Aug 10
31
There Was Nothing Good About Katrina
Mourners at an Aug. 2010 healing ceremony at the site of the Lower Ninth Ward levee breach. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Read what you will; and here’s what I say: When I first read the headline, I wanted to add a few bolded !!!! at the end. There Was Nothing Good About Katrina!!!! This morning, as I watched Spike Lee’s lastest Katrina documentary, God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise; perhaps the saddest of all is the mental health wreckage left in Katrina’s wake. We, as Black folk have a tendancy to not seek mental health services; but when we do and there are little to no services in place, oh what sad days indeed.
The only mental health facility in New Orleans, the government shut down which left one facility across the river in another city. The only treatment facility in New Orleans now, is a part of the jail system. Oh, the creek is rising indeed and people’s mental well-being seems not important to make the services available. All I can do is pray, God I know you’re willing, touch the hearts of the powers that are supposed to be and open the floodgates of hope and help for the men, women and children who are so desperately in need. I ask this in Your Son’s Matchless Name. Amen. So be it.
Article by Brentin Mock, From The Root
There’s no way I can reflect on the future of New Orleans without starting with the lives of the displaced. Not all of those lives shared the same fate or destiny, but what has happened in the city while they’ve been away is, I believe, a telling story of how federal policymakers feel about the poor and vulnerable.
Five years after the flood, recovery remains complicated. Watching Luisa Dantas’ documentary Land of Opportunity, about the lives of people affected by Katrina, I was charmed by the character Tr’Vel Lyons, a teenager who lost his home in the floods and ended up in Los Angeles. Forced to finish his education there, he seemed to have assimilated well into the vast, carbonated metropolis and a much larger school. Propelled by his own confidence and strong initiative, Tr’Vel excelled academically and athletically.
At one point, he wonders aloud whether Katrina was a good thing. It’s one of those statements that make everyone back in New Orleans wince, no matter who says it. But it makes a difference who says it. When policymakers armed with scalpels and demolition balls say the same thing — and they have — it reeks of the political and financial benefit they stand to gain by convincing us that is true.
Yet Tr’Vel, who graduated with honors and will now attend college on scholarship, said in the movie that he doesn’t believe the same opportunities would have been available to him had he stayed in New Orleans. Does Tr’Vel’s story prove the policymakers right?
Before answering that, keep in mind that not every displaced New Orleanian has lived Tr’Vel’s triumphant story. More than 100,000 people who were displaced by the floods have not come back. Many of them would like to return but can’t because they don’t have a home or a school for their children. Less than half of the schools before Katrina are open today, and four housing projects — more than 5,000 living units — were razed. Add the closing of Charity Hospital, which served the poor and uninsured unconditionally, and many have even less of a reason to return — though they have the right to.
