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What Lies Beneath
Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation
South End Press Collective (editors); Afterword by Joy James
Pages: 176ISBN: 0-89608-767-0
Release Date: 2007-02-01
In August 2005, thousands of New Orleans residents—overwhelmingly
poor, largely people of color, the majority black—were left to face one
of the worst “natural” disasters in US history on their own. They were
left to die in prisons, in nursing homes, and on the street. Survivors
were criminalized as “looters” for struggling to obtain food, water,
diapers, medicine, and other essentials of life that no one else could
or would provide. As Katrina’s waters receded and the body count
soared, an ugly truth (re)surfaced: The lives of those who are poor,
who are vulnerable, and who are not white are not valued by the US
government.
While commentators across the political
spectrum, celebrities, and other observers expressed outrage that the
US government would let this happen to Americans—even “those
Americans”—millions outside of New Orleans live without
adequate health insurance; clean air and water; decent education,
housing, nutrition, health care, and work; and freedom from police
brutality and state repression. And thousands are deported, displaced,
and dying in prisons and illegal wars from coast to coast, gulf to
gulf.
Short and accessible, this anthology, featuring
such voices as Common Ground, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Suheir Hammad, Jordan Flaherty, and Ross Gelbspan, takes readers beyond the Superdome. It explores the complexity
of this turning point in US history as representative of the nation’s
direction and priorities.
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition
Other topics that are related to Activism are:
Advance Praise
“What Lies Beneath is a book that will keep alive the memory of one of the most dramatic and terrible events of the new millennium—the catastrophe of the Katrina hurricane and its aftermath.… At the center of story are the unavoidable issues of race, class, and the shameful callousness of officialdom. The book will keep us thinking for a long time about what happened, why it happened, and provoke us to examine honestly the nature of the society in which we live.”
—Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
“Here, finally, is clear-eyed and fascinating analysis of what Hurricane Katrina has to teach us about politics, power, human connection, and working for justice. What Lies Beneath is crucial reading—an organizer’s handbook for the 21st century.”
—Hon. Barbara Smith, co-founder, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Member, City Council, Albany, New York
“What Lies Beneath r...
South End Press Collective
Click here to view South End Press Collective's full Author PageSouth End Press is a nonprofit, collectively run book publisher with more than 250 titles in print. Since our founding in 1977, we have met the needs of readers who are exploring, or are already committed to, the politics of radical social change. Our goal is to publish books that advance critical thinking and action on the key political, cultural, social, economic, and ecological issues shaping life in the United States and in the world. We hope to provide a forum for a wide variety of democratic social movements, and provide an alternative to the products of corporate publishing.
From its inception, the Press has organized itself as an egalitarian collective with decision-making arranged to share as equally as possible the rewards and stresses of running the business. Each collective member is responsible for core editorial and administrative tasks, and all collective members earn the same base salary. The Press also has made a practice of inverting the pervasive racial and gender hierarchies in traditional publishing houses; our staff has been majority women since the mid-1980s, and the collective has been at least 50 percent people of color since the mid-1990s. Our author list—which includes bell hooks, Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Ward Churchill, Cherríe Moraga, Andrea Smith, and Howard Zinn—reflects the Press’s commitment to publish on diverse issues from diverse perspectives.
To expand access to information and critical analysis, South End Press has been instrumental to the start of two on-going political media projects—Speak Out and Z Magazine. We have worked closely with a number of important media and research institutions including Alternative Radio, Political Research Associates, and the Committee on Women, Population and the Environment.