Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast with tremendous force at daybreak, August 29, 2005, severely punishing regions that included the city of New Orleans and its neighboring state Mississippi. Resulting in a total of just over 1700 people killed, and hundreds of thousands missing. When we think of Hurricane Katrina stories, we think of stories that were published by the media such as, “Packing 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall, the category 3 storm left more than a million people in three states without power and submerged highways even hundreds of miles from its center. The hurricane's storm surge a 29-foot wall of water pushed ashore when the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast was the highest ever measured in the United States. Levees failed in New Orleans, resulting in political and social upheavals that continued a half decade later” (The New York Times). In his book “Zeitoun” Dave Eggers, a national bestseller and well respected poet, analyzes the dramatic dialogue and action of the Zeitoun family during the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. For long time New Orleans resident Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun were dragged into an unexpected struggle with forces far beyond wind and water. We Learnt from Eggers novel, that Zeitoun and others are forced to get in a boat, then taken into custody and are imprisoned. This is no different from a typical Katrina discrimination story as discrimination becomes a significant theme within Eggers novel. Other Sources such as Akbar Ahmed author of “Journey into Islam”, Maleiha Malik “Anti-Muslim Prejudice In The West: Past and Present” and Glenn Adams “Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy” in their own respect also contribute to Eggers theme discrimination. In the end Egger exposes...
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...oses in great details discrimination as the inhumane and tragic treatment Zeitoun received as he faced anti-Islamic movement by government officials.
Works Cited
Adams, Glen. "Perceptions of Racism In Hurricane Katrina: A Liberation Psychology Analysis." Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. By Geoffrey Maruyama. 1st ed. Vol. 6. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. 215-35. Print.
Ahmed, Akbar S. Journey into Islam: the Crisis of Globalization. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2007. Print.
Eggers, Dave. Zeitoun. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print.
Malik, Maleiha. "Anti-Muslim Prejudice in the West – Past and Present, by Maleiha Malik." Euro-Islam: News and Analysis on Islam in Europe and North America. Routledge, 25 Feb. 2010. Web. 01 Dec. 2011. .
Ansary, Mir Tamim. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. Print.
Rankine also shares the horrible tragedy of hurricane Katrina experienced by the black community, where they struggled for their survival before and post the hurricane catastrophes. She reports that the lives of black people in the disaster were of no cost for white administration and they delayed the help. She expresses this by writing, “I don’t know what the water wanted. It wanted to show you no one would come” (Rankine 94)(11).
escape the wretches of poverty. Katrina’s story reflects the untold struggles of many women in
In Josh Neufeld’s Trauma novel, A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge the personal aspects of Hurricane Katrina are emphasized and explored. The book follows representative Katrina survivors, highlighting their experiences and coping with the aftermath of the storm. None of characters in the book are presented as having the “right” answers, but Denise, had a full experience of the chaos, horror, and destruction that Katrina inflicted on New Orleans. She had full exposure of the traumatic event, and the novel gives the reader a unique insight into her experiences.
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers tells the story of a Muslim-American man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his family who were caught in the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina when it struck New Orleans in 2005. Katrina destroyed the entire city of New Orleans and took many lives along with it. However, the hurricane ultimately displayed the flaws in American policies. Dave Eggers book, Zeitoun, captures the failure of the government to handle the disaster effectively along with the ongoing "war on terror" in the United States.
Media Coverage on Hurricane Katrina News of the devastating hurricane Katrina and its economic, political, social, and humanitarian consequences dominated global headlines in an unprecedented manner when this natural catastrophe struck the region of New Orleans in mid August 2005 (Katrinacoverage.com). As a tradition, large-scale disasters like Katrina, inevitably, bring out a combination of the best and the worst news media instincts. As such, during the height of Hurricane Katrina’s rage, many journalists for once seized their gag reflex and refused to swallow shallow and misleading excuses and explanations from public officials. Nevertheless, the media’s eagerness to report thinly substantiated rumors may have played a key role in bringing about cultural wreckage that may take the American society years to clean up. To begin with, anybody privy to the events in New Orleans that ensued after Hurricane Katrina struck knows that horrible things that had nothing to do with natural causes happened: there were murders, gunfire directed at a rescue helicopter, assaults and, courtesy of New Orleans’ city police department, a myriad other crimes that most probably went unreported (Katrinacoverage.com).
Stephens, N. M., Hamedani, M. G., Markus, H. R., Bergsieker, H. B., & Eloul, L. (2009). Why did they “choose” to stay? Perspectives of Hurricane Katrina observers and survivors. Psychological Science, 20(7), 878-886.
Shah, Anup (2005, November 13). Hurricane Katrina. Global Issues. Retrieved from mhtml:file://F:Hurricane Katrina—Global Issues. mht
Katrina pummeled huge parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama but the desperation was most concentrated in New Orleans. Before the storm, the city’s population was mostly black (about 67 percent); moreover, nearly 30 percent of its people lived in poverty. Katrina exacerbated these conditions, and left many of New Orleans’s poorest citizens even more vulnerable than they had been before the
Fink, Sheri. "Hurricane Katrina: after the flood." The Gaurdian. N.p., 7 Feb. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
I moved to New Orleans two weeks before Hurricane Katrina happenedoccurred. The hurricane had a major effect on the city’s educational system. I attended schools that were where we were operating in schools thatdespite suffering still had damage and rebuilding from Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita. The instruction in the classroom was often not challenging and many resources for advancement were not available because of the limited amount of subject offerings and
Post September 11, 2001 the life of a Muslim women living in America changed forever. Islamophobia is the prejudice against Islam or Muslims. Islamophobia is not a new concept, it has roots hundreds of years ago, however after 9/11 it became much more prevalent in America. Following 9/11 Western media used Islam and Muslim women who covered to inflict fear in American citizens. Western media framed Islam as a dangerous and hateful religion that needed to be stopped. At the same time the media became obsessed with Muslim women who veiled and wanted to save these women from their oppression. However, these articles written about the oppressed Muslim women did not feature Muslim women and their experiences veiling. They were not given a voice
Islamophobia has become a new topic of interest among social sciences, political leaders and media commentators. People amongst society have developed this phobia towards Islamic religion and people. It has become a novel “form of racism in Europe and American based on discrimination ...
G. Esposito, John L (2002) Islam; What Everyone Should Know. New York. Oxford University Press Inc.
Kenneth Jost. 2005. “Understanding Islam.” Annual Editions: Anthropology 11/12, 34th Edition. Elvio Angeloni. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.