Towards a Transformative View of Race: The Crisis and Opportunity of Katrina

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Towards a Transformative View of Race The
Crisis and Opportunity of Katrina

• Book Chapter by
• john a. powell, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Daniel W.
  Newhart, and Eric Steins
• July 18, 2006

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Hurricane Katrina

• Hurricane Katrina and its subsequent flooding
  devastated the New Orleans region, destroying
  neighborhoods and displacing residents throughout
  the nation.
• Nearly 750,000 people were acutely impacted by
  flooding and storm damage.

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Raising Questions

• You simply get chills every time you see these
  poor individuals. Almost all of them that we see
  are so poor, and they are so black. This is
  going to raise lots of questions for people who
  are watching the story unfold.
• Wolf Blitzer, on CNNs Situation Room,
  September 1, 2005

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Struggling to Make Sense of the Disaster

• Hurricane Katrina illustrated a profound
  connection between race and poverty in the US
• Like Wolf Blizter, many people were left trying
  to figure out why Katrinas destructive force
  disproportionately impacted African-American and
  poor communities. (Berube and Katz, 2005)
• How we answer these questions is vitally
  important.

Storm Survivors in New Orleans Photo from
Katrinahelp.com
Storm Survivors in New Orleans Photo from
Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital
Area
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Struggling to Make Sense of the Disaster

• The images suggested a connection that Americans
  was not prepared to grasp.
• Existing cultural narratives were incapable of
  explaining what we were seeing
• Were so many poor African Americans affected by
  the storm because they were poor or because they
  were black, or was it because of their culture?
• We were told poverty was the issue, not race.
  Pundits and politicians reminded us that
• Nature is colorblind. Katrina did not target New
  Orleans because the city was 68 African
  American, but because it was in the path of the
  storm.
• The government response, although in adequate,
  was not the result of racial animus

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Trapped in an Individualistic Frame

• Americans lacked a story to make sense of the
  facts surrounding Katrina.
• The individualistic frame does not provide a
  perspective to make sense of the relationship
  between race and poverty. Facts themselves do
  not give meaning.
• The dominant narrative of the individualism, the
  American dream, and colorblindness makes it
  difficult to see race outside of an
  individualistic frame.

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The Individualistic Frame

• The dominant mode of thinking about race and
  racism requires that there be a racist actor in
  order for there to be a racist action.
• These individualized explanations of racism are
  inadequate.
• Thinking about racism narrowly as the product of
  individual intent is not helpful because the
  focus is on blame rather than change.
• Racism is as much a product of systems and
  institutions as it is a manifestation of
  individual behavior.
• Structural arrangements produce and reproduce
  racial outcomes and can reinforce racial
  attitudes.

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The Structural View

• The geography of race led directly to a
  disproportionate storm impact.
• Prior to the storm, New Orleans was rigidly
  segregated by race
• Decades of housing discrimination had kept the
  vast majority of the citys black residents in a
  handful of neighborhoods deemed undesirable
  because they were susceptible to flooding.

After levee breaks, the Ninth ward rapidly floods
in New Orleans. Photo by Ted Jackson/NEWHOUSE
NEWS SERVICE)
Evacuees sit stranded in the streets outside the
Convention Center of New Orleans in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina September 3, 2005.
REUTERS/SHANNON STAPLETON
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African American Population in New Orleans
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Concentrated Poverty

• Poor black people were isolated in the same
  neighborhoods, resulting in huge tracts of
  concentrated poverty
• New Orleans has some of the most severe levels of
  concentrated poverty in the nation

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The Structural View

• Transit problems were another principal reason
  that the violent impact of Katrina was so
  disproportionately shouldered by poor African
  Americans.
• Low-income residents are more reliant upon public
  transit. The concentration of poverty and racial
  segregation made it more difficult to temporarily
  relocate when Katrina arrived

