Modernity's Storm_201108

Modernity’s Storm
Hurricane Katrina, Capital Accumulation, and The Colonial Sphere
By Robinson Warner
London School of Economics and Political Science
Department of Sociology
MSc Sociology(ContemporarySocial Thought)
SO 499 Dissertation
Word Count: 9,536

SO 499 – MSc Sociology (Contemporary Social Thought) – Dissertation
Page 2 of 47
Acknowledgements
I spent two years inNew Orleans starting in the summer of 2008. Having been to the citybefore
Hurricane Katrina, I was anxious to see if New Orleans was “back,” as many developers and city officials
proclaimed. Upon my arrival and subsequentvolunteer work I saw a citythat was healing, but still
grieving.
Writing this essayhas beenanattempt to sort through my feelings of anger and disbelief over
the fact that manyhave stoppedtalking about the institutional injustices that Katrina exposed.
Researchquestions have ledto even more questions about the modern world and the U.S.
government’s place in it: Where is the helpthat was promised? How could anyone argue we live in a
post-racial world? And how has no one gone to jail as a result of their gross negligence?
The effects of Hurricane Katrina show the reprehensiblyflawed nature of the modernworld and
this essaydemonstrates how it could have possibly come to this. While it has been almost six years
since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the greatest injustice to the citywouldbe to forget
that it needs us to root for it and remember the lessons learned from the unimaginable suffering.
Finally, I wouldlike to dedicate this essay to my parents and to the people of New Orleans. Both
taught me about what is right, how bright the world is withit, andhow bleak it is without it.

Page 3 of 47
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I LITERATUREREVIEW......................................................................................... ..4
CHAPTER II BEFORETHESTORM ......................................................................................... ..8
A Tale of Two Cities........................................................................ ..9
The Perfect Storm............................................................................ 12
“Make Wetlands, Not War” ............................................................ 16
CHAPTER III DURINGTHE STORM......................................................................................... 18
A Picture’s Worth ............................................................................ 19
Blaming the Victim.......................................................................... 21
The Cover of Darkness..................................................................... 23
Developing the Colonial Sphere...................................................... 26
CHAPTER IV AFTER THESTORMANDBEYOND ........................................................................ 30
Disaster Capitalism.......................................................................... 30
Subversive Migrations..................................................................... 32
The Commodityof Race .................................................................. 34
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION................................................................................................... 37
References.................................................................................................. 39
WORKS CITED ................................................................................................ 44
APPENDIX...................................................................................................... 47

CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW Page 4 of 47
CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW
Nearlysixyears have passed since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. There
have been extensive writing and analysis of what this disaster means in the larger racial and
economiccontext of the United States. The literature itselftouches on the themes of the racial
“other”, post-racial thinking, media representation of minority groups, militarism, and
comparisons between Iraq and New Orleans. Without explicitlystating it, research surrounding
Hurricane Katrina as a phenomenon, both social and environmental, is one resulting from what
is understood as “modernity”. The primarygoal of this essayis to establish causality between
different strands of modern thinking and the historical events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.
Furthermore, different strands of modern reasoning are used for different temporal frames of
analysis.
I primarily use Judith Butler and Enrique Dussel’s discussions of modernity when
applying it to events in New Orleans. Modernity, which Dussel claims began in 1492 upon
Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, covers all varieties of sins perpetrated in the name of
civilization at the expense of indigenous populations. In this essay, I focus in particular on the
effects of capital accumulation as a developmental narrative and colonial perceptions and
actions regarding the racial “other”. The developmental and civilizing conceit of capital
accumulation is used in the historical analysis of events pre-Katrina, which highlights primarily
economicimperatives that resulted in demographicshifts. Further analysis would be fruitful in
probing demographicshifts for other American cities of a similar size to New Orleans. This

would be useful in understanding the dichotomybetween the phenomenon of “white flight” to
the suburbs and the increased frequencyof urban publichousing on a larger scale phenomenon
in the United States. As my first argument is buttressed by the combination of profound
demographicshifts and an evolving economy, further statistical analysis into the decline in U.S.
manufacturing in the past fortyyears would reinforce claims to a changing American economy
and extend to national understandings of manufacturing decline in the United States over the
forty years. Most importantly, what can be taken awayfrom the historical analysis specific to
New Orleans’ economyand sociallandscape is that, within the United States, while race cannot
be equated with class, “race makes class hurt more.”1 Dyson writes, “In this instance, race
becomes a marker for class, a proxy, blurring and bending the boundaries that segregate them
(144).”
In light of escalating mediareports of black violence in New Orleans, colonialism is the
main frame of analysis for the second chapter. Primarily, I used understandings of colonial
discourse and structure from Gilroy, Mbembe, Fanon and Sousa-Santos. While each author
differs slightlyin his analysis, the recurring themes of (1) militarism, (2) coercive terror/threat of
violence from the state, (3) physical fear of the racial and cultural “other” (based on
expectations of racial behaviour in the absence of reason and order), and (4) the state of
exception (as a place outside of modern notions of legalitywhich permit the maintenance of
order by anymeans) are prevalent throughout all works. These themes underliemyassertions
about New Orleans.
Particular to the South as a distinctlyinfluential site for developing understandings of
colonial logic, I believe further studyis required concerning the role of the “Southern rape

complex” in contemporaryexplorations of racism. This topicis integral in understanding the
interplayof sexualityand race that defines essentialist fear of black male sexuality violating
white women. Colonialism – with specific regards to the Atlantic slave trade – must
additionally study the other side of the Southern rape complex which is the colonizing of
African genetics through rape bywhite slave-owning men.2 Other beneficial inquiries should
also be made into notions of what it means to be a “Southern” city in the U.S. as well as
exploration of New Orleans’ unique and complexracial history.
Generalizations made about mass mediaduring Hurricane Katrina are widespread in the
literature, yet content analysis and other forms of comprehensive media analysis occur less
frequently. Bevcand Tierneyprovided the most beneficial research byanalysing major national
newspapers over a seven day period, but further study is required of electronic media
surrounding reports of “civil disobedience.” Despite this, the literature surrounding media
analysis is largelyin agreement on the low journalistic standards which perpetuated racial
tropes about New Orleans’ black population. The focus of mymedia analysis heavily revolves
around two striking pictures taken during the storm (which can be found in the Appendix).
While further analysis of the entire bodyof pictures taken at the time would be a laborious
(albeit worthwhile undertaking), I selected onlythese two photographs as a strong point of
analysis, both for its metaphorical significance and for its frequency of occurrence in the
literature. Analysis of these two photographs occurred in several sources and uses their
comparison as a starting point for explaining racial double standards in mediaanalysis.
The period after the storm is the area which requires the most time. Documents
surrounding the specific expenditures of contractors, corruption, demographic shifts and

economicdevelopment post-Katrina are stillforthcoming. While Klein’s The Shock Doctrine
proved to be the most illuminating research, as well as literature explaining the racialized
tourist industry, much more detailed analysis of the economicramifications after the storm will
emerge in the passage of time.

CHAPTER II BEFORE THE STORM Page 8 of 47
CHAPTER II BEFORE THE STORM
Citizens of New Orleans had always prepared themselves for “The Big One.” With the
Gulf of Mexico five degrees Fahrenheit above its normal summer temperature, the hurricane
known as Katrina would gain most of its strength from its exceptionallywarm waters.3 When
the hurricane touched ground in southeast Louisiana on August 29th, 2005, Katrina brought
with it winds in excess of 150 miles per hour.4 ByAugust 30th, 80% of New Orleans had been
flooded.5 With much of the city’s poor and elderlypopulation unable to evacuate, the urban
poor – comprised largelyof New Orleans’ black citizens – were left behind. In the ensuing days
of chaos which followed the initialstorm surge, it was reported that there was widespread
looting, rape, and unprovoked lawlessness. With the apparent breakdown of civic and
governmental infrastructure, pictures, videos and news stories showed the face of a suffering
city which was predominantly black and predominantly poor. These reports, which
sensationalized the degree of social breakdown resulting from the storm’s wrath, would
ultimatelylead to the deployment of U.S. soldiers. This came in the deployment of the National
Guard (totalling 63,000) to control the rumoured social chaos supposedly perpetrated
exclusivelybyblack New Orleanians.6
I will analyse the subtext of the events starting on August 29th in New Orleans through
the lens of Dussel’s processes of modernityand modern logic. Modernityis comprised of the
uncompromising developmental process of capitalism and the colonial attitudes and activities
facilitated by the United States through the use of military strength and economic

development. The events that transpired before, during and after the onslaught of Hurricane
Katrina are precipitated bymodernity– more specifically, the march of capitalism and the
colonial views and actions undertaken by the United States government and mainstream
media.
A Tale of Two Cities
New Orleans is a citywith duelling heritages. The French established New Orleans in
1718 as a seaport for fur trading and as a pivotal cog in the Atlanticslave trade. It was acquired
by the United States in 1803 as part of The Louisiana Purchase and was established as the17th
state, a slave state, in 1812.7 Influenced bySpanish architecture, and developed bythe French,
New Orleans has European origins that are represented byheavyinfluence of Catholicism and
an informal aristocracybased on race and class. The other heritage of New Orleans is African
and Caribbean. New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, creole cuisine, and the home of Mardi
Gras. It is this unique synthesis ofrace, religion, and culture that caused W. E. B. DuBois to
write about Louisiana, “…economicand social differences in Louisiana [are] more complicated
than in anyother state… As a result, to this day it is difficult in Louisiana to draw the line
between races.”8
In order to understand the effect that modernity has had on New Orleans and its
residents, it is necessary to understand the social and economic factors that created the
landscape the hurricane devastated. The cityof New Orleans is, in many ways, a story of all
cities in the U.S. There is a bustling commercial district, high-end restaurants, business women

and men talking on cell phones, and cars speeding through busy streets. There are also
ghettos, dilapidated schools, rampant homicides, and a desperate multitude of the neglected
and disenfranchised. This is the other citythat is layered in the same space. The story of an
American cityis a tale of those who have and those who are left wanting; those who belong to
two completelydifferent social realities. But povertyin the United States is just as much a story
of black and white as it is a storyof economic disparity. 24% of blacks live in poverty in the
United States, which is doublethe national average.9 Nationally, blacks are three times as likely
to be poor compared with whites, earn 40% less income (in New Orleans as well), have one
tenth the net worth, and their homes are valued at 35% less than whites’.10
In New Orleans the story is not much better. 28% of New Orleans residents make
incomes below the povertylevel.11 However, 35% of black New Orleanians lived below the
poverty level pre-Katrina and had a median income of $25,000 while white New Orleanians
were 11% and $61,000, respectively.12 In a citythat was 67.9% black before the storm, with a
population of 103,000 poor people, and a povertyrate of 23%, it is clear that poverty affects
African Americans more than whites. While Hurricane Katrina affected both whites and blacks,
the storm-damaged areas were 45.8% black, but only26.4% black in undamaged areas.13 Logan
writes:
Certainlythe storm struck the neighbourhoods of manypeople of allbackgrounds… we
note that there were almost as manynon-Hispanicwhites as blacks in damaged areas… the
suffering from the storm partlycut across racialand class lines. But the odds of living in a
damaged area were veryclearlymuch greater for blacks, renters, and poor people.14

While making up a majorityin New Orleans, blacks onlymake up 31.5% of the population of
Louisiana, but black children count for 69% of child povertyin the state.15
Despite this unique origin of New Orleans, there is a history of racial problems that
typifies manyof the country’s urban spaces. While there were discrepancies in income as well
as access to qualityeducation, the physical location of social spaces and neighbourhoods
provides an added dimension in analysing differences between the largely white, privileged,
geographicallyprotected population and the black and precariouslysituated population. Logan
writes, “…both high ground and public investments in drainage and pumping systems
consistently worked to the advantage of certain neighbourhoods in past storms.”16 The
suspicions and fears of the underclass in New Orleans were forever cemented in historyin 1927
when leaders detonated the Caenarvon levee walls with dynamite in St. Bernard Parish, a
largelyblack, rural, and poor area of the city.17 This is modernity’s structure of the world: the
creation of two completely differing social realms. One realm includes membership and
privilege to enjoythe guarantees of modern societywhile the “other side” is a disposable realm
of poverty and neglect, where membership into society is irrelevant because it is
unacknowledged and hidden byeconomics and privilege.18
In understanding the functioning ofeconomics and race in New Orleans, we must look
at the demographicchange that New Orleans has undergone in the past fortyyears as well as
the shift in employment opportunities.

The Perfect Storm
What occurred demographically in New Orleans is a direct result of the neoliberal
economicpolicies from the last fortyyears. One of the main characteristics of modernity is an
uncompromising economicorder of capital accumulation. Capitalism acts as both an economic
order and a bearer of civilization. This civilizing mission has been seen in the development and
implantation ofeconomicneoliberalism over the last fortyyears . The goal of this aspect of
modernityis the “moral requirement” to replace undeveloped “primitive” forms of economic
growth with unfettered capitalism, while at the same time concealing the damaging social and
economic effects that it necessarily causes.19 In order to more efficiently accomplish this
economicallyinfused civilizing mission, neoliberal economicpolicies have seen the production
of goods moved from inside the United States, where wages are regulated and monitored by
the federal government, to manufacturing centres in the so-called third world. Simply put,
lower wages for workers yields a higher profit for corporations.
New Orleans was not immune to the decrease in manufacturing jobs that affected the
United States. In New Orleans since 1964, there has been a decrease of 76% in middle-class
and high paying manufacturing jobs, 58.1% in transportation/utilities, 61.5% in construction,
60.7% in mining and 58.2% in trade jobs.20 The period from 1970 to 2000 saw the loss of
13,500 jobs in the Crescent City.21 This decrease in jobs has seen the population of New
Orleans shrink by190,000. This has been coupled with losing 50% of its white population, while
seeing its black population double.22 This profound demographic s hift can be explained by

“white flight” to the suburbs after the creation of publichousing in manyof New Orleans’ and
the United States’ urban areas.
The devastating loss of manufacturing and craft jobs must be considered in conjunction
with the 129.5% increase in service based jobs and a 196.8% increase in food and hotel service
jobs in New Orleans since 1964.23 Despite this increase in service jobs, the unemployment rate
for blacks in New Orleans has risen from 8.6% in 1950 to a high of 17.8% in 1990, and dropping
slightlyto 13.1% in 2000. For comparison, the nationalunemployment rate in 2000 was 4%.24
It is the unflinching pursuit of capital in manufacturing centres in the so-called third world that
has left many of America’s manufacturing cities, including New Orleans, with drastically
changing economies.
The federal decision to locate publichousing outside of suburbs has prevented the poor
from accessing qualityeducation.25 The most ominous characteristicof the “undesirable land”
of publichousing in New Orleans that would have drasticeffects during the storm is one that
describes manyhomes occupied byAfrican Americans in the Crescent City: it is on the low-
ground and is more likelyto be flooded. It is the social geographyof black homes that would
amplifyKatrina’s devastation.
Specificto New Orleans, the massive increase in low-paying service industryjobs leaves
few employment options for a workforce that has largely been abandoned by its public
education system. As of 2000, publicschools in New Orleans were 93.4% African American.26
In addition, New Orleans has the third lowest average teacher salary in the United States;
50,000 students cut class everyday; and 50% of black ninth graders won’t graduate from high
school in four years. The result is a 40% literacyrate for the city.27 The resulting population is
Commented [R1]: Interesting if you put national average here
as well

an underpaid, undereducated workforce with verylittle hope for having employment options
beyond the increasing reach of the service economyin New Orleans.
The founding of public housing, which evolved into the modern urban ghetto, was
partiallyshaped bythe influxof African Americans from rural areas of the United States to its
cities, as well as the white-controlled housing distribution which capitalised on “white disdain
and racism towards black neighbours.”28 Cutter writes:
Publichousing was constructed to cope with Black population influxes during
the 1950’s and 1960’s and in a pattern repeated throughout America, the
housing was invariablylocated in the most undesirable areas – along major
transportation corridors, on reclaimed land, or next to industrialfacilities.29
In New Orleans, publichousing is classified byLogan as having poverty rates of 60% to 80%,
with an unemployment rate above 20%, while more than 90% of the population is black, and
80% of its population are renters.30 However, Troutt’s analysis states that New Orleans public
housing is100% black.31
One can see the economiceffects of modernity’s callfor increased profit in the years
leading up to 2005, as 25.5% of workers in New Orleans made less than $7.15 per hour and 10%
of the population was making less than minimum wage in 2001.32 What merits mention is that,
according to surveys taken bylocal non-profits, 87% of inner cityresidents in storm-damaged
areas were employed before the storm. This significantly departs from many claims from
political pundits and much of the nationalmedia who stigmatized the poor of New Orleans as
perpetually unemployed and lazy. The problem then lies not with the work ethic of this

proportionatelyblack inner citypopulation, but the types of jobs being offered, low wages, and
the lack of access to qualitypubliceducation.33
This built up povertywas evident in New Orleans after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina.
It was born from the synthesis of capital accumulation and the change to a low-wage, service-
based economyas wellas the stark demographicshift resulting from the development of public
housing. Modernity’s grip on New Orleans is demonstrated by the economic and social
backdrop from the past fortyyears. A changing economygrounded in rationalization and profit
resulted in a changing occupational landscape, which led to an increasingly drastic s tate of
poverty that would be exposed on August 29th, 2005. This product of modernityis what Susan
Cutter calls “social vulnerability.” She states that:
Social vulnerabilityis partiallya product of social inequalities – those social
factors and forces that create susceptibilityof various groups to harm, and in
turn affect their abilityto respond, and bounce back after a disaster… Those
that could muster the personalresources evacuated the city… the poor were
forced to ride out the storm in their homes or move to the shelters of last
resort.34
Social vulnerabilityis what characterizes the collective social factors that have resulted in
disparities between whites and blacks, a keyfeature of the modern world’s praxis ofexclusion
and neglect.

“Make Wetlands, Not War”
The seeds of social vulnerabilitythat were sewn before Hurricane Katrina made landfall
were onlypart of what would make the effects of the storm so severe. While the combination
of demographicchange and economicfactors shaped the social landscape pre-Katrina, the
civilizing mission of neoliberal capitalismhelped to create the physical land and environment
whose distortion would amplifyKatrina’s damage not just in New Orleans, but for the entire
Gulf Coast. The demand of capitalism under modernitymorallyrequires the assimilation of the
underdeveloped into the workings of the market. Modernity finds itself firstly being
manifested in the erosion of coastalwetlands in southern Louisiana. One million acres of
coastal wetlands have disappeared between 1930 and 2005.35 There have been 1,900 s quare
miles of wetlands lost in Louisiana since 1970 alone.36
What causes this coastal erosion is manmade engineering from oil companies
constructing pipelines through Louisiana’s wetlands. In addition, the rechanneling of the
Mississippi River bythe Army Corps of Engineers in order to build more effective shipping
canals has resulted in important wetland-building river sediment to be dumped in the Gulf of
Mexico instead (9). Since 1950, there have been 8,000 miles/13,000 kilometres of canals
created through marshes and wetlands for “petroleum exploration” and the creation of
shipping lanes.37 As a result of this continuing development of these wetlands, the state of
Louisiana represents 80% of coastal wetland erosion in the U.S. each year.38
For every linear mile of wetland, there is a corresponding decrease of a storm surge by
three inches (84). And for every 2.7 miles/4.5 kilometres that eroded, there was a

corresponding increase of one foot in Katrina’s storm surge.39 The ironyof coastal erosion is
the increasing temperature of the Gulf of Mexico resulting from global warming. Global
warming is the result of man-made pollutants diminishing the atmosphere’s ability to filter
sunlight. This results from the progress of industry and economic development. With
increased global warming come warmer ocean temperatures.
What then resulted from these commercialdevelopments and canal creation was a
natural landscape ill-equipped to defend itself from anyhurricane, let alone a hurricane that
was enhanced bya warmer Gulf of Mexico.
Modernitychampions the use of rationalityin developing the world. Reason, being a
facultyspecific to humans, is being used to conquer and dominate the natural world. The
natural world is an undeveloped space that must be developed byreason. The moral obligation
for economicdevelopment spread itself to the wetlands of Louisiana’s coast which resulted in a
storm that modernity’s free market was unprepared to deal with. And the deadly
consequences of this hubris were visited upon the poorest of New Orleans’ unaware citizenry.

CHAPTER III DURING THE STORM Page 18 of 47
CHAPTER III DURING THE STORM
As the storm slammed into the Gulf Coast it caused untold wind and flood damage to
the unprepared city. Political leaders and media outlets asked why the poor did not simply
leave the city. The answer to the question is that many in New Orleans were unable to
evacuate. Without a reliable system of publictransportation and an insufficient deployment of
buses to aid in evacuating the elderlyand impoverished, even the able-bodied were trapped
because theydid not have access to cars. Nine percent of homes in New Orleans did not have
access to a car.40 For black New Orleanians, however, the number was much greater as 27%
were without access to a vehicle (9).
The narrative that was being threaded through the images of floating dead bodies and
the masses of desperate, recentlyhomeless African American citizens was incredulity at the
lazyand stubborn nature of those who stayed behind. Condemning the victims of government
neglect seemed justified bymedia outlets and government officials as storefronts were broken
into for fresh drinking water, medical supplies, clean clothes and food. These survival tacti cs
were labelled “looting” and “civil unrest”. Black and brown bodies were singled out as the
perpetrators of this “looting”as unfounded rumours flew from news studios to U.S. television
sets about the barbaricand uncivilized actions that were taking place on the ground in New
Orleans.
The myth of black resistance to order and civilization is seared into the definition of
modernityand is evident in the condemnation of New Orleans black citizens during the storm.

This characterization falls under the category of colonial logic which expects “wild” and
uncivilized behaviour from local, “otherized” populations in the absence of modern institutions.
I will argue that it was because the victims of Katrina were black that unfounded and blatantly
racist narratives arose about violent chaos, sexual assault and looting. Media representation
and the expected behaviour of New Orleans’ black population drasticallyaffected the reception
of the tragedyin the mind of manyAmericans and resulted in the deployment of National
Guardsmen armed with M-16’s to return “order” under pain of death, fully turning New
Orleans over to the colonial sphere.
A Picture’s Worth
In doing research for this essay, I came across hundreds of photos chronicling the
immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, yet there are only two photos that came up in
nearlyeverypertinent piece of academicliterature, book, and blog post. The first photo is from
the Associated Press which shows a young black man. The caption reads, “A young man walks
through chest deep flood water after looting a grocerystore in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug.
30, 2005.” The second photo depicts a white man and a white woman in identical states of
action. The caption, composed bythe Associated Press, reads, “Two residents wade through
chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane
Katrina came through the area in New Orleans Louisiana.”41 These photos are located in the
Appendix.

There are several implications in contrasting these two pictures. The most obvious is
that black bodies “loot” and break laws whereas white bodies “find” and abide by laws. The
racial trope about black propensityto facilitate disorder and chaos in direct opposition to the
progress of civilization is evident here. The actions of black bodies, without the presence of
socialcontrol, are expected to buttress stereotypes about black behaviour perceived through
the colonial mind. Additionally, under this false perception of black action, the black body is
unable to engage in acts of altruism or survival without violating social norms . Without the
presence of socialmoorings and civilizational impediments, it is clear in the mind of the
photographer and the author of the caption that blacks are expected to behave in ways that
insidiouslyviolate the socialcontract.
In contrast, the photo of the white man and woman show that the behaviour of white
bodies is always “innocent and justified” as white bodies cannot loot.42 The fortunate
acquisition of food in a hurricane-ravaged citywithout “looting” is a part of the fortuitous
existence of whiteness. The comparison of these two photos underscores that the historical is
being replaced with the mythical. What occurred was that the expected behaviour of blacks
originating from racial myths concerning their “natural behaviour” centres on social anarchy.
Dennis Rome writes:
Mass media have played and will continue to play a crucial role in the way
white Americans perceive African Americans. As a result of the overwhelming
media focus on crime, drug use, gang violence, and other forms of anti-social
behaviour among African Americans, the media have fostered distorted and
insidious publicperceptions of African Americans.43

