Things that left me shook week 11 AKA: my notes on Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters

       So I am going to try something spicy and "live blog" my reactions to what I am reading while I am reading it. This is either going to be a big ass yikes, or it'll be an entertaining experience for all involved. I am going to put the subtitle and then my reaction underneath to give this  blog post some form of order, so without further ado let's begin. 

Why Focus on The South?

• South has a history of racism, they not wrong 
• Over 54% of USAs black population lives in the South, #themoreyounow
• Cars are a big deal because some asshole decided city planning should be about cars which isv problematic because cars are essential part of evacuation and 24% of black folk in the South don't own a car 
• Fema tried to address this with project Impact but Bush said fuck poor lives back in 2001
• Answer would then be with public transportation but psych that stuff ends at Parish lines, people have to actually switch RTA busses once they reach parish lines. That's messed up, I always thought it was weird that I'd see the Jefferson bus on Poydras and this explains why. 
• NOLA fucked over the carless population, NORTA was hit real bad

Gov't Responses to Weather-Related Disasters

• POC folk get the worst protection, #thanksMikeFitts
• Natural=manmade, its all about social injustice kids 
• Mississippi River Flood (1927) 
• worst flood till Katrina 
• Concentration camps for black refugees, what the actual fuck why aren't we taught about this in school? why is this my first time hearing about it? 
•  Florida Okeechobee Hurricane (1928)
• 1st category 5 hurricane 
• 2nd deadliest hurricane in US history 
• Hit black community the hardest, and surprise surprise the whites were especially racist afterwards 
•  Hurricane Betsy, NOLA (1965)
•  Really messed up the Lower 9th Ward
• "Conspiracy" (TBH its probably true but we gotta save the gov'ts face) that whites pumped water into the ward and broke the levi to save white businesses and homes (sounds about white) 
• Placed the black community on a landfill and the gov't screwed them over but godbless the seventh circuit judge 
•  Hurricane Hugo, South Carolina (1989)
• Plottwist: Black community got screwed over by the gov't 
• Hurricane Andrew, Miami-Dade and South Florida (1992) 
• Segregation is alive and well  
• Tropical Storm Alberto (1994) 
•  Racial tensions were hightened because once again the whites don't wanna help and wanna hog all the money
•  Black Farmers and USDA Disaster Relief (1997) . 
• Gov't says psych to when black farmers use their rights to get disaster relief  
•  Hurricane Floyd, Eastern North Carolina (1999) 
• Contaminants were brought to black communities, and shocker the gov't hasn't tried to help
•  Hurricane Katrina (2005) 
• Gov't wasn't prepared (I'm shocked!) 

Cleaning Up After Katrina 

• The Politics of Waste Removal 
• Old Gentilly land mill usage is problematic because it ISNT SAFE 
• New ;and millin NOLA East is problematic because toxic waste is in black communities and the gov't screwed them over once again! Also, "LaNd FiLlS dOnT nEeD lInErS" because fuck POC communities 
•  A "Safe" Road Home 
• Wow. people mismanaging and abusing funds. That never happens!
• Gov't says your soil isn't contaminated, but landfills won't tale your soil cus it is? But the horse track can get rid of theirs? Wow, it's almost like the gov't is screwing over POC communities. 
•  Toxic FEMA trailers 
• They actually used toxic materials to build relief trailers I am positively lvid this isnt ok and NEVER should have ben able to happen!!!!AND OF COURSE FEMA DID NOTHING EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW THE TRUTH 
•  Post-Katrina Levee Protection
• Black neighborhoods didn't receive increased levee protection, but of course white neighborhoods did

The Racial Divide in Disaster Relief 

• The gov't is racist, who would've known?