NEW ORLEANS IS NOT THE EXCEPTION: Re-politicizing the Study of Racial Inequality

Abstract

Although political science provides many useful tools for analyzing the effects of natural and social catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the scenes of devastation and inequality in New Orleans suggest an urgent need to adjust our lenses and reorient our research in ways that will help us to uncover and unpack the roots of this national travesty. Treated merely as exceptions to the "normal" functioning of society, dramatic events such as Katrina ought instead to serve as crucial reminders to scholars and the public that the quest for racial equality is only a work in progress. New Orleans, we argue, was not exceptional; it was the product of broader and very typical elements of American democracy-its ideology, attitudes, and institutions. At the dawn of the century after "the century of the color-line," the hurricane and its aftermath highlight salient features of inequality in the United States that demand broader inquiry and that should be incorporated into the analytic frameworks through which American politics is commonly studied and understood. To this end, we suggest several ways in which the study of racial and other forms of inequality might inform the study of U.S. politics writ large, as well as offer a few ideas about ways in which the study of race might be re-politicized. To bring race back into the study of politics, we argue for greater attention to the ways that race intersects with other forms of inequality, greater attention to political institutions as they embody and reproduce these inequalities, and a return to the study of power, particularly its role in the maintenance of ascriptive hierarchies.

Expectations of government’s response to disaster

“…In their explanations of what has gone wrong with governmental responses, the dominant expectation of government that respondents express is neither naively optimistic (OC-OI), as might be expected within Caplan's (2007) framework, nor naively pessimistic (OC-PI-n), as is expected within the institutional racism literature ([P]owell et al 2006;Henkel et al 2006;Forman and Lewis 2006;Frymer et al 2006). A naively optimistic view would generate anticipatory comments that government would at some point provide an effective response, and/or bewilderment regarding government's failure to maintain the levees and its disappointing record of performance following Katrina.…”

“…Much of the post-Katrina literature that deploys explanations of institutional racism warns that the non-academic public possesses a relatively unsophisticated view when assessing government's response following the storm(Powell et al 2006;Henkel et al 2006;Forman and Lewis 2006;Frymer et al 2006).…”

The Invisible Black Victim: How American Federalism Perpetuates Racial Inequality in Criminal Justice

“…This choice was an obvious one, as the territorial and geographic allegiances to the colonies pre-dated the American Revolution, but leaving these powers in the hands of the states also allowed the new nation to avoid conflict over the most important jurisdictional issue of the day: human bondage (see Derthick 1992;Madison et al 1987). Most critiques of American federalism focus on how this allowed recalcitrant states and localities to block racial progress (Finkelman 1981;Frymer et al 2006;Graber 2006;Lieberman 1998;Riker 1964). The strength of state governments under the U.S. Constitution provided pro-slavery advocates with powerful legal and political claims to maintaining their ''peculiar institution'' and, as Frymer et al note in their discussion of Hurricane Katrina, continues to ''provide opponents of civil rights with a powerful, legitimate, and seemingly 'raceneutral' narrative through which to stymie progress on this front '' (2006:48;see also Graber 2006).…”

“…I argue that no general account of race, inequality, crime, and punishment in the United States is complete without an understanding of the distinctive character of American federalism. 1 Federalism in the United States was forged in part as a mechanism for accommodating slavery, and it facilitated resistance to racial progress for blacks long after the Civil War (Dahl 2003;Finkelman 1981;Frymer et al 2006;Katznelson 2005;Lieberman 2005;Lowndes et al 2008;Riker 1964). American federalism limits the authority and political incentives of the central government to address a wide range of social problems that give rise to crime and diffuses political power across multiple venues, which makes it difficult for the poor and low-resources groups to access decisionmaking.…”

Community Voice, Vision, and Resilience in Post-Hurricane Katrina Recovery

“…In New Orleans, the double jeopardy of cumulative impact and social vulnerability was revealed by a legacy of race and class discrimination that concentrated African-Americans and low-income people into ecologically and economically vulnerable areas (Curtis, Warren Mills, and Leitner 2007). Here, they were disparately impacted because of previous inequities in storm protection infrastructure (e.g., drainage and levees), and the systemic racial segregation of neighborhoods into affluent high ground versus poor low lying areas (Colten 2005;Dawson 2006;Frymer, Strolovitch, et al 2006). Although there were some community assets, including both local environmental justice groups and national organizations that were mobilized to support community residents in the wake of the hurricane, there were also many unmet needs.…”