Furthermore, statisticallyspeaking, looting does occur during riots, but not in the aftermath of
natural disasters.44 The racist cultural myth of black resistance to order overwrites factual
claims to human behaviour during natural disasters.
Blaming the Victim
The portrayal of the “black image in the white mind”– which is often based on prejudice
and not actualknowledge – “confirms” mainstreamexpectations of black behaviour but also
provides that blame for black suffering be thrust upon the victims themselves .45 The
perception of black proneness to socialmisbehaviour justifies disparities between whites and
blacks. Blacks who are poor are seen to deserve it because theyculturallypractice the wrong
kind of behaviour - namely, behaviour that acts against modernity. It is through this that
culpabilityfor the social ills and rampant inequalityresulting from modernity’s presence is
transferred to its victims.
This is part of the post-Civilrights discourse that has shifted from the biological racism
of eugenics and the Jim Crow era to what Bonilla-Silva calls “symbolic racism.”46 Symbolic
racism justifies the economicand social exclusion of blacks from the privileges of whiteness by
the claimed cultural inferiority of Black America. Following symbolically racist logic,
discrepancies in social and economicstatus cannot be result of the modern system. Blame then
shifts to characterizing black culture pathologicallylacking the “correct” values that white
culture abundantly possesses. The correct values that would supposedly correct social
inequalityare bound up in abstract notions such as myths of individualism, egalitarianism and a

fullymeritocraticmarket place.47 However, these claims are compromised bythe existence of
supposedlyrace-neutral policies continuouslyhaving disproportionately unequal effects on
African Americans.
Symbolic racism combined with false media reports of looting and discord in New
Orleans provided a justification for the slow response of the federal government. The
reasoning is that members of societyare required to uphold the tenets of a civilized society,
and there are prerequisites of behaviour to be deserving of its benefits. Yet African Americans’
tenuously short legacy of conservatively-professed inclusion must come with a historical
admission that is hidden within the confines of symbolicracism and modernityitself: that black
citizens are not entitled to full citizenship at all. Theyare, at best, tolerated for their good
behaviour, while constantlyfighting against their assumed tendencies towards asocialand anti-
civilizational action. When black and brown bodies are perceived to act outside of these
prerequisites for citizenship in the modern, then theyare transported back to an even worse
socialsituation which takes shape in the colonial sphere.48 Looting is perceived not only as
“typical” black behaviour, but also seen as action that de-civilizes those who engage in the
activitywhile dangerouslyopposing the mission of modernity. The violation of the tenets of
civilization places black New Orleanians outside of the modern sphere, making them unable to
enjoy the freedoms of that world; namely, security.49 The coercive civilizing mission of
modernity takes its most radical turn against its own citizens when those classified as
“primitives” of the modern colonial sphere appear to be actively resisting reason and
civilization. And in New Orleans, the reports of widespread violence showed the prevailing
assumption of colonial perception: the inherent danger of the black body.

The Cover of Darkness
While survivalskills were photographicallydiagnosed as looting, the chaotic aftermath
of Katrina was escalating according to reports from local authorities and nationallyrecognized
newspapers. Speculative journalismand the barrage of unfounded rumours of deadlyviolence,
staggering bodycounts, and rape helped to fuel local and federal government’s need to regain
socialorder. The rumours of violence stemmed from the colonial logic that expected wanton
violence and sexual assault from African Americans in the absence of social order.
Rumours and poor journalism escalated the need for a coercive presence to control the
outbreaks of physical violence. This is evidenced bythe content of The New York Times, The
Washington Post, and the New Orleans Time-Picayune. Mile and Austin write that the
“acknowledged authority” of news reifies white cultural narratives in defining blacks in a
negative light.50 This trend allowed for the rapid spread of unchecked rumours to dominate
much of the news cycle surrounding the victims of the hurricane.
The New York Times reported on August 31st, “These are not individuals looting. These
are large groups ofarmed individuals.” Reports from the following day s tressed “chaos and
looting” in New Orleans.51 As the days progressed and rumours flew, the focus of media
reports transitioned from emphasizing looting and propertydamage to emphasizing the danger
that black New Orleanians posed to those trapped in the city. On September 2nd, Treaster and
Sontag reported on the “chaos and gunfire” around the Superdome, reports of “armed thugs”
taking over basic structures leading to “rapes and assaults occurring unimpeded in
neighbourhood streets (67).” By September 11th, The New York Times was reporting that

“violence raged inside the New Orleans convention centre, which interviews show was even
worse than previouslydescribed. Police SWAT teammembers found themselves plunged into
darkness, guided bythe muzzle flashes of thugs’ handguns (71).”
A similar narrative was provided bya local paper. The Times-Picayune ran a story on
August 30th, “The looters, men and women who appeared to be in their earlyteens to mid-40’s
braved a steady rain… to take away boxes of clothing and shoes from the store.” And on
August 31st wrote, “Officials watched helplesslyas looters around the cityransacked stores for
food, clothing, appliances and guns,” and that, “There are gangs of armed men in the city,
moving around the city(67).”
The Washington Post was not much different in its coverage of the disaster. It started
with reports on August 31st stating that “looters roamed the city… floating their spoils away in
plasticgarbage cans… and bynightfall the pillage was widespread.” By September 2nd, The
Washington Post was asking, “What could be going through the minds of people who survive an
almost biblical tragedy, find themselves in a hellscape of the dead and dispossessed, and
promptlydecide to go looting (67)?” Yet even a daybefore, the narrative of escalation had
started with the nationallyread newspaper stating, “Things have spiralled so out of control that
the city’s mayor ordered police officers to focus on looters and give up search and rescue
efforts,” and on September 3rd, quoting local law enforcement, “What we’re getting worried
about is people who are starting to shoot at us now (67).”
Despite widespread reports of mass murder, rape and horrificgun violence, there was
very little factualinformation to be found in these national newspapers. Even Mayor Ray
Nagin’s reports of “watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people,” or

Police Chief Eddie Compass reporting “little babies getting raped,” proved to be untrue.52 The
initial reports of 200 dead bodies in the Superdome implied that these fatalities came at the
hands of 10,000 New Orleanians (which eventuallyrose to 25,000) taking refuge inside the
shelter of last resort.53 In reality, there were sixdead bodies at the Superdome. Four died of
natural causes; one fatalityresulted from suicide and another from a drug overdose.54 National
Guardsman Thomas Beron was quoted as saying, “Don’t get me wrong, bad things happened,
but I didn’t see anykilling and raping and cutting of throats or anything… Ninety-nine percent of
the people in the [Super] dome were well-behaved.”55 This was confirmed by secondary
reports from the Superdome stating that there was one confirmed shot fired in the Superdome
and it was bya soldier who accidentallyshot himself in the foot.56
As to the false reports of gunfire and death in the Superdome, National Guard
spokesperson Major Ed Bush commented on the earlyfalse reports of violence and gunfire,
that“[The Superdome]just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds
were being done,” which typifies the media reports and colonial logicthat was utilized during
Hurricane Katrina that uses racists myths of expected behaviour to influence actions that
govern actual behaviour.57
It is because of this claimed transcendence from a world preoccupied byrace that new
ways of marking race were used. While pictures depicted “unruly blacks” in New Orleans,
words never mentioned race in newspapers’ reports. However, the words that were used
accomplished two feats. Firstly, the use of the word “refugee” classified the victims and
perpetrators of violence as non-citizens. Secondly, words like “thug”, “hoodlum”, “gangs,”
denote a specificimage in white consciousness: a young, black male with a gun; the perpetual

scapegoat of arbitraryviolence on the nightlynews. The spectre of the young black male as
both an agent of bodilyharm and societal non-membership justified the use of the military in
New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, based on white perceptions of imminent racial danger.
Developing the Colonial Sphere
The deployment of some 63,000 National Guardsmen to New Orleans to restore order is
the final straw cementing the movement of New Orleans into the colonial sphere. The
presence of the NationalGuard to restore order seizes preciselyon the myth that “blacks are
inherentlyviolent” and the danger it poses to white physical safety. While rhetoricsurrounding
hurricane-transformed New Orleans painted a picture of violence, there were only four
murders during the week of Hurricane Katrina. While four mayseem to still be too many, this
number was below the weeklyprojected murder-rate of New Orleans for that year. In 2005, a
typical week in New Orleans resulted in roughlysixhomicides.58
The connection between the implied violence of the U.S. Military and the perceived
lawlessness of New Orleans’ black population stems from the intrinsic phys ical danger that
black bodies pose to white physical existence. And it is the coercive apparatus of colonial terror
that arrests the physical danger of the black bodyand, in turn, negates the civilmembership of
that body at the same time. The National Guard’s presence in New Orleans to coercively
establish order creates a binary between the coercive apparatus of the state’s claim to
legitimacyand black criminality.59 The logicof the colonial sphere in regards to the application

of violence is that the state, as a bearer of modernity, defends and civilizes , while black
behaviour is an affront to economicprogress and order.
There are legal precedents that prevent this kind of deployment. The Posse Comitatus
Act, The Stafford Act, and The Insurrection Act all provide restraints on the use of military as
state law enforcement.60 Manyof the precedents require consent from the state governor for
the deployment of troops for law enforcement, which Governor Blanco did eagerly, stating:
These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle-tested and under my
orders to restore order in the streets. Theyhave [battle rifles] and theyare locked and loaded.
These troops know how to shoot and kill and theyare more than willing to do so if necessary
and I expect theywill.61
The job of the National Guard in this situation was to quellthe violent upheaval from
urban insurgents on a different side of the world. The association of combat experience in Iraq
with the aftermath ofKatrina typifies coloniallogic. Violence as the giver of order over the
alteritythat is blackness shows that black lives are an acceptable and often necessarys acrifice
in the quest to restore order.62 By making New Orleans an object of military focus, New
Orleans was officiallylocated outside the modern sphere. Its people became a target of its
civilizing mission, existing in the non-legal space occupied bysub-humanized colonial objects .
The paradox of military deployment as evidence of law, while negating the legal right to
securityof black citizens, characterizes what is called the “state of exception.” Gilroywrites:
“This instrumental or permissive relationship between power and law recurs and is considered
a distinguishing feature of colonial governance… That martiallaw can be simultaneously both

the absence of law and its highest expression: the general entitlement of sovereign power to
deployviolence in order to overcome challenges to its own authority.”63
The state of exception in colonial governance is a place created for the deployment of
force at the cost of the individualsovereigntyof the colonialobject. It is in the colonythat the
fears of physical harm from “the other”, the black bodyin New Orleans, justifythe creation of
this a-legalspace where the onlylaw is the maintenance of order. The militarization of normal,
daily life is what typifies the colonial sphere which results from the dehumanizing of a
population to merelybecome the object of coercive terror, or the imminent threat of violence
to the “indigenous”population: black New Orleanians.64 This eager deployment of the military
places the black population of New Orleans as a contemporary form of the unruly colonial
savage which places them in absolute opposition to the state, civilization, and modernity.
The presence of colonial terror is a reaction to the perceived danger posed by the
indigenous population. In addition, it excludes colonial subjects from citizenship and from legal
notions of security. It is what makes the comparisons between the United States’ neo-colonial
occupation of Iraq and the use of the National Guard in response to Hurricane Katrina so
alarming. A similarlyspirited comparison was made between New Orleans and the city of
Mogadishu bythe Combat Times on September 2nd, 2005, reporting that, “combat operations
are now underwayon the streets… This place is going to look like little Somalia… We’re going to
go out and take the cityback,” continuing with reports from the Louisiana National Guard Joint
Task Force, “This willbe a combat operation to get this cityunder control.”65
Colonial logicdeprived manyof New Orleans’ black citizens of their rights because of the
dehumanizing effects both of domesticwar and of racial myths. The “misbehaviour” that was

declared in mediareports to be largelyperpetrated byblacks provided the necessary logic to
justifydehumanizing tax-paying citizens of the United States. The colonial attitudes of fear and
racism were prevalent in media analysis ofthe “misbehaviour”. And it is the so called cultural
pathologyof African Americans that provides the causalityfor these behavioural deficiencies.
The gaze of the blame shifts from the modernity itself to the population it neglects. The
cultural “others”, the African American population of New Orleans, was ridiculed for s urvival
behaviour created bythe economicand social institutions theyare routinelyexcluded from.
Colonial struggle is concerned with the “never-ending conflict between civilization and
savagery” that the civilizing mission of modernitymorallydemands and the state of exception
juristicallyfacilitates.66 While little actual violence was perpetrated by the National Guard
against New Orleans residents, the move into the colonial sphere is philosophically s ignificant
and does not require the actual carrying out of violence. The threat of violence, of colonial
terror based on (coded) raciological grounds cast the citizens of New Orleans “outside both of
[modern] culture and historicality,” denying them the freedoms that being inside theywould be
entitled to.67 Mbembe writes, “As such, the colonies are the location par excellence where the
controls and guarantees of juridical order can be suspended – the zone where the violence of
the state of exception is deemed to operate in the service of ‘civilization.’”68
The distinction that no longer exists in the colonial imaginaryis between combatant and
citizen. This distinction is replaced bya division of the general population between others and
citizens, which distinguishes who is dangerous and who belongs. Bythis perceived violation of
the social demands of society, modernityin New Orleans spatiallyreorganized and relegated its
own citizens to the quiet refuges of colonial terror and state neglect.

