Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

“Do you know What It Means … ?”: Mapping Emotion in the Aftermath of Katrina

  • Chapter
Seeking Higher Ground

Part of the book series: The Critical Black Studies Series ((CBL))

Abstract

On the first anniversary of the Katrina disaster, a documentary film about the events premiered on HBO. “When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” was produced by award-winning, African American filmmaker Spike Lee. Lee used the enduring images of human suffering in New Orleans and the compelling nar­ratives of hurricane victims to give new meaning and poignancy to the tragedy. Although the film is political in its thesis and conclusions, it is fundamentally an emotional tale about the heart of the experience of Katrina for the people of New Orleans. HBO promoted the film as an “intimate, heart-rending portrait of New Orleans in the wake of the destruction that tells the heartbreaking personal stories of those who endured this harrowing ordeal and survived to tell the tale of misery, despair and triumph.” In his discussion of the film and its importance, Lee makes a claim to the centrality of the emotional effects of the storm on its victims: “Post-Katrina, the obituary column in the Times-Picayune is 30 percent more. Suicides are up….People are just buggin’. And there are no facilities to deal with the mental-health issue down there. This stuff is going to have reverberations for many years to come. When you have children who’ve seen their parents drown in front of them or parents who have seen their children drown in front of them, I mean, how do you deal with that?”

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans And miss it each night and day?

—Louis Armstrong

George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

—Kanye West

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  • Aneshensel, Carol, and Clea Sucoff. “The Neighborhood Context of Adolescent Mental Health.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 37, no. 4 (1996): 293–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avis, Thomas-Lester. “A Senate Apology for History on Lynching Vote Condemns Past Failure to Act.” Washington Post, June 14, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ballie, Andrea. “Spike Lee Painstakingly Chronicles Katrina in Epic Doc ‘When the Levees Brooke.’” Canadian Press, September 16, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blau, Francine, and John Graham. “Black-White Differences in Wealth and Asset Composition.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 105, no. 2 (1990): 321–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bobo, Lawrence. “Katrina: Unmasking Race, Poverty, and Politics in the 21st Century.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 3, no. 1 (2006): 1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Breslau, N., G. C. Davis, and P. Andreski. “Risk Factors for PTSD-related Traumatic Events: A Prospective Analysis.” American Journal of Psychiatry 152 (1995): 529–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Breslau, N., R. Kessler, H. Chilcoat, L. Schultz, G. Davis, and P. Andreski. “Trauma and Post–traumatic Stress Disorder in the Community: The 1996 Detroit Area Survey of Trauma.” Archives of General Psychiatry 55 (1998): 626–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brunner, Borgna. “The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner: The Ringleader of the Murders, Edgar Ray Killen, Was Convicted on June 21, 2005, the 41st Anniversary of the Crimes.” http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmjustice4.html.

  • The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. “New Orleans After the Storm: Lessons for the Past, a Plan for the Future.” Publication of the Brookings Institution. Washington, DC, October 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chan, Emily. “Evidence-based Public Health Practices: Challenges for Health Needs Assessments in Disasters.” Hong Kong Medical Journal 12, no. 4 (2006): 324–326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cockerman, William. “A Test of the Relationship between Race, Socioeconomic Status and Psychological Distress.” Social Science and Medicine 31 (1990): 321–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, Frederick, Thomas Holt, and Rebecca Scott. Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, Labor and Citizenship in Postemancipation Societies. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutter, Susan, Bryan Boruff, and W. Lynn Shirley. “Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards.” Social Science Quarterly 84, no. 1 (2003): 242–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cutter, Susan. “The Geography of Social Vulnerability: Race, Class and Catastrophe.” Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences (2005).

