Last week in New Orleans, a host of foundations and nonprofits teamed up with political partners at the local, regional and national levels to commemorate the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and celebrate the progress wrought in the decade since. Through their Katrina 10 project, they’ve set out to tell a story of sorrow turned into renewal. With language about “opportunity, out of necessity,” city-wide reform, an economic boom and the city’s resilience, the project declares, New Orleans was laid low, but look what progress we’ve made in the years since the levees broke.
Bearing in mind the power of historical narrative, remembering the public trust held by these social change organizations, we ought to interrogate carefully the history Katrina 10 is crafting and sharing. Who stands to benefit from the story they tell? Whose stories are left out? What public pain might their praise obscure? The historical sheen on the Katrina 10 project’s story of post-Katrina New Orleans begs these questions and more.
An array of advocacy organizations, small by comparison, stands in opposition to this dominant history of New Orleans in the last decade, and their perspective ought to give the funders signed on to Katrina 10 pause. Katrina Truth’s artfully-crafted website mirrors Katrina 10’s, and contests directly, forcefully, the just historical arc the latter portrays, naming the city a Resistant New Orleans, and declaring progress without equity is injustice. Katrina Truth’s plea is not the typical “yes, and” rejoinder to any progressive policy celebration. It is a stark “no, and” that takes to task the funders, nonprofits and politicians rallying under the Katrina 10 banner for neglecting Black, LGBTQ and poor New Orleanians; for celebrating growth that obscures a painful reality – for fiddling while Rome burns.
New Orleans’ housing market, Katrina Truth contends, may be as resurgent as Katrina 10 claims. But the city is excluding whole communities of poor Black New Orleanians by neglecting public and affordable housing rebuilding and privatizing what little public housing stock survived the storm.
New Orleans’ public education system took a big hit from the storm, and, according to Katrina Truth, public policy since then has eviscerated it to make way for exclusive privatized education. The New Orleans charter school system praised by Katrina 10 excludes vulnerable students – like those with disabilities and limited English language proficiency – and shunts children into the school-to-prison pipeline with strict punitive policies and suspension rates well above national averages.
Post-Katrina New Orleans has experienced an economic boom that’s brought sustainable work to the region and established a “startup culture” of entrepreneurism, according to Katrina 10. But the share of Black children living in poverty in New Orleans is higher now than before the storm, 52 percent of Black men are unemployed, and the median income for Black families in New Orleans has barely budged since 2005.
New Orleans was, perhaps more than any other American city, reliant on its cultural assets before Katrina. The city’s vibrant arts, culture and historical conscience drove its economy and created a strong, albeit flawed, social fabric knitting together poor residents, wealthy elites and the economic success of the city. How much of that remains? The gentrification hastened by the storm and by regressive housing and economic policies has transformed the cultural economy and complicated already tenuous relationships between poor Black New Orleanians and those for whom New Orleans was, and still is, the City that Care Forgot.
This isn’t to say the tectonic shifts in economic and social life in New Orleans since Katrina have been completely unbeneficial. Rather, Katrina Truth asks: beneficial for whom?
Nor should we conclude that funders that support Katrina 10 have been blind to issues of equity. Many foundations, the Foundation for Louisiana and the Greater New Orleans Foundation for example, have intentionally considered the beneficiaries of their funding and worked to tailor their grantmaking to assist marginalized New Orleanians. These foundations are doing important work to advance racial equity, and it’s likely they decided to support Katrina 10 with this in mind. In fact, specific projects like the coalition’s webcast convening foundation leaders to reflect on the role of philanthropy in New Orleans’ recovery, and the companion framing paper, make clear that many Katrina 10 philanthropic partners are committed to looking at the facts with a social justice lens. In my opinion, however, the rhetoric and marketing language around this initiative leaves out important pieces of New Orleans’ history.
Ten years ago, a cataclysmic storm and a shameful government response literally washed away the decades of physical, economic and political infrastructure that made New Orleans what it was. The aftermath provided an opportunity to remake a major American city – an opportunity that will hopefully prove unique. Much of the work done in the last decade by funders, nonprofits and politicians has been herculean, but so many people have been left behind, perhaps, Katrina Truth suggests, celebrating progress came too soon. Perhaps the history being written by the coalition behind Katrina 10 is not what New Orleans needs. The foundations keen to celebrate New Orleans’ progress shouldn’t shut the history books yet.
Ryan Schlegel is research and policy associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP on Twitter. He thanks his NCRP colleague and frequent NOLA interlocutor Jeanné Isler for her guidance with this post.
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