CHAPTER IV AFTER THE STORM AND BEYOND Page 30 of 47
CHAPTER IV AFTER THE STORM AND BEYOND
With much of the citydestroyed and thousands of individuals displaced bythe disaster,
the city looked to rebuild. With martiallaw no longer needed to quell the “dangerous” civil
unrest that New Orleans hurricane victims posed, the modern frame shifted back to economic
development and rational self-interest. It is the moral requirement of modernity to
unyieldinglydevelop that legitimates the action of the development itself. Rampant economic
(re)development post-Katrina was able to go through without much public debate caused by
the significantlydisplaced black population of New Orleans. With the vilified culprits of social
unrest summarilydispersed, there were onlydollar signs in the eyes of those seeking to expand
profits through government contracts in rebuilding infrastructure as wellas those who looked
to turn New Orleans poorest neighbourhoods into high-end real estate investments. The
rebuilding of New Orleans through government funds accomplished through private
contractors is what Klein calls, “disaster capitalism.” The development of public housing and
poor neighbourhoods is accomplished through Dyson’s concept of “subversive migrations”.
DisasterCapitalism
It was going to take a lot of moneyto rebuild New Orleans and everybodyknew it. The
“collective trauma” of Hurricane Katrina did not provide pause for the accumulation of capital.
The massive privatization of the rebuild typifies the neoliberal economic logic championing

modernity’s civilizing economicmarch across undeveloped terrain. The top private contractors
that would handle the rebuild in New Orleans had billions of dollars’ worth of previous
experience rebuilding Iraq after the United States’ siege of the country.69 The government
contracts handed out to companies like Halliburton, Shaw Group, Bechtel, and Fluor for New
Orleans’ reconstruction were valued at $8.75 billion dollars.70 Interestingly enough, lobbying
for Halliburton was former FEMA head Michael Allbaugh, a long-time friend of President
Bush.72 While giant corporations were paid for the rebuild of New Orleans, none of the workers
doing the actual rebuilding were local workers. What’s more, Klein cites that 25% of the
workers rebuilding the citywere illegal immigrants, mostlyHispanic, often making substantially
below the minimum wage.72 In an attempt to increase profit for corporate interest,
government contractors acted consistently with modernity’s economic logic of maximizing
profit and rationalization. Whypayan American labourer more when you could increase your
rate of profit bypaying a non-American significantlyless?
The privatization of New Orleans’ rebuild attempted to “clean up” the public s chool
system as well. Using the moral cloak of reform, a mere nineteen months following the storm
the publicschool system had been almost entirelyreplaced byprivately run charter s chools.
Before Katrina, the New Orleans school board ran 123 schools. After the s torm the school
board ran four. Twenty-four charter schools had been built after the storm, going from seven
to thirty-one.73 The continued use of the gospel of economicdevelopment at the cost of widely
accessible publicservices is at work in the infrastructural privatization of New Orleans storm-
ravaged areas.

Subversive Migrations
While infrastructure and schools were the initial concern of the New Orleans rebuild,
many property developers seized upon this “clean sheet” philosophy of economic
development. The development of New Orleans neighbourhoods for luxury high-rises and
condominiums was made possible through Dyson’s concept of “subversive migrations,” which
characterized the dispersal of black New Orleanians across regionaland national boundaries
with the catalyst being a “nationalor social disaster.”74
Joseph Canizarro, one ofNew Orleans’ most prominent propertydevelopers stated, “I
think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big
opportunities.”75 One of these opportunities was to liquidate the land upon which many of
New Orleans public housing projects stood. The goal was to develop high-rise luxury
condominiums all over the city.76 Given the realitythat New Orleans’ publichousing was 100%
black before Hurricane Katrina, it was no surprise that Canizarro summed up much of the
subtext surrounding the rebuild and economicdevelopment, “The hurricane drove out poor
people and criminals out of the cityand we hope theydon’t come back.”77 Here is another
example of coded language used to mark race. As cityleaders, government officials and the
mainstream mediawere quick to demonize the victims of the storm as thieves and murders,
the displaced population was similarly categorized to legitimize the demolition of public
housing and manytraditionallyblack neighbourhoods.
The development of former areas of publichousing post-Katrina represents a move to
increase profits at the expense of losing parts ofthe city’s black population. While developers

seized upon the opportunityto exploit the disaster for untold real estate profits, they decided
to pass on the rebuilding of New Orleans Lakeview neighbourhood in New Orleans East. This
was a neighbourhood where manyof New Orleans’ middle class African Americans lived, and
the decision not to rebuild shows the desire from local business interests and government to
compromise the strength of black interests in New Orleans bysociallyengineering a profound
demographicshift post-Katrina.78
This was also evident from attempts bycityplanners and private contractors to bulldoze
houses in New Orleans’ historicLower Ninth Ward on Christmas Dayof 2005 while most of its
population was dispersed. No attempts were made to notifythe home owners as the houses
were called “public hazard homes.”79 As if an attempt to bulldoze this cherished
neighbourhood, a report was published in New Orleans’ Times-Picayune stating a desire to
make a museum of legendarymusician Fats Domino’s house and have the Lower Ninth Ward be
the location that would memorialize the 1,826 dead victims of Hurricane Katrina (251).
In addition to the subversive migration of New Orleans’ poor and black population,
attempts to provide facilities to vote for its scattered population were blocked. There were
several attempts byACORN and the NAACP to establish centres for out of state polling in cities
like Houston and Atlanta for those who wished to vote in local elections that would take place
on April 22nd 2006. Attempts to establish these centres were blocked by the U.S. Justice
Department each time, helping to electorallysolidifyan artificially white, business-oriented
majorityin New Orleans (251). The now artificial white majorityin what Mayor RayNagin had
called “Chocolate City” was interested in making moneyoff of New Orleans’ five billion dollar
tourism industry. However, the tourism industry, which had been run bymanywhite business

