacy of the national and global responses to Katrina's central victims, African Americans. This collection of polemical essays explores the extent to which African Americans and others were, and are, disproportionately affected by the natural and manmade forces that caused Hurricane Katrina.
Trade Review“Jeremy I. Levitt and Matthew C. Whitaker have prepared a fact-laden and analytically rich collection of writings about the social inequities that exacerbated the suffering wrought by Hurricane Katrina. It is an important contribution to a variety of disciplines including history, law, sociology, political science, and African American studies. The impassioned authors who speak in this anthology are determined to prevent amnesia from erasing from American memory this signal tragedy. They deserve a wide and attentive audience.”—Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School and author of
Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal“Levitt and Whitaker have made a distinct contribution to the expanding body of scholarship and reflection on the social and political meanings of Hurricane Katrina. Their book also represents an urgent call to action—designed to address the persistence of racial inequality and poverty in the United States and to prevent the future transformation of natural disasters into man-made calamities.”—Joe William Trotter Jr., Giant Eagle Professor of History and Social Justice and head of the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University and author of
The African American Experience“Jeremy I. Levitt and Matthew C. Whitaker, and the distinguished contributors to this illuminating anthology, critically assess the magnitude and complexity of the Katrina catastrophe. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the relevance of race, class, and gender, and the consequences of entrenched poverty and governmental ineptitude.”—Darlene Clark Hine, Board of Trustees Professor of African American Studies and professor of history at Northwestern University and coauthor of
The African American Odyssey"This eclectic collection of essays succeeds in providing multiple layers of context to the "unnatural" tragedy of Hurricane Katrina."—S. E. Horn,
CHOICE"The vast majority of those evacuated after the levee breaks were African Americans and this book will help students and scholars to understand why. It is an important social lesson."—Edie Ambrose,
Journal of African American HistoryTable of ContentsList of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction. “Truth Crushed to Earth Will Rise Again”: Katrina and Its Aftermath
Jeremy I. Levitt and Matthew C. Whitaker
1. Letters from a Native Son: Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?
Mitchell F. Crusto
2. After Katrina: Laying Bare the Anatomy of American Caste
Bryan K. Fair
3. Hurricane Katrina and the “Market” for Survival: The Role of Economic Theory in the Construction and Maintenance of Disaster
Charles R. P. Pouncy
4. The Internal Revenue Code Don’t Care about Poor, Black People
Andre L. Smith
5. Judging under Disaster: The Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Criminal Justice System
Phyllis Kotey
6. From Worse to Where? African Americans, Hurricane Katrina, and the Continuing Public Health Crisis
Alyssa G. Robillard
7. Failed Plans and Planned Failures: The Lower Ninth Ward, Hurricane Katrina, and the Continuing Story of Environmental Injustice
Carlton Waterhouse
8. “Still Up on the Roof”: Race, Victimology, and the Response to Hurricane Katrina
Kenneth B. Nunn
9. Governmental Liability for the Katrina Failure
Linda S. Greene
10. Katrina, Race, Refugees, and Images of the Third World
Ruth Gordon
11. “Been in the Storm So Long”: Katrina, Reparations, and the Original Understanding of Equal Protection
D. Marvin Jones
Epilogue
Jeremy I. Levitt and Matthew C. Whitaker
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
