HypheNationAn Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Critical Moments Discourse

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TalkingLoud

Tracy Blandon Allen

Martha Carey

Futaba Fujikawa

Natasha McPherson

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When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I didn’t realize that it would be as devastating as it was. Blame it on ignorance, but I did not and still don't know the difference between a category one and a category five storm. Maybe, I didn't care as much because Atlanta was not in Katrina’s direct path. But, as I watched the story unfold and the images began filtering through various news sources, I was rudely awakened by what I was not intending to see.

Two years ago when I visited New Orleans, the city that I enjoyed was filled with various races, cultures and ethnicities: a literal gumbo of difference. Yet, as it relates to hurricane Katrina, the more I watched, the more I recognized that a majority of the images that flashed across the television screen were of black women. Don't get me wrong, there have been dozens of other images, which clearly depict the various people - whites, Latinos, Asian and Creoles-, who have been aeffected. But, black women have for some reason become a kind of metaphor for the storm.

So, why has this been the case? Examining national tragedies such as 9/11, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and wild fires in California, to name but a few, it is unclear to me how something like this can happen in America where the devastation has been so wide. Mississippi, Alabama and Texas were also affected by the same storm. Whites, Latinos, Asians, native Americans, and of course, African Americans have all been affected by Katrina. And still again, it has been gendered and raced as female and black.

Nevertheless, there are a number of reasons for this. One explanation is directly related to the images of the poor (generally black women) displaced by the storm. The poor people who filtered out of the Lower Ninth Ward and the various wards surrounding New Orleans proper, and as

they tried to evacuate from the city. However, with no transportation, no resources and a lack of faith and trust in the government, these displaced people were left behind to fend for themselves. Many of which were black women. Many of which became the cover shots for Time, Newsweek and the New York Times.

In America, where conversations concerning race, class and gender never seem to decline, black women reside in a unique intersection, where their bodies are marked twice as inferior: for their womanhood and their blackness. Historically speaking a body loved and loathed, misused and abused, and dominated and discarded.

Indeed, while watching the Oprah Winfrey Show, an episode concerned with the “stories never told” out of New Orleans, it was obvious that the representation of Katrina was in fact black and female. One story in particular related how bad the damage was after the storm hit. A woman had lived through the deadly storm in an upstairs apartment. With no roof, no plumbing and no electricity, she survived for more than six months while she has been waiting on a trailer.

Recognizably, the politics surrounding the clean up efforts are unbelievable. From the political turmoil created by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and his "Chocolate City" comments, to the smell of the death still lingering in the air over the city, this travesty will not be forgotten anytime soon.

And while our government has visibly halted its efforts to provide a sense of hope and possibility, there are people wandering through life in a delusional state;-still recovering and seeking closure. But I guess as long as the government and the powers that be continue to see Katrina as a black woman, not much will change any time soon.