Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster
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Product Description
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 this clarion call Dyson warns us that we can only find redemption as a society if we acknowledge that Katrina was more than an engineering or emergency response failure. What’s at stake is no less than the future of democracy.
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
This guy belongs on "IN LIVING COLOR"
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Comment:
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.
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Summary:
A compelling and descriptive audio about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath
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Comment:
Here is a compelling and descriptive audio about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. Professor Michael Eric Dyson points out that the majority of the people most affected were black and poor, and sees the problem as more than just a simple emergency response failure. He provides background information about the tense race relations in the city before the hurricane, along with the national media's response that may have contributed to racial bias in the United States.
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Summary:
Bad Planning; Worse Response
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Comment:
Hurricane Katrina was an event in which almost no one came away looking very good (OK, maybe forecasting chief at the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield; and the Coast Guard and Gen. Honore), and Dyson takes every level of government, particularly the federal government, to task, in this short but powerful book. About every five pages, you'll find yourself gasping "No!" and "They couldn't have done that!" but they did, exacerbating the suffering of the poor and forgotten, particularly in New Orleans.
Dyson lost me somewhat near the end with a fairly complicated theological discussion of the event and its aftermath. I don't think he endorses floodwater theology, the idea that God punishes the wicked with natural disasters, but I couldn't quite make out his point in this section (the Editorial Review above seems to have done a decent job on this point).
Overall, I recommend this book to those with interest in natural disasters and in the role of race in public policy. Based on Mike Tidwell's study of Katrina and global warming, "The Ravaging Tide", these are issues that everyone should be engaged in. My wife says Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City written by the New Orleans reporter who wrote Amazon's editorial review is an even better book.
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Summary:
A message sure to resonate with readers of all races.
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Comment:
Come Hell or High Water is a scathing audiobook indictment of the Bush administration's and FEMA's failures to sufficiently aid New Orleans' mostly poor, mostly black population in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Heavily researched, Come Hell or High Water explores Katrina as the latest link in a legacy of black suffering perpetuated by the apathy of middle and upper class Americans of all races. Above all, Come Hell or High Water charges that American society's destructive path toward its African-American poor can only be altered if the public acknowledges that the Katrina debacle was far more than simply an engineering or emergency response failure. The means by which America and its people relate to its poor must undergo a transformation; nothing less than the future of democracy is at stake - a message sure to resonate with readers of all races.
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Summary:
Another Rant from Dyson
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Comment:
If you liked Michael Eric Dyson's other works then you will love this. It is essentially his standard "blame Amerika" rant with the words New Orleans, and Hurricane Katrina thrown in to render the work germane. The interesting thing about this book is how quickly it was published after Katrina. Given the length of time required to get a manuscript onto bookshelves, I calculated that he must have written this in the two weeks following the storm. Given that some of the "facts" he cites about Katrina can be shown empirically to be false, perhaps he should have waited just a little longer before jumping into the fray.
Another blow to Dyson's neo-Marxist take on Katrina is the Knight Ridder news story released in December (2006) that showed the pattern of death and to a certain extent destruction did NOT occure on racial/class lines as Dyson would have us believe also casts doubt on his narrative (for example, as a percentage of population, there was a stronger correlation between age and death than race and death. If those found dead in nursing homes were factored out, as a percentage of population, more white people than black died. Can we then surmise that George Bush hates old white people? The main stream media, with few exceptions, did not pick up on this story because like Dyson, they had already decided the Katrina narrative and they are not about to let the facts ruin a juicy story.) Those of you who know Dyson's work of course will know that he was probably chomping at the bit from day one to throw his opinion into the mix.
Anyone who followed the coverage of Katrina probably heard various religious figures blaming the evil nature of New Orleans for incurring god's wrath. Offensive as these views may be, I was surprised that Dyson - a writer who is considered to be a first rate accademic by many - would wast a whole chapter refuting such arguments. In fact, by even arguing against these positions he is giving them more credence than they deserve. If any book about Katrina is to be taken seriously, it probably should not contain a whole chapter on the pros and cons of various theological interpretations of the disaster. True, the author is an ordained minister but perhaps he should leave his views on divine retribution in the pulpit where they belong (it is also ironic that given Dysons neo-Marxist critical approach to race, etc. that he would even counternance the notion of god. let alone engage in the arguments he does here.)
So, if you are a fan of Dyson's, buy this book - you will be neither disappointed nor challenged (because you already know what he is going to say.) If you are interested in the state of contemporary leftist "academic" thought then this is a good read because it is far more accessible than the works of many of Dyson's peers yet encapsulates the narrow race/class/power/gender optic through which they view capitalism in general and of course this most wicked of nations, Amerika.
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