Through the Eye of Katrina : Social Justice in the United States

by Bates, Kristin A.; Swan, Richelle S.

• ISBN13: 9781594602887
• ISBN10: 1594602883
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-15
• Publisher: Carolina Academic Pr

Summary

The events surrounding Hurricane Katrina offer a remarkable case study of the continuing social divide in the United States. This book includes scholarly articles examining the continued struggle for social justice from the perspectives of communication, criminology, education, ethnic studies, history, justice studies, law, political science, and sociology. This multidisciplinary case study approach is a highly effective way of helping readers understand contemporary debates about social justice including the roles of historically persistent structural inequality, racism and classism, media portrayals of life changing events, government reactions and responsibilities in the face of crises, and the role of public policy and activism in response to social injustice.The collection of articles is divided into three sections representing the causes of, consequences of, and responses to social injustice as illustrated through the case study of Hurricane Katrina. The first section, Images from the Past: Social Justice and Hurricane Katrina in Context examines the structural inequality and cultural divisions in the United States that make a just response to disaster difficult. The second section, Images of the Disaster: Reactions to Hurricane Katrina, offers analyses of the continuing struggle for social justice in the face of such an event as Hurricane Katrina. The third section, Images of the Future: Policy, Activism, and Justice, focuses on public policy and activism responses for a more just society.

Author Biography

Krisin A. Bates is a professor in the department of sociology at California State University, San Marcos. Richelle S. Swan is a professor in the department of sociology at California State University, San Marcos.

Table of Contents

Social justice in the face of the storm : when natural disasters become social disasters	p. 3
Setting the stage : roots of social inequity and the human tragedy of Hurricane Katrina	p. 15
"Revolutions may go backwards" : the persistence of voter disenfranchisement in the United States	p. 37
Locked and loaded : the prison industrial complex and the response to Hurricane Katrina	p. 55
Social justice movements : education disregarded, lessons ignored	p. 77
Reminders of poverty, soon forgotten	p. 95
New song, same old tune : racial discourse in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina	p. 105
"Reasonable racism" : the "new" white supremacy and Hurricane Katrina	p. 125
Katrina's Latinos : vulnerability and disasters in relief and recovery	p. 147
From invisibility to hypervisibility : the complexity of race, survival, and resiliency for the Vietnamese-American community in eastern New Orleans	p. 169
Disaster pornography : Hurricane Katrina, voyeurism, and the television viewer	p. 187
Access to mediated emergency messages : differences in crisis knowledge across age, race, and socioeconomic status	p. 203
Discrimination, segregation, and the racialized search for housing post-Katrina	p. 221
The voices of Katrina : ethos, race, and congressional testimonials	p. 239
George Bush does not care about black people : hip-hop and the struggle for Katrina justice	p. 261
Ordinary struggle and the "public good"; navigating vernacular voices, state power, and the public sphere in quests for social justice	p. 285
Human rights in disaster policy : improving the federal response to natural disasters, disease pandemics, and terrorist attacks	p. 303
Hurricane Katrina and the nation's obligation to Black colleges	p. 337
Prominent Graduates of Xavier, Dillard and Southern	p. 347
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