For most of us the immediate trauma of the U.S. response to hurricane Katrina has faded away. Nevertheless, the underlying structures that lead to it remain official policy.
Mark Holmgren: audio
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Race and Class in the Wake of Katrina A lecture by Mel Leiman
2005-09-21
Winslow Co-housing, Bainbridge Island WA 98110
"Katrina revealed a simple truth about the Big Easy and America. Behind the glitter of jazz, the erotic French Quarter and upscale Canal Street stores, was a city of profound class and racial inequality."
In this talk Mel Leiman makes plain the essential features of capitalism that allowed (or caused) the pathetic local and national response to hurricane Katrina. He places the unavoidable facts of class, race and economic disparity into a clear conceptual framework. He exposes the deceptions and denials required to make capitalism palatable under normal, day-to-day circumstances and shows why we should not be surprised by the ways in which capitalism breaks down under extreme stress.
Bainbridge Islander Mel Leiman is a retired professor of Economics from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton. He is author of the classic text book, "The Political Economy of Racism". He now lives and teaches on Bainbridge Island WA, a 30-min ferry ride from Seattle.