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If we measured news coverage the way we measure hurricanes then Katrina’s Category 4 destruction of New Orleans would rate a Category 5. Everything imaginable and much that is not imaginable is said, repeated and illustrated. Print and electronic media stuff the public with countless graphic morsels of courage, fortitude, resilience, tenacity, evil, looting, anger, neglect, mendacity, incompetence, finger pointing and blame aplenty—a full rainbow of emotions, a microcosm of the American psyche, a mesmerizing surreal orgy of humanity in extremis.  

New Orleanians above a certain resource level had the wherewithal to heed the evacuation order (equate “resource level” with “class” if you prefer.) My three brothers and their families are displaced; their homes and all they own are either destroyed or severely damaged; they suffer but they are safe. My youngest sister lived below that imprecisely drawn resource line and consequently had to endure five days in indescribable misery before she was rescued.  

New Orleans is loaded with history—pre-U.S.A. slave auctions, pirate hangouts, voodoo magic, Cajun myths, quadroon balls and post-U.S.A. military triumph in the war of 1812, art and culture center, world admired cuisine. Its nicknames—Crescent City, Big Easy, Fun City, Jazz City—indicate a rich diversity of life. It existed apart from the rest of America and yet on two levels it epitomized America’s soul, a schizophrenic world that is fittingly symbolized by two climactic parades on Mardi Gras Day: the floats of Rex metaphorically parading the white life and those of Zulu boasting the black life. New Orleans was never “the white man’s burden.” For at least two hundred years before Katrina New Orleans changed from being a place where people were separate but equal to being the quintessential American Dilemma.  

Katrina effectively and forever washed away the thin veneer that covered America’s boastful noble ideals; it resolved that dilemma. Category 5 news helped the world see the shabby incompetence of government and the uncaring hypocrisy of officials. The flag we so proudly hail does not wave; it droops heavily soiled with delta mud. We are not one nation under God, but a house divided.  

America was hated for invading Iraq and the aftermath validated that hatred. Today America is revealed to contain within its borders a sub-world populated by mostly black faces where poverty is endemic. Today the world’s disaffection takes a new turn. Today the world looks on incredulously as Americans who had nothing before Katrina are reduced to having less.  

Their slave ancestors survived in a netherworld world, a world alive in the biological sense but marginally so in the human sense. French, Spanish and African cultures intermingled. From desperation slaves escaped using jungle methods, recreated themselves after the days‚ grinding labors combining African music with Christian lyrics, hopelessness was defeated by jubilation “laisez le bon temps roulez!” producing new art. New Orleans is more a people than a place.  

In his journey through Hell and Purgatory Dante described in poetry how God punished sinners but he could not have imagined and even less describe the hellish inferno that must have existed for five days in the New Orleans Superdome. What sins were those hapless descendants of slaves guilty of?  

Michelangelo’s wall fresco in the Sistine Chapel depicts divine judgment in horrifying images of twisted, naked bodies, tortured, screaming writhing in pain. Category 5 news transmitted to our living rooms a sort of electronic update of The Last Judgment: tens of thousands of real people isolated inside a state of the art sports arena that was transformed before our eyes into a huge container sealed and cut off from everything that makes human life possible. Many were children. What did they do to deserve this judgment? 

Lincoln was largely responsible for the survival of our divided house but Katrina may have posed a critical test of whether and for how long it will continue to stand.  

If it does, then the Category 5 news should begin to report the story of government agents going among the survivors, taking their names, ages, education, work experience, skills, aspirations, etc. The small screen should report how resumes are matched with employment opportunities. So far there have been anecdotal stories but nothing resembling a policy. FEMA is more than a fraud, it is a deceit; it applies a very expensive bandage where the prognosis calls for surgery. 

No one wants to live off the largess of others. Everyone wants a life they can control. Those above a certain resource level have had their lives interrupted but the very resource that enabled them to evacuate will probably enable them to get their lives back. My three brothers will get their lives back; it will not be the same but they’ll be in control again. Whether my sister will get hers remains to be seen.  

Those below that level have gone through hell and now reside in a Diaspora. If our government is not strong enough to get them out their unmerited Limbo condition, to save them from punishment for sins they did not commit then I fear that our divided house will not long stand. They don’t want their lives back; what they want is a life stolen from their ancestors, a life they never had, an ordinary human life. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo