The way diseases and natural disasters destroy communities does not discriminate against anyone. How people respond, however, does discriminate.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of Louisiana breaching the levee system. The collapse of a levee that had never been properly built in the first place flooded 80% of New Orleans. More than a thousand people died. Recovery efforts from the local, state and federal government were slow and failed many New Orleanians. Ordinary people turned into heroes following Hurricane Katrina, as they formed search and rescue teams, in a time when there were none, and stepped up in place of the government to save people from the flood.
Fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina devastated black communities, the COVID-19 pandemic is a reflection of the same class and race issues that the collapsed levee exposed. It is a stark reminder of the structural violence rooted in inequalities that keep the poor and people of color from meeting their most basic needs
In the years following Katrina, disaster recovery efforts were slow and ineffective. Individuals and families who managed to leave for safer locations before Katrina hit were affected differently when they sought to return to their homes. According to a Louisiana State University study, 70 percent of white New Orleanians were able to return to their homes within a year; in comparison, fewer than half of black New Orleanians were able to go back to their homes.
Families who filed for home insurance, loans, or any type of relief aid to build back their homes and lives were routinely denied after months of filling out paperwork. Black families faced even longer delays.
The Road Home Program was one of the many actors that distributed financial resources to help New Orleanians rebuild their homes. Grants were calculated based on assessments of home values, but these assessments were based on racial discriminatory assumptions that black neighborhoods had property values that were lower than white neighborhoods. Thus, black homeowners consistently received less funding than white homeowners due to an undervaluation of their homes. If not for the exclusionary implementation of the program, The Road Home Program was an important opportunity to lessen the racial wealth gap, yet it only perpetuated existing socioeconomic inequalities that made it harder for African-American communities to recover.
Today, as the world faces a pandemic, the virus is tearing through African-American communities, as well as working-class families at faster rates than wealthy and white Americans. In Louisiana, for example, about 70 percent of the people who have died from the disease are black, even though only about a third of the population is black. In Illinois, black residents made up 43 percent of coronavirus deaths, even though only about 15 percent of the population is black. The reasons behind these great disparities can be a result of existing health conditions, such as asthma, heart disease, and obesity, and higher exposure to pollution that are rooted in structural inequalities.
Working-class people and people of color are more likely to live in urban hot spots, to be uninsured and may lack the resources to stock up on food or other necessary items to protect themselves from contracting the virus. Or they may lack the ability to work from home, as many of them are grocery store, farm, or hospital employees to name a few. While the coronavirus did not create these issues, it brought to light the United States’ weak social safety net, just as Hurricane Katrina did.
Relief aid, like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the CARES Act has already failed many small businesses as many of the loans meant to help them have been redirected to large corporations. More than 200 public companies have received more than $750 million in bailout loans. Money that should have gone to small business owners to pay their employees or rent. This relief aid was intended to help struggling Americans, but instead has highlighted the government prioritizing the wealthy.
Minority owned businesses could be especially vulnerable to the economic devastation brought by COVID-19, as the PPP relies on large financial institutions to deliver loans. In a 2018 study, researchers found that mainstream banks approved 60% of loan applications by white small business owners in comparison to only 29% of loan applications approved for black small business owners. The way the PPP is set up would allow mainstream banks to leave out underserved people by authorizing them to review loan applications.
As the United States considers the best way to reopen the country, all levels of government must take into account the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina. The safety of people must be put first to assure they can get back on their feet without having to do so alone. The government must ensure that federal money goes to workers and small businesses, rather than enriching large corporations.
Speaking on COVID-19, New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo recently stated: “It always seems that the poorest people pay the highest price. Why is that?” The simple answer is the inequalities that are at the foundation of the United States. Policies and responses to disasters must change.