Katrina is Not Over; It's Not Even Past

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, on downgrading toe a mere metaphor the reality of Katrina:

These days it is fashionable to use Katrina as a discursive tool.

In March 2009, Frank Rich wondered if AIG bonuses would become Obama's "Katrina moment." A few months later Politico reported that "Republicans hope General Motors is President Obama's Hurricane Katrina," only to be topped by the Washington Times, which asked, "Will Swine Flu Be Obama's Katrina?" By January of this year the Wall Street Journal readily declared that the Haiti earthquake was Obama's Katrina, while Arianna Huffington recently assured readers that it was jobs, not the BP oil spill, that would be Obama's Katrina.

Sometimes it feels like commentators can't wait for another Hurricane Katrina. After all, catastrophes focus public attention, reveal institutional shortcomings and evoke powerful emotional responses. Maybe it was inevitable that Hurricane Katrina would be reduced to a casual metaphor. For thirty years pundits have described political scandal involving intrigue and corruption with the handy suffix "gate." Now Katrina is shorthand for administration-crippling unresponsiveness. Mention Katrina to remind politicians that they need to look concerned and engaged when citizens are suffering. Deploy Katrina as a lesson in bureaucratic incompetence. Shake a scolding Katrina finger at leaders who seem overwhelmed by a current challenge. Katrina is unexpected disaster. Katrina is spectacular debacle. Katrina is the beginning of the end of a flawed leader.

Except that it is not. Eighty percent of the city flooded when the levees failed. More than 1,500 people were killed. Tens of thousands were permanently displaced. Billions in property was lost. The levee failure caused by Katrina wiped away entire communities, irreparably damaging homes, schools, churches and stores. It stole decades of family memories. It altered centuries of tradition in a matter of moments. It left a legacy of blight, economic devastation and personal suffering in its wake.

Each time Katrina, whose fifth anniversary is on the oil-soaked horizon, is evoked as a political metaphor, we risk a dangerous mediation of experience. These metaphors reduce catastrophe to an object lesson, implying that the effects of the disaster have been resolved, that the plot has been resolved and that the continued suffering of our fellow citizens is little more than a literary device.

Yes, New Orleans is a city whose cultural excess and eccentricity cry out for understanding through the literary, the poetic, the musical, the athletic and even the magical. But when we reduce Katrina to fiction—even really good fiction—we risk making it little more than a trope. The fifth anniversary of Katrina reminds us that to fully restore New Orleans, and to change it into a more just and equal city, we must build tangible political will based on sober assessments of the city's continuing challenges.

Katrina is still our Katrina. This story does not yet have an ending.

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