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Structural View

• Space is highly racialized in this country
• Housing location determines the quality of
  schools children attend, the quality of public
  services, access to employment and
  transportation, health risks, access to health
  care and public safety
• The cost to people of color with disparate levels
  of poverty and highly segregated neighborhoods
  was intensified during and after Katrina
• We talk about poverty in a color-blind way, but
  poverty cannot be divorced from race in this
  country, in fact, it is one of the factors that
  creates racial disparities

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Housing and Opportunity

• Housing is Critical in Determining Access to
  Opportunity

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The Cumulative Impacts of Racial and Opportunity
Segregation
Segregation impacts a number of life-opportunities
Impacts on Health
School Segregation
Impacts on Educational Achievement
Exposure to crime arrest
Transportation limitations and other inequitable
public services
Job segregation
Neighborhood Segregation
Racial stigma, other psychological impacts
Impacts on community power and individual assets
Adapted from figure by Barbara Reskin at
http//faculty.washington.edu/reskin/
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Structural View

• The structural view of race directs our attention
  to institutional arrangements that produce and
  reinforce disparities.
• All of the aspects of opportunity housing,
  education, job training, employment, health care
  and transportation interact with one another
  structurally.
• With this view, the combined effects of
  institutional arrangements and structures have
  racialized outcomes even when individual
  structures appear race-neutral.

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Race as a Diagnostic Tool

• By talking about race in a structural way, we
  begin to see how structural arrangements help
  arrange all of our lives
• We can then begin to apply this analysis to other
  urban areas. Racialized poverty, segregation,
  and decaying infrastructure of our central cities
  are common problems plaguing urban areas
  nationwide.
• Like canaries gasping for air, the marginalized
  are signal problems in our democracy

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Broadening the Conversation

• Race, when used properly, allows us to examine
  how institutional failings and structural
  arrangements affect us all
• We can begin to ask questions about the shrinking
  middle class, our anemic investment in public
  space, the meaning of merit in our society, and
  the promises and failures of our democratic
  experiment

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Opportunities

• We now have the opportunity to rebuild in such a
  way as to transform pre-existing structural
  arrangements
• We can begin to reexamine the connections between
  race and class
• We can begin to decipher how race is inscribed
  spatially into our metropolitan areas
• We have the chance to talk about the links
  between race, equity, justice, and democracy

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Structural Racism and Transformation

• Racial disparities are evidence of structural
  racism, but drawing attention to these
  disparities is not the primary goal
• The challenge goes beyond eliminating racial
  disparities
• We must challenge the structures that are
  creating disparities and rebuild them in ways
  that will produce better life chances - for ALL
  OF US

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An interconnected web

• Our collective actions and inactions have created
  structures that perpetuate group-based inequality
  - but also distribute meaning
• Once structures are in place, they appear to have
  logic and momentum of their own
• This cycle appears as inevitable as it seems
  vicious

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Conclusions

• It is time for a new way of speaking about race
  and racism
• Asking why race and class matter is as important
  as how they matter
• Conversations about structures and how they
  inhibit or promote opportunity should be had in
  order to create intentional, transformative change

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Conclusions (cont)

• A structural framework takes us from meritocracy,
  individualism, and separation, frames which
  normally dominate our conversations, to the idea
  that were all in this together
• We must come to terms with the extent that race
  remains a central part of how this country is
  organized (Young, 2003)
• We can begin to create an alternative to highly
  racialized space, a positive one, one that
  includes all of us

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www.KirwanInstitute.org
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The Communities of Opportunity Approach

• The communities of opportunity is based an
  extensive body of research and literature related
  to concentrated poverty, regional equity,
  metropolitan dynamics, spatial racism, housing
  mobility, segregation, etc.
• The central principle of opportunity based
  housing is that residents of metropolitan regions
  are situated within a complex, interconnected web
  of opportunity structures (or lack thereof) that
  significantly shapes their quality of life

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Opportunity Mapping

• Opportunity mapping is a research tool used to
  understand the dynamics of opportunity within
  metropolitan areas
• The purpose of opportunity mapping is to
  illustrate where opportunity rich communities
  exist (and assess who has access to these
  communities)
• Also, to understand what needs to be remedied in
  opportunity poor communities
• Use to review and analyze specific policies and
  proposals.