Last night in New York City, 8/24/06, I attended the benefit concert marking the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It was hosted by
MoveOn.org and
ColorofChange.org at
CroBar nightclub.
The purpose of the concert was to remind people of the tragedy that took place in New Orleans one year ago and to raise money for the New Orleans based chapter of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). In addition, the concert served as a book launch for It Takes A Nation: How Strangers Became Family in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina .
The book, edited by MoveOn.org's Cultural Director, Laura Dawn, tells the story of how people came together to provide food and shelter to survivors of Hurricane Katrina. This was done via MoveOn.org's Hurricane Housing website.
Rosie Perez (using a thick New Orleans accent), Julia Stiles , and Black Thought of The Roots, read excerpts from the book. Ms. Perez arguably gave the most emotional performance while reading an account of a woman in the Super Dome following Katrina's landfall. While reading, she tried to hold back tears but could not. By the end of her performance she was crying and quickly left the stage once finished.
In addition to the readings, The Roots and Moby both gave riveting performances that thrilled the crowd. The Roots in particular made a grand entrance with a brass band out of Philadelphia called Brass Heaven. The groups entered and circled the hall by performing in the style of a New Orleans 'jazz funeral '.
Laura Dawn showed that she is multi-talented by performing vocals on two songs with Moby.
One of the many criticisms regarding the Bush administration's handling of the situation is that their response was far more slower than it was after the September 11th attacks.
I got a chance to ask QuestLove, of the Grammy Award winning group The Roots, what he thought about how long it is taking to recover New Orleans. His response:
"I am dissappointed in how long it is taking. But that comes second to my dissapointment in how quickly people forgot about what happened."
He went on to explain how Americans tend to lose interest very quickly.
In comparison to the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration's response was quick. This, of course, is what you do when you are making a 'sale'. In this case, war was being sold. So when it came to the destruction of an entire city it was not in the administration's strategic interests of the region to respond more quickly (the region it was interested in was, and is still, the Middle East).
Connecticut senatororial candidate Ned Lamont made an appearance at the concert. In his speech he touched on the Bush administration's response:
"The National Guard should have been in America helping Americans after Katrina instead of in Iraq." He continued, "how can we spend all this money in Iraq and not have the money to rebuild the levees?"
Overall, the event was a great way to remind people of the current struggles that Katrina survivors are dealing with and that an enormous amount of work is still to be done. It seems that President Bush was one of the people 'reminded' of this by the anniversary. He recently downplayed the importance of the remembrance:
"It's a time to remember that people suffered and it's a time to recommit ourselves to helping them. But I also want people to remember that a one-year anniversary is just that, because it's going to require a long time to help these people rebuild."
"Recommit". The administration should not need to 'recommit', it should have been committed already.
Funny, I don't remember him downplaying the one year anniversary of 9/11.
-- Kirshan Murphy, BlackintheCity.net