Ten years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, flooding streets and houses, destroying lives, and killing almost 2,000 people. The aftermath exposed the massive racial inequality that existed in New Orleans—black communities were hit the hardest by the storm and waited in vain for the same government assistance white neighborhoods were receiving. Ten years later, the city's economy is better than ever, and in many ways the city is thriving. But even now, black residents are still suffering disproportionately.
A new survey shows that perceptions of the recovery by white and black residents varies significantly. Almost four out of five white residents believe the city is "mostly recovered." Three out of five black residents, on the other hand, say that the city has "mostly not recovered."
The survey found that on a "range of topics—such as the local economy, the public schools, hurricane and flood protection, and the overall quality of life in their communities—the city's white residents think things are better …[and] African-Americans are far more skeptical." More than one-third of blacks say their quality of life has gotten worse over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, 41 percent of whites said that their quality of life had improved, more than twice the percentage of blacks who said the same.
It is unsurprising that black people's view of the recovery is significantly negative given how much more difficult the recovery has been in black communities. While 70 percent of white residents were able to return to their homes within a year, only 42 percent of black residents had the same opportunity.
Find out more about the continued racial disparity below the fold.
Racial inequality in New Orleans is only getting worse. Says FiveThirtyEight:
New Orleans’s economy is in many respects stronger today than it was the day before the levees broke. Yet the city’s remarkable recovery has, to a troubling degree, left behind the African-Americans who still make up the majority of its population. Black New Orleanians are less likely to be working than when the storm hit in 2005 and are more likely to be living in poverty. Black household incomes, adjusted for inflation, have fallen. And the earnings gap between black and white residents has grown.
[...] African-Americans have long accounted for most of the city’s poor, but before the storm they also made up a majority of its middle class and were well represented among its doctors, lawyers and other professionals. After Katrina, the patterns changed: The poor are still overwhelmingly black, but the affluent and middle classes are increasingly white.
The disparity between the whites and blacks in New Orleans is remarkably stark. According to
FiveThirtyEight, "35 percent of black men under 25 in New Orleans are neither working nor in school, compared with 5 percent of white men in that age group." What's more, "the median black household earned just more than $25,000 in 2013… The median white household made more than $60,000, nearly two and a half times as much."
Another debilitating obstacle in the path to recovery for blacks in New Orleans is the increasing gentrification in the city. The New York Times found that about 25 percent of New Orleans residents moved there after Katrina, and that those new residents are predominately wealthy, white, and college-educated. This influx of new people is part of the reason that, according to FiveThirtyEight, "New Orleans is one of the worst cities in America to afford housing—37 percent of renters spend more than half their pre-tax income on rent and utilities."
For black New Orleans residents the recovery isn't over—in fact, in some ways, it's barely begun. They lost their homes to hurricanes and now, as the city becomes more white and more expensive, they may lose their New Orleans again.
As we acknowledge the anniversary of such a horrifying tragedy, we must also acknowledge how far we have to go to make things right and ensure equality for all residents.