Week 11: Different Vulnerabilities

This week, I read “That we may live,” Toxic Space and Time, and Queering Katrina.  In Queering Katrina, author Gary Richard reveals that he was teaching in New Orleans when Katrina hit and after staying with various friends for a while, ultimately sold his flooded home and had to relocate to Virginia.  Richard discusses the way in which conservative Christians demonize New Orleans as a hotbed of sin and excess. This has been a longstanding issue, as New Orleans is proudly home to Southern Decadence and Mardi Gras, two events that in their own ways promote freedom of expression, love and solidarity amongst New Orleans residents, and celebration of city and self.  Some of the conservative right was basically really disgusting and used Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to say that this disaster was some kind of punishment against the LGBTQ community, especially gay males. Richards discusses how individuals and the city as a whole were further outed by sex toys and other objects indicating possible sexuality literally flooded the city as people’s personal objects were carried away in the storm.  He also mentions how the makeup of the gay community changed after Katrina, as many people were forced to leave and the people who remained were mostly men and Latino men who came to help with recovery efforts. Although not all these men previously identified as gay, many engaged in homosexual activities due to being away from their partners and families. In “That we may live,” the author discusses plantation politics in the 20th century around pesticide intensification.  They argue that the use of pesticides was designed to protect the cotton, but that this practice had a blatant disregard for black lives, reproducing agro-environmental racism through supposedly “technical” means. In Toxic Space and Time, the author explores the relationship between time and the experience of living in a toxic space. In the examples of polluted areas of Louisiana, they depict environmental injustice as “let die” violence, where communities of color are forced to suffer the effects of pollution in necropolitical spaces of contamination.  Essentially, the more powerful and more privileged decide who lives and who dies based on which areas they pollute, but as it happens slowly they can get away with it more easily because it is danger and damage that slowly accumulates and intensifies over time.

Queering Katrina mentioned the fact that many religious right wing people protest events and celebrations in New Orleans that involve the LGBTQ community.  I myself notice this in the French Quarter even when there is not a big event like Southern Decadence. Many times, I have seen these groups of older white men holding signs about going to hell and spewing hate at the LGBTQ community.  My (very privileged and white, despite being part of the queer community) friends would often mock these protestors by making out in front of them or flashing their chests at them to see their reaction. While they never received any real response besides more homophobic chanting, it is important to note that in a different context, other LGBTQ individuals, especially those of color or who are members of the trans community, could face actual violence in these scenarios.  It shocks me that these groups of hateful men literally dedicate their whole lives to standing out in the Quarter almost daily for hours on end just to spew hate, especially since most passersby just laugh at their ignorance and bigotry. I feel very blessed to have met my partner in this city, and also very blessed for my very queer group of friends who have helped me grow into the person I am today and helped me through my own questions about my identity and sexuality. However, it absolutely terrifies me when my friends who are not white, cisgender or straight-passing like myself go out and have to worry about potential violence from people who do not accept them, especially in a city that my friends would like to view as a safe haven and home.  

Some keywords I encountered this week are: uncontrolled outing, necropolitics, and pesticide intensification.  Richards discusses the concept of uncontrolled outings in regards to the aftermath of Katrina, and how people’s personal lives were literally spilling out in front of the entire public and revealing their sexuality unwillingly.  Necropolitics is the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how some must die. Pesticide intensification refers to a form of agro-environmental racism, as it is harmful to both the environment in which it is used and to the human lives who have to work around it.