RACIAL APATHY AND HURRICANE KATRINA: The Social Anatomy of Prejudice in the Post-Civil Rights Era

Abstract

During the crisis that followed Hurricane Katrina, many Americans expressed surprise at the dramatic levels of racial inequality captured in the images of large numbers of poor Black people left behind in devastated New Orleans. In this article we argue that, to better understand both the parameters of contemporary racial inequality reflected in the hurricane's aftermath and why so many were surprised about the social realities of racial inequality that social scientists have known about for decades, it is essential to recognize the shifting nature of Whites' racial attitudes and understandings. There is widespread evidence that in the post-civil rights era the expression of White racial prejudice has changed. In fact, during the post-civil rights era subtle and indirect forms of prejudice have become more central to the sustenance and perpetuation of racial inequality than are overt forms of prejudice. We draw on both survey and qualitative data to investigate current manifestations of White racial attitudes and prejudices. Our results indicate that racial apathy, indifference towards racial and ethnic inequality, is a relatively new but expanding form of racial prejudice. We further show that Whites' systematic “not knowing” about racial inequality (White ignorance), which was manifest in the reaction to the crises after Hurricane Katrina, is related to this racial indifference. Racial apathy and White ignorance (i.e., not caring and not knowing) are extensions of hegemonic color-blind discourses (i.e., not seeing race). These phenomena serve as pillars of contemporary racial inequality that have until now received little attention. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and the practical implications of our results for understanding racial dynamics in the post-Katrina United States.

‘You’ve got to teach people that racism is wrong and then they won’t be racist’: Curricular representations and young people’s understandings of ‘race’ and racism

“…These reductive and sanitized representations of racism insulate young people racialized as white from the 'ugly truth' that they benefit from, and actively participate in, a racialized social system, thereby 'letting them off the moral hook' (Forman 2004: 46). Thus, inter-cultural content creates and sustains the ideological conditions that prevent many whites and some minorities from recognizing, or taking action to redress ongoing racial inequality, while giving the impression that they are tackling racism head on by addressing and condemning specific forms of racism (Forman and Lewis 2006). Meanwhile, the perpetuation of the 'felt reality of race as a way of understanding the world' within the curriculum has a range of possible effects (Willinsky 1998: 169), including the perception that conflict among different 'races' or civilizations is inevitable, or that inherent differences justify unequal power relations (Montgomery 2005).…”

“…The paper addresses one aspect of a larger critical exploration of statutory and school-based efforts to 'manage diversity' that were implemented in Irish schools and society during the 'Celtic Tiger' era--a period of unprecedented economic boom which lasted from the mid1990s until the global economic downturn of 2008. It seeks to inform our understanding of the ways in which inter-cultural and 'anti-racist' elements of the formal curriculum are complicit with the reproduction of racism, to the extent that the racial discourses contained within instructional materials create and sustain the ideological conditions that prevent many whites and some minorities from recognizing--or taking action to redress--ongoing racial inequality, while giving the impression that they are tackling racism head on by addressing and condemning specific forms of racism (Forman and Lewis 2006).…”

Expectations of government’s response to disaster

“…In their explanations of what has gone wrong with governmental responses, the dominant expectation of government that respondents express is neither naively optimistic (OC-OI), as might be expected within Caplan's (2007) framework, nor naively pessimistic (OC-PI-n), as is expected within the institutional racism literature ([P]owell et al 2006;Henkel et al 2006;Forman and Lewis 2006;Frymer et al 2006). A naively optimistic view would generate anticipatory comments that government would at some point provide an effective response, and/or bewilderment regarding government's failure to maintain the levees and its disappointing record of performance following Katrina.…”

“…Much of the post-Katrina literature that deploys explanations of institutional racism warns that the non-academic public possesses a relatively unsophisticated view when assessing government's response following the storm(Powell et al 2006;Henkel et al 2006;Forman and Lewis 2006;Frymer et al 2006).…”

Off white: colour-blind ideology at the margins of whiteness

“…From this perspective, whites -the dominant group -are not ignorant to race, but rather seek out their own group interest by discounting race as an important source of inequality that needs remedy (Forman and Lewis 2006). Thus, if colour-blindness, as a framework of perception, serves to maintain or legitimate the current racial structure in the USA whereby whites remain dominant (Bobo and Smith 1998;Bonilla-Silva 2006), we would expect even contested whites who personally identify with the Ethnic and Racial Studies 2285 dominant racial group to adhere to colour-blind ideology at levels that are similar to their noncontested white counterparts.…”