What, Me Worry? Kitty Genovese and the Katrina Response
In 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed while 38 New York City residents in nearby buildings watched and did nothing to save her. Social psychologists have used this horrible scenario as a metaphor for passive crowd behavior, i.e., the amazing situation where people will essentially ignore something awful happening to fellow human beings nearby.
The same behavior applies on a much larger scale sociologically. Whether it involves politicians, the news media, or entertainment, the tragedies society responds to are few and far between. Noticeable exceptions are Pearl Harbor and the tragedy of 9/11. Those rattled our American cage, and across the board there arose a demand for a reckoning, patriotism surged, and cost was not an obstacle.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit and for a solid month, the news media, politicians, and entertainment personalities demonstrated great concern for the victims of these natural and man-made disasters. Then, as suddenly as it started, the attention drifted away. After all, New Orleans was rebuilding. On to Stan, Wilma, Pakistan, the musical chairs of the Supreme Court, the beleagered Bush Administration, and the debate on Iraq. In entertainment, we're back to reality shows, the World Series came and went, and now the NFL season is in full swing. It's all good.
However, except for gas price gouging, buried deep in newspapers and off the main page of news websites, the horror of Katrina and Rita only grows. The bureaucratic barriers are nothing short of despicable. In the next two months, FEMA will evict over 150,000 Katrina/Rita survivors from hotel rooms they were allowed to stay-in. Maybe on some economic surface that makes sense, but there's no difference between the situation now than after the hurricanes hit. These citizens have no homes to return to; mud and oil (from the second worst oil disaster to Valdez) saturate the remnants of their homes. They have no records, tax documents, bank statements, clothes, pictures, appliances, tools, etc. What are these people supposed to do? It's well known that tens of thousands of victim/survivors have roamed the northeastern area above New Orleans and southeastern region of Mississippi without housing since the disaster struck nearly three months ago. Perhaps the evicted can join them and have a giant scavenger hunt.
For the past two months, Fannie Mae offered 1,800 homes rent-free for 18-months, thousands of mobile homes were ready for placement in the New Orleans area, and an on a much smaller scale, a friend of mine prepared a 225,000 square foot facility to house and re-integrate survivors into new communities (Greenville, Mississippi). This week under intense pressure, FEMA finally agreed to 1,500 homes in Fannie Mae's offer. Other options haven't been acted on, because of "negotiation challenges." 200,000 people are awaiting eviction or roaming the countryside. What could possibly be the "negotiation challenge" priority that overrides theirs?
New Orleans was the most racially impacted city in the united states in terms of the disparity of income, education, and privledge. We have been reassured that the absence of disaster relief has nothing to do with race or class, like black people in lower socioeconomic levels, the vast majority of New Orleans and gulf coast residents hammered by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and the predicted levee failures. In addition, pigs fly upside down. If this horror was happening in the Hamptons, Beverly Hills, Cherry-Hills, New York's upper east side, Honolulu, etc, would the response be the same? Would the nation's attention dissolve and tens of thousands' life-critical necessities be so simply pushed aside?
Disaster relief workers know. If you would just take a couple hours and look through "blogs" and postings from volunteers and relief workers on their experiences in the gulf region, their impressions, you'd find thousands of statements about the lack of relief that's truly being offered. I was a disaster relief volunteer in the poorest region of Mississippi, written about in Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9729481/site/newsweek/. The first, best, honest media article appeared in the Washington Post, "Night and Day in New Orleans:" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801681.html?sub=AR. It touches the tip of an iceburg. American citizens on our own soil need our help, our advocacy, and our intolerance of media/political avoidance and denial. Katrina and Rita should not become America's next sociological version of Kitty Genovese.
http://www.hrw.org
common cause
www.commoncause.org
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801681.html
Louisiana
New Orleans
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9729481/site/newsweek
New
Katrina
Hurricane
http://technorati.com/tag/http://www.hrw.org
common cause
www.commoncause.org
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021000267.html
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030101731.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html?hp&ex=1139634000&en=914abcf6c2b5fc5a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html
http://www.hrw.org/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801681.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021000267.html
Louisiana
New Orleans
we are not ok
The same behavior applies on a much larger scale sociologically. Whether it involves politicians, the news media, or entertainment, the tragedies society responds to are few and far between. Noticeable exceptions are Pearl Harbor and the tragedy of 9/11. Those rattled our American cage, and across the board there arose a demand for a reckoning, patriotism surged, and cost was not an obstacle.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit and for a solid month, the news media, politicians, and entertainment personalities demonstrated great concern for the victims of these natural and man-made disasters. Then, as suddenly as it started, the attention drifted away. After all, New Orleans was rebuilding. On to Stan, Wilma, Pakistan, the musical chairs of the Supreme Court, the beleagered Bush Administration, and the debate on Iraq. In entertainment, we're back to reality shows, the World Series came and went, and now the NFL season is in full swing. It's all good.
However, except for gas price gouging, buried deep in newspapers and off the main page of news websites, the horror of Katrina and Rita only grows. The bureaucratic barriers are nothing short of despicable. In the next two months, FEMA will evict over 150,000 Katrina/Rita survivors from hotel rooms they were allowed to stay-in. Maybe on some economic surface that makes sense, but there's no difference between the situation now than after the hurricanes hit. These citizens have no homes to return to; mud and oil (from the second worst oil disaster to Valdez) saturate the remnants of their homes. They have no records, tax documents, bank statements, clothes, pictures, appliances, tools, etc. What are these people supposed to do? It's well known that tens of thousands of victim/survivors have roamed the northeastern area above New Orleans and southeastern region of Mississippi without housing since the disaster struck nearly three months ago. Perhaps the evicted can join them and have a giant scavenger hunt.
For the past two months, Fannie Mae offered 1,800 homes rent-free for 18-months, thousands of mobile homes were ready for placement in the New Orleans area, and an on a much smaller scale, a friend of mine prepared a 225,000 square foot facility to house and re-integrate survivors into new communities (Greenville, Mississippi). This week under intense pressure, FEMA finally agreed to 1,500 homes in Fannie Mae's offer. Other options haven't been acted on, because of "negotiation challenges." 200,000 people are awaiting eviction or roaming the countryside. What could possibly be the "negotiation challenge" priority that overrides theirs?
New Orleans was the most racially impacted city in the united states in terms of the disparity of income, education, and privledge. We have been reassured that the absence of disaster relief has nothing to do with race or class, like black people in lower socioeconomic levels, the vast majority of New Orleans and gulf coast residents hammered by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and the predicted levee failures. In addition, pigs fly upside down. If this horror was happening in the Hamptons, Beverly Hills, Cherry-Hills, New York's upper east side, Honolulu, etc, would the response be the same? Would the nation's attention dissolve and tens of thousands' life-critical necessities be so simply pushed aside?
Disaster relief workers know. If you would just take a couple hours and look through "blogs" and postings from volunteers and relief workers on their experiences in the gulf region, their impressions, you'd find thousands of statements about the lack of relief that's truly being offered. I was a disaster relief volunteer in the poorest region of Mississippi, written about in Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9729481/site/newsweek/. The first, best, honest media article appeared in the Washington Post, "Night and Day in New Orleans:" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801681.html?sub=AR. It touches the tip of an iceburg. American citizens on our own soil need our help, our advocacy, and our intolerance of media/political avoidance and denial. Katrina and Rita should not become America's next sociological version of Kitty Genovese.
http://www.hrw.org
common cause
www.commoncause.org
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801681.html
Louisiana
New Orleans
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9729481/site/newsweek
New
Katrina
Hurricane
http://technorati.com/tag/http://www.hrw.org
common cause
www.commoncause.org
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021000267.html
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030101731.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html?hp&ex=1139634000&en=914abcf6c2b5fc5a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html
http://www.hrw.org/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801681.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021000267.html
Louisiana
New Orleans
we are not ok
posted by Katrina RRMs at 2:52 PM