owners even before the storm, represented a colonizing of culture and race that had been
continuallyfacilitated bythe four decade ballooning of the service industry.
The Commodity of Race
Plans to rebuild the cityinvolved its black population relegated to a role that cheapened
the historical contributions of blacks in New Orleans. As a popular tourist destination, New
Orleans boasted Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras (a $21.6 million return on a $4.7 million investment),
livelybrass band music, twenty-four hour night life, and restaurants that churned out classic
creole dishes such as gumbo, crawfish etouffé, and jambalaya.80 All of these are contributions
stemmed from the black and creole culture ofNew Orleans. The ironycannot be lost that the
population responsible for these one-of-a-kind cultural contributions and New Orleans’ largest
industryis the population that was unjustlydemonized for thieveryand violence in the days
during Hurricane Katrina’s disastrous effects. The message being sent is that black and creole
culture was good enough to make moneyfor manyof the white-owned restaurants, hotels and
tourism industries in New Orleans, but not good enough to be included among those to whom
the social obligations of government and citizenship applied before, during, and after the
storm.
The economicredevelopment of New Orleans hinges upon tourists coming to New
Orleans and participating in these traditions which brought in an average often million tourists
each year.81 Yet the exoticism and the uniqueness of New Orleans is also tied to the “danger” it
poses as a predominantly black city. It is viewed as such because of its links to racial

mythologies about the black population.82 The spectacle of race was on displayin New Orleans,
both before the storm and afterwards. But it is the increasing privatization of the cityas wellas
the subversivelymigrated black population in New Orleans that underscores the consumption
of race as a commodityat the expense of black heritage. It fictionalizes a history of “happy
servitude,” ofa black, complacent service industrythat must “bend to the convention of the
local service economy.”83 The pre-Katrina narrative, which is only s lightly altered after the
storm, acknowledges blackness as a spectacle that is consumable, but culturallyinferior.
The tourismnarrative after the storm acknowledges the devastating effects of Hurricane
Katrina, but widens the lens through which suffering is viewed. Discussions and viewings of the
devastation of Hurricane Katrina have become a large part of the tourist industry in New
Orleans after the storm. It falselystates that the storm hit people of all races equally. This
distorts the gaze of historysurrounding the hurricane byfailing to acknowledge that the storm
disproportionatelyaffected its black and poor citizens.
Before the storm the narrative acknowledged a historicallyfictionalized view of New
Orleans blackness in its acknowledgment of its difference. After the storm, narratives
attempted to maintain that same historical distortion whilst also basing claims of equality on
the mythologized, raciallyequal destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Highlighting multicultural
suffering in the tourism narrative is an attempt to again fictionalize a history of equality that
never existed. This equivocation places the city outside of true history. The myth that is
performed both byclaims of multiculturalism and by“performances of race” by black New
Orleanians is an attempt to wash away the devastating heritage of chattel slavery and
contemporaryclaims of racismand social disparity. The civil rights era in American history

eradicated racism in the mind of modern post-racial reasoning the same wayHurricane Katrina
was perceived to eradicate systemicracismin New Orleans through the myth that the storm
affected all ofits citizens equally.
It is in this mythical place that New Orleans slides ever further after the storm, where
race marks culture as a neatlypackaged, controllable commodity. The commodityof race exists
as a form of colonization. It involves the infiltration of cultural space by modern economic
progress, neutralizing the perceived danger that is inherent to black cultural alterity through
marketing, and selling it to those who are willing to payfor a safelypackaged, “authentically
black”experience. In order to make the commodityof race safe, performances of race must
conform to the expectations of the white tourist base, making them safe to be viewed or
consumed.84
The exploitation of race for commercial gain is certainlynothing new in New Orleans,
but the form that the commodity of race has taken after Hurricane Katrina is a blend of
symbolicracism, market forces and racial commodification. Racialcommodification refers to
the process that the distinction of race is used to place market value on culture of a particular
race.
The paradoxis that New Orleans’ black culture is its most powerful tool as an economic
force in the modern world, yet it is the cause for symbolicallyracist claims. That is because
black culture is seen as artisticallyand creativelytalented, but sociallyinferior; as something
that will not matter beyond the realm of being commodified and exploited for economic gain
under modernity.85 It is in this spirit that we see the colonization of black and creole culture in
New Orleans as a manifestation ofthe civilizing mission of capitalism.

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION Page 37 of 47
CHAPTER V – CONCLUSION
By understanding modernity’s role in Hurricane Katrina, one exposes the underbelly of
the United States’ systemicexclusion of certain races and classes from the rights and freedoms
citizens are legally entitled to. Examination of the civilizing mission of capitalism and
development, underscored bycolonial discourseand logic, demonstrates the categorically
racist precursors and outcomes stemming from a seemingly natural disaster. Upon this
analysis, one must definitivelyconclude that there is, in fact, no such thing as a natural disaster
under modernity’s guise.86 Whether it involved higher minimum wages, relegating
manufacturing jobs to U.S. soil, or more funding for publicschools, the correction of simplyone
of these historical facts could not have prevented a storm like this from wreaking havoc on an
irreplaceable American city. I must then conclude that modernity’s devastation is both multi-
faceted and synergistic.
However, an immediate lesson that hopefullyhas been learned through retrospective
analysis is the potencyof modern mediain detailing the information being provided during any
form of disaster. The powerful influence of prejudice and the distorti on of rhetoric through
racist fear unfairly painted African Americans as a culpable party in their own continuing
banishment to the underclass. This relativelynew tradition of symbolicracism, of blaming the
victim to absolve the modern system of capital accumulation (and its resulting racial
discrepancies) of culpability, is the most devious of modernity’s civilizing and developmental
techniques. Attempting to move past race within modernity is a ruse to obscure the

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION Page 38 of 47
devastating social realities of a system that is championed bythe hollow ideals of individualism
and egalitarianism. Modernity’s implication in New Orleans’ historyhas encouraged a fear of
the racial other, a reflexive blame on the neglected underclass, and a continuing exploitation of
the forgotten and disenfranchised during the city’s rebuild.
This, byand large, is the lasting effect of modernity’s logic: it is acceptable for many to
lose their humanityfor the sake of “progress”and that ignorance and fear are just predicates
for coercion. Thankfullythe cityof New Orleans is slowlybeing rebuilt, mostly as a result of
non-profit organizations, volunteer workers and charitable organizations and often in spite of
the nature of private capital. We can wish New Orleans and its resilient citizens the best of
fortunes possible in the future and look forward to hearing of its prosperity in the face of its
modern abandonment.

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APPENDIX Page 44 of 47
WORKS CITED
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, Racism without Racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial
inequalityin the United States (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
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