The Context of White Supremacy hosts the tenth study session on Gary Rivlin’s
Katrina: After The Flood. Mr. Rivlin is a White man; while on staff for the
New York Times he covered the catastrophic engineering failure and negligence that demolished New Orleans in August of 2005. His 2015 bestseller a decade of asymmetrical “recovery.” To make it plain, ten years of
black New Orleanians being racially dislocated and deliberately deterred from rebuilding their lives. Rivlin inspects
all areas of people activity: the institution of charter schools, the destruction of public housing, and the looting of funds designated for flood victims. Last week’s installment detailed the phenomenal efforts of
Doris Hicks, a black educator and New Orleans native. She was the principal of King Elementary school in the Lower Ninth Ward; the facility was inundated by the levee failure. She and her staff demonstrated #BlackSelfRespect and unwavering commitment to providing education to black children in the face of purposeful opposition. Rivlin provides a wealth of examples on how White people got a much easier “
road home” than black people. We hope this text will offer a more complete understanding of Hurricane Katrina and it’s aftermath as a meticulously planned campaign of genocide against black New Orleanians.