    Google Scholar 

  • Darden, Joe. “Black Residential Segregation since the 1948 Shelley v. Kramemer Decision.” Journal of Black Studies 25, no. 6 (1995): 680–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, L. M., L. Weiss, M. O’Keefe, and A. Baum. “Acute Stressors and Chronic Stress at Three Mile Island.” Journal of Traumatic Stress 4 (1991): 481–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Du Bois, W. E. B. 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Norton, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dyson, Michael Eric. Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. New York: Basic Books, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Forman, Tyrone, and Amanda Lewis. “Racial Apathy and Hurricane Katrina: the Social Anatomy of Prejudice in the Post-Civil Rights Era.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 3, no. 1 (2005): 175–202.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frymer, Paul, Dara Strolovitch, and Dorian T. Warren. “New Orleans is not the Exception: Re-politicizing the Study of Racial Inequality.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 3, no. 1 (2006): 37–58. http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/FrymerStrolovitchWarren.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fullilove, Mindy Thompson. Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It. New York: Random House, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, B. L. “Evaluating the Effects of Disasters.” Psychological Assessment 3 (1991): 538–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey A. G., and R. A. Bryant. “The Relationship between Acute Stress Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Prospective Evaluation of Motor Vehicle Accident Survivors.” Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology 66 (1998): 507–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • HBO.com. Synopsis: When the Levees Broke; A Requiem in Four Acts. September 26, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huddy, Leonie, and Feldman, Stanley. “Worlds Apart: Blacks and Whites React to Hurricane Katrina.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 3, no. 1 (2006): 97–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kessler R., A. Sonnega, E. Bromet, M. Hughes, and C. B. Nelson. “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey.” Archive of General Psychiatry 52 (1995): 1048–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kessler, R. “Epidemiology of Women and Depression.” Journal of Affective Disorders 74, no. 1 (March 2003): 5–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Litwack, Leon. 1979. Been in the Storm so Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Logan, John. “Population Displacement and Post-Katrina Politics: The New Orleans Mayoral Race, 2006.” June 1, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massey, Douglass. “American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass.” American Journal of Sociology 96, no. 2 (1990): 329–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McLeod, Jane and Shanahan, Michael. “Poverty, Parenting, and Children’s Mental Health.” American Sociological Review 58, no. 3 (1993): 351–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Fair Housing Alliance, “No Home for the Holidays: Report on Housing Discrimination against Hurricane Katrina Survivors.” December 20, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • North, C. S., S. J. Nixon, S. Shariat et al. “Psychiatric Disorders among Survivors of the Oklahoma City Bombing.” Journal of the American Medical Association 282 (1999): 755–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen, Manthi, ed. Black Americans: A Statistical Sourcebook. Palo Alto, CA: Information Publications, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norris, F. “Epidemiology of Trauma: Frequency and Impact of Different Potentially Traumatic Events on Different Demographic Groups.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 60 (1992): 409–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Hurricane Katrina Survey. September 6–7, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rasinski, Kenneth, Alicia Matthews, Bethany Albertson, Tom Smith, and Jennifer Berkhold. The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks: Ethnic Differences in Emotional Response and Recovery. Chicago: University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlenger, W. E., J. M. Caddell, L. Ebert, B. K. Jordan, K. M. Rourke, D. Wilson et al. “Psychological Reactions to Terrorist Attacks: Findings from the National Study of Americans’ Reactions to September 1 1.” Journal of the American Medical Association 288 (2002): 581–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schuster M. A., B. D. Stein, L. Jaycox et al. “A National Survey of Stress Reactions after the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attack.” Journal of the American Medical Association 345 (2001): 1507–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheehan, Charles. “Till Is Exhumed: Experts Hope Science Can Unravel Case.” Chicago Tribune, June 2, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherman, Arloc and Isaac Shapiro. “Essential Facts about the Victims of Hurricane Katrina.” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 19, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silver, R. C., E. A. Holman, D. N. McIntosh, M. Poulin, and V. Gil-Rivas. “Nationwide Longitudinal Study of Psychological Responses to September 1 1.” Journal of the American Medical Association 288 (2002): 1235–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, T., K. Rasinski, and M. Toce. “America Rebounds: A National Study of Public Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks.” Report of the National Opinion Research Center. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sweeney, Kathryn. 2006. “The Blame Game: Racialized Responses to Hurricane Katrina.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 3, no. 1 (2005): 161–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weisman, Jonathan, and Michael Abramowitz. “Many See Storm as President’s Undoing.” Washington Post, August 26, 2006, p. A1.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Melissa Harris-Lacewell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Manning Marable Kristen Clarke

Copyright information

© 2008 Manning Marable and Kristen Clarke

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Harris-Lacewell, M. (2008). “Do you know What It Means … ?”: Mapping Emotion in the Aftermath of Katrina. In: Marable, M., Clarke, K. (eds) Seeking Higher Ground. The Critical Black Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610095_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation