- ISBN13: 9780465017720
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
When Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands were left behind to suffer the ravages of destruction, disease, and even death. The majority of these people were black; nearly all were poor. Displaying the intellectual rigor, political passion, and personal empathy that have won him acclaim and fans all across the color line, Michael Eric Dyson offers a searing assessment of the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. With… More >>
Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster
This author reminds of a character played on In Living Color where Damon Wayans is a convict that tries to use as many multi-syllabic words as he can so he can SOUND intelligent. This author is not.
This book is nothing more than an appeal to left-wing wackos suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Rating: 1 / 5
During a recent interview of Mr. Dyson on Cincinnati’s popular 700 WLW radio station, two things about the man were evident:
(1) He likes to hear himself talk
(2) He sees the world entirely through the prism of race
Every question posed by the interviewer was either side-stepped or perfunctorily answered so that Dyson could move on to his real agenda: labeling his fellow Americans as racists.
Never mind that those same Americans gave more money in ten days to the largely African American victims of Hurricane Katrina than they did in six months to the victims of September 11.
No, to Mr. Dyson it’s all about his curious take on justice. When asked repeatedly to describe how this “justice” would be applied, the best he could offer was the full funding of Head Start and latch-key programs.
Some wag once wrote that “a list of grievances is not a plan.” The same is true for a litany of insults.
The real history of what went wrong in the aftermath of Katrina is yet to be written. In the meantime, Dyson’s mean-spirited smear is a poor substitute.
Rating: 1 / 5
“the nation’s failure to offer timely aid to Katrina’s victims indicates deeper problems in race and class relations”
The nation only failed to offer timely aid to Katrina’ victims because of FEMA’s attempts to prevent thousands of volunteers from entering New Orleans to help with evacuation.
“What do politicians sold on the idea of limited governance offer to folk who need, and deserve, the government to come to their aid?”
Considering that it was people sold on the idea of active government who used city-planning and zoning laws to force much of New Orleans below sea level to begin with, I fail to see how the phiolosophy of limited government can be blamed on this to begin with.
“Does George Bush care about black people?”
According to Micael Dyson’s logic, he must have since he’s a big government “conservative” (anyone who thinks that Republicans and neoconservatives are somewhow any different than Democrats and “liberals” needs a wake-up call.
“that many would be unable to leave because they had no private transportation, yet no means were offered to these urban poor for escape”
Once again, tons of aid and transportation was provided to these people. FEMA however just wouldn’t let these numerous volunteers enter New Orleans to help people out.
“incompetence and antigovernment philosophy, among other factors, made a bad situation even worse.”
It wasn’t antigovernment philosophy that caused many firefighters to be held up for two days in sexual harassment classes while people were dying.
Michael Dyson is that rare breed of rich, aristocratic fatcat that gains privelidge and prestige from government in order to cover up its f-ups that only cause more pain and suffering to the poor of the world due to statist policies.
Rating: 1 / 5
When many of the premises of a book are faulty, I find it impossible to continue reading. Perhaps this will help prospective readers in their decision about this book.
Much fault has been placed at the feet of the Bush administration in the Katrina debacle. Yet as Dyson is fond of doing, there are many facts he conveniently leaves out. The fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the local administration, and the facts are indisputable. It was aired lived on CNN one time and never reported on since then, but Nagin stated in a press conference on live worldwide television a day afer the storm that the city had weathered it and would be back to normal in a month. Of course when it became rapidly apparent this was an incredulous overstatment, he changed his tune and began to point fingers toward Bush for the slow response.
In today’s political climate, it is far too expedient to ignore the facts when someone can place the blame on Bush. Toss the race card in there and facts become a mere nuisance to a “provacative” story. Dyson knows the game and plays it well in this book.
It is not the federal government’s responsibility to have evacuation plans for every urban area. It is painfully apparent the Nagin administration failed in this regard. The failure of the local administration to adequately prepare and plan for such an event is fatally irresponsible on a criminal scale. Placing the blame elsewhere is morally bankrupt.
A long running joke in The Big Easy (not quite in good taste anymore) was that if a big storm ever hit, the city was screwed. Everyone knew it. Nagin knew it, and so did every other African-American administration for decades. The attitude was pretty carefree and as a result, as another reviewer pointed out, many decided to stay, despite Dyson’s speculation to the contrary. And what did every other African-American mayor do to ensure the safety of the majority African American population of their city? The answer is apparent.
This book, like most of Dyson’s works are just choir-preaching works. To those that can only see the world through the prism of race, this is is yet another work that justifies their long entrenched beliefs. For someone interested in a factual, non-biased analysis, this book is a poor source.
A common failure in Dyson’s racially-based writings seems to be an inability to look within himself or his community for accountability. This latest effort continues that unfortunate pattern for someone so brilliant.
Rating: 1 / 5
Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster by Michael Eric Dyson
Review by: James Generic
Who else wasn’t glued to their television set, or the newspapers, or their internet, or whatever, last late August into early September? It’s not everyday that we see a city destroyed by a combination of a hurricane and government ineptitude. It’s the second major disaster in just four years in the United States, after the attacks on the World Trade Center that killed 2000 people. Hurricane Katrina and the lackluster FEMA response killed 1,836, plus 705 people unaccounted for, as of May 19th, 2006. There was a rapid response to 9-11 attacks, when the victims were mostly white affluent people. There was a slow, too-little, too late response to Hurricane Katrina, when the victims were mostly poor and black. Today, fewer than half of New Orlean’s population has returned, since many of them have nothing to return to.
Michael Eric Dyson, the author of “Is Bill Cosby Right?”, writes in “Come Hell or High Water” of the meaning of the disaster. While it is true that Bush, Mike Brown, and local Louisiana politicians did not cause Hurricane Katrina, (though the magnitude of the hurricane was most likely highly worsened by global climate change), they certainly were responsible for the hundreds of thousands of people being stranded in New Orleans when help started arriving nearly five days afterwards.
Dyson spends much time exploring the cultural response of the mainstream to the hurricane, with the glaring implications of race in America. In a desperate situation with little hope for help, people in New Orleans began to take food from stores which had been abandoned in the wake of the hurricane. The media shortly separated the Black people trying to feed themselves into “looters” and the whites as “finding food”. An absurd amount of attention became focused on people using the opportunity to take televisions and radios, though the media ignores the fact that people may have sold these appliances later on for food. The disaster of the Superdome, where 30,000 people waited for days while the Red Cross was turned away by the national guard because New Orleans was “too dangerous” (which later turned out to be mostly based on rumor.)
Hurricane Katrina seemed like the world turned upside down, but it really just brought already messed up situations, like white supremacy and capitalism, to be magnified ten-fold. I keep wondering why they didn’t just evacuate everyone, and it turns out that Amtrak offered to provide free trains, but the city turned it down. The Levees weren’t funded properly, leading to detoriation and busting up. FEMA didn’t know what was going on, and followed every little procedure by the book, leading to necessary help not happening for days (for instance, FEMA officials were instructed not to help any locals unless they asked for help.) Later, a Lousina representative declared (off-the record) “We finally cleared up that public housing problem…”
For a step-by-step detailed look into what happened in the Deep South in August of 2005, pick this up, and prepare to shake your head in bewilderment at the people who run the United States. Reggie Bush or no, New Orleans has been forever changed.
Rating: 5 / 5