BEFORE KATRINA: THE INVISIBLE PROBLEM

Ralph Ellison was either prescient or invisible. How did he develop a character who spoke as if he were an inhabitant of New Orleans 58 years before Katrina? The protagonist of Ellison’s famous work of fiction remarked:

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywoodmovie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids— and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”1

Katrina forced the world to see the poor people of Louisiana and Mississippi. It forced them to see what those attuned to America’s socio-political and economic realities already knew: economic disparities of an unacceptable nature persist in America. They afflict the Black population disproportionately.2 They also relegate too many whites, Latinos and others to a life of squalor. For these people, there is no way out. Indeed, no one sees them.

Most policy and opinion leaders refuse to acknowledge this ongoing humanitarian crisis in a meaningful way. Every now and again, a politician or media pundit will raise a hue and cry about one Black child whom the system failed or identify one depressed town. They passively assert that “more needs to be done,” and occasionally call on Congress to Act.

They fail to realize (or acknowledge) that one Black child or one Black city merely represents a larger, systemic phenomena. Case in point: the Katrina aftermath. Politicians and pundits raised the hue and cry but the government responded with an anemic form of disaster relief that hardly addressed the emergency, much less the underlying problems of the region.

The fact is that post-hoc public band-aids in the form of disaster relief do not address the greater predicament that threatens America’s social and democratic fabric. Neither do diluted measures crafted in response to the occasional public outcry. Where is the effective civil rights legislation, fair and affordable housing measures, small business incentive programs, public welfare and social security plans, educational reforms and healthcare initiatives on campaign platforms or the congressional docket? What becomes of such proposals in practice? Did the affirmative action of the past few decades level the structurally uneven playing field that slavery’s 300 years left behind? Is no child left behind? What ever happened to the national healthcare plan? What ever happened to the social security overhaul? What of implementation, oversight, accountability?

What does all this have to do with Katrina? Some view Katrina as a “natural” disaster that has nothing to do with social or policy issues. To the contrary, the response to Katrina has everything to do with race and poverty in America, everything to do with the promises of equality and democracy, everything to do with community. In short, our leaders’ approach to national crises highlights serious issues that continue to exist while at the same time creates new ones. Katrina dredges up these problems from the mud of invisibility.

After Katrina, most of those left homeless, stranded or dying on the side of the road, were Black. This is no coincidence, for their plight began with slavery and since then many remain “poor and powerless.”3 Yet, how is it that these freedmen’s children continue to live in deplorable conditions in a country whose GDP is the largest in the world? More important still, how is it that no one sees them? Right now, after Katrina, they are visible. Here, I focus on one question: How do we keep them in sight?