The Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 30, 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The ghosts of hurricanes past
Commentary by Chitown Kev
One lesson I’ve learned time and again in writing this— I’ll call it a “column”— over the past decade is about the permanence of racism in every aspect of American life.
As Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida’s west coast and is forecast to impact all of central Florida from Tampa/St Pete to Orlando with hurricane force winds, I’m reminded that impacts and recovery efforts from tropical storms and hurricanes are, sadly, no exception to that rule.
Capital B News climate reporter Adam Mahoney has done a lot of very impressive work on this subject.
Black communities are roughly two times more likely than the general population to experience hurricanes. Yet, for generations, government agencies have allowed these storms to affect life in Black neighborhoods, stunting generational wealth opportunities, increasing homelessness, and weakening the physical and mental health of communities.[...]
As hurricanes intensify in the coming decades, 1 in 5 Black households will be at regular risk of storm damage from hurricanes or tropical storms in the South, compared to 1 in 10 homes for the general population.
Black households also face higher rates of displacement, prolonged recovery times, and difficulties in accessing resources for rebuilding. This contributes to property damage from storms becoming one of the bigger threats that Black folks face in their ability to transfer generational wealth.
The storms have deeper effects on the Black economy as well. Black workers in the South are more likely to work in unprotected industries, so Black unemployment typically increases following storms. Following natural disasters, Black residents lose an average of $27,000, while white people gain an average of $126,000 through recovery subsidies.
While the same disparate impacts were found during and after recovery efforts from 2017’s Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Ariel Worthy of Houston Public Media also noted the effects of Hurricane Harvey on community social networks, as indicated by a series of studies by Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research
The study found that marginalized communities, Black residents in particular, were much more likely to be affected through employment, transportation and house flooding.
“So all these things add up. But then also, there was the case that they were more likely to have their personal networks impacted,” [Jim] Elliott said. “So friends and family who also experienced a number of different impacts.” [...]
“There is a strong sort of push these days, I think rightfully so, to prepare communities and to think of close friends and family, in an area as support networks that can help people rebound from these events,” he said. “But at the same time, if we’re finding that certain communities have those supportnetworks, are more likely to be impacted themselves, those sources of support can be more sourcesof stress. So what that means, in terms of how we think about things is that, when we think aboutcertain communities being more resilient; their homes flooded, but they’re coming back. And other communities, maybe that’s not the case, we need to think of that resilience, maybe in terms of some hidden impacts that we’re not seeing across those communities.”
The racial disparities in impact and recovery efforts from Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey are all too well- known, in large part, because the MSM covered them. I had to look up, for example, the demographics of Port Arthur, Texas to find out that Port Arthur is overwhelmingly a majority/minority community; I can’t remember seeing too many black or brown faces in media as recovery efforts from Hurricane Rita (2005) or Hurricane Harvey were underway.
Studies show that rural areas have a tougher time in terms of impact and recovery efforts from hurricanes, as shown by more of Adam Mahoney’s reporting, this time of last month’s Hurricane Francine
As nearly half a million people went without power and experienced 100 mph winds and subsequent home damage in Louisiana after Francine, a majority of the areas that received the damage were rural counties, where a large share of the state’s Black population lives.
As Black rural residents picked up the pieces while waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which couldn’t offer direct aid and recovery funds until Biden’s declaration, they believed that the slow pace to declare a declaration had a lot to do with neglect of rural communities. [...]
Rural communities of color are overrepresented in FEMA’s National Risk Index, which identifies the most at-risk communities for climate disasters, but at the same time, the federal Government Accountability Office says rural communities have the hardest time accessing aid from government recovery programs.
Of course, all people in need of recovery assistance from these natural disasters should receive that assistance; after all, as our Vice President has said, they are entitled to that assistance.
Let’s also remember that even in such a life and death matter as emergency assistance, race matters. A lot.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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A Black motorist has decided to sue Michigan State Police after troopers subjected him to a humiliating traffic stop. The incident was captured by police-worn body cameras. Dakarai Larriett says he was arrested on the false assertion that he was intoxicated when he was pulled over in Benton Harbor earlier this year.
Larriett, who filed his lawsuit on Wednesday, claims he was racially profiled when troopers pulled him over in his Cadillac SUV, made fun of his name, and subjected him to homophobic remarks. In the clip, Trooper George Kanyuh insists that Larriett was under the influence when they stopped him.
“I don’t know what he’s on,” Kanyuh can be heard saying to his partner Matthew Okaiye in the video. “I’m going to assume it’s weed and alcohol.” Though there was no apparent proof that Larriett was under the influence, the troopers still handcuffed him and transported him to a hospital to be tested for alcohol and drugs.
He was then taken to jail, despite his alcohol test being negative. In a statement to the Metro Times, Larriett explained how things somehow went from bad to worse. Police did a scan of his stomach, he said, before they accused him of “trying to smuggle drugs into the jail by way of ingestion of a bag of drugs.”
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Three former Memphis police officers were convicted Thursday in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, but were acquitted of the harshest charges they faced for a death that sparked national protests and calls for broad changes in policing.
Jurors deliberated for about six hours before coming back with the mixed verdict for Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith.
All were convicted of witness tampering related to the coverup of the beating, but Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges. Haley was acquitted of violating Nichols’ civil rights causing death, but convicted of the lesser charge of violating his civil rights causing bodily injury. He was also convicted of a conspiracy to witness tamper charge that the others were acquitted of.
The court remained silent as the verdicts were read.
The judge ordered all three officers to be taken into custody. He planned to hold a hearing Monday to hear from the defense lawyers about releasing them pending sentencing. The witness tampering charges carry possible sentences of up to 20 years in prison. The civil rights charge against Haley carries up to 10 years in prison. They had faced up to life in prison if convicted on the harshest charges.
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Women make up roughly half of U.S. labor union membership, but representation in top level union leadership positions has lagged, even in female-dominated industries, and particularly for women of color. Associated Press: More Black and Latina women are leading unions — and transforming how they work
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Women make up roughly half of U.S. labor union membership, but representation in top level union leadership positions has lagged, even in female-dominated industries and particularly for women of color.
But Black and Latina women are starting to gain ground, landing top positions at some of the biggest unions in the U.S. That has translated into wins at the bargaining table that focus more attention on family-friendly benefits like parental leave and health care coverage, as well as protections against sexual harassment.
Often when people think about unions, “they think of a white guy in a hard hat. But in fact, studies show that about two-thirds of working people who are covered by a union contract are women and/or people of color,” said Georgetown University labor historian Lane Windham.
Indeed, hospitality union UNITE HERE’s membership is majority women and people of color. And last month, more than 12,000 of them across six states went on strike to push for wage increases, fair workloads and more affordable health care under the leadership of Gwen Mills, who in June became the first woman to be elected union president in its 130-year history.
Data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that Black and Latina women experience a particularly wide gender pay gap. They also face intersectional headwinds of both racism and sexism in their careers, making them even more attuned to inequities in the workplace and motivating them to increasingly step up the fight as union leaders.
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An outbreak of Marburg, a virus closely related to Ebola that can cause severe and often fatal disease, is spreading in Rwanda. As Africa struggles with compounding public health challenges, this one presents a rare silver lining: the chance to test new vaccines that could save lives across the continent in the future.
The first patient infected with the virus in the country died on September 8, the World Health Organization (WHO) said at a press conference Thursday. As of September 29, a total of 36 cases and 11 deaths have been reported, making it one of the largest Marburg outbreaks in history. Although most infections are among health care workers from two hospitals in Kigali, the capital of the East African country, seven of Rwanda’s 30 districts have seen cases. It is the first time the virus has been known to cause infections in Rwanda.
The WHO indicated the outbreak is highly likely to spread to neighboring countries, but the risk of further global spread is low. Typically, humans become infected when they come into contact with a Marburg-carrying Egyptian fruit bat, a species found across Africa, the Middle East, and parts of western Asia. Once a person has the virus, though, it can then spread to others through contact with bodily fluids or contaminated surfaces and materials, like clothing or bedding. This mode of transmission means that Marburg virus will not spread as easily as, say, Covid-19 or other respiratory diseases.
However, as we have seen in previousMarburg virus outbreaks, travelers returning from countries experiencing an outbreak can introduce the disease into their home countries. Already, one personwho came into contact with an infected patient in Rwanda has traveled to Belgium, underscoring the possibility of isolated overseas cases.
Historically, Marburg virus disease is fatal in about 50 percent of patients, but in some previous outbreaks, the mortality rate has exceeded 80 percent. People experience high fever, severe headache, extreme fatigue, rash, bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping, and unexplained bruising and bleeding from the nose and gums. Symptoms can appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after the initial infection.
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