Environmental Inequality

In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina vigorously tore apart the U.S. Gulf Coast Region killing at least 1500 people, ranking at the third deadliest hurricane in United States history. Author of Survival and Death in New Orleans, Patrick Sharkey (2007), looked specifically at data on New Orleans residents that perished during Katrina in an attempt to look at the communities that were most affected by this unfortunate disaster. The storm took the largest toll on the elderly population and by African Americans, who he argued were overrepresented in comparison to whites. The toll was not only physical but mentally damaging as well, due to the overwhelming amount of loss to their homes, family members, pets, and childhood neighborhoods in which they grew up in. Evidence from Ismail White’s (2007) study entitled, Feeling the Pain of my People, concluded that African Americans felt that the federal governments lacked in response to the hurricane and was so insufficient that had the victims been white, the government would have acted differently. Therefore suggested traditions of economic and racial segregation has misrepresented segments of urban neighborhoods that have been isolated from resources, political influence, and economic gain and are therefore more susceptible to disasters, like Katrina.

Images of New Orleans residents stranded throughout the city left a permanent impact towards those who followed media coverage, suggesting that the storm’s damage has been viewed at as anything but a natural disaster. “Katrina has come to be interpreted by some as a “metaphor,” for the inequality that pervades urban American, affecting poor