Whatever you do, try to make some time to catch this week’s “This American Life”. Your local NPR station will have it on at least once sometime this weekend. The website is here, but there won’t be an audio to stream until later next week.
What’s in it? For example, there are several first hand stories from people stuck in New Orleans during the Katrina crisis, trying to survive, trying to get out, and being lied to (and other things, such as not being allowed to leave on foot on pain of being shot at) by the officials on the ground. It’s essential listening. Check your local schedules. Find your local station through the NPR parent site.
Arun already mentioned on another thread one such story, transcribed at this site. Extract:
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander’s assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.
We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.
But there’s much much more detail on this story and other stories in this week’s This American Life. For example, there’s an excellent rebuttal by a New Orleans teenager Ashley Nelson of the remarks by certain pundits about the issues concerning those abandoned in New Orleans not “being about race, but about class” (I paraphrase).
The kid’s immediate remark (paraphrase):
I dod not know it was a crime to be poor.
How frighteningly pointed that show’s title seems now.
-cvj
September 10th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
I seldom miss “This American Life,” sometimes listening twice. It never disappoints me. This week was exceptional. You were right it is not to be missed.
It informed me as well as my anger and renewed my belief in the incredible decency shown by most people in circumstances that can only be imagined and then dimly, at best. I couldn’t help but think and hope that in a similar circumstance and in the face of pronouncements by “officialdom” (“dumb” seems more apt), outright lying, accompanied by direct and all too frequent threats to one’s life by the “authorities,” the very people we expect to protect and assist all of us–to go beyond the rules of work, to help rather than using them to hide behind that I would be (perhaps) half as decent, civil, caring, compassionate, humane, competent, thoughtful, smart, resourceful, perservering and adaptable. At times, the racism was covered by the thinnest of tissue paper.
I was struck by Ms. Nelson’s descriptions of her thoughts and feelings. Ah, kids, what do they know?! It would be a privilege to talk with her; the pundits should from time-to-time, although it would require getting out of A/C studios.
I hope that this edition of TAL might find use in training/seminars/simulations for officials charged with developing disaster plans. And I so wish that members of this insensitive administration would have been among the listeners and had the capacity and empathy to do just that: listen rather than assert and declare all too often with an indignity that is staggering (but mighty revealing). What an important counterpoint to “You are doing a great job, Brownie.”
Thank you to Ira Glass (again) and to the people who reported so gracefully.
September 10th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
Thanks Ed! Extremely well said. I’m actually planning to listen to it a second time on Sunday.
-cvj
September 12th, 2005 at 10:42 am
I listened again, heard more this time–taking notes throughout was very helpful–and was bitten much more deeply. My response this time was a stunned and reflective silence. What a curious country we are and I wish we could be more honest about this incredible experiment in government. We aren’t quite who we say and think we are. I hope this experience will help us close the gap between reach and grasp or make it narrower but I worry a lot about the divides in our society. What a deeply touching and moving program.
Take care.
September 17th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
[...] Recall that I mentioned listening out for the show This American Life, in a post last week, and pointing to where you can get archived audio of it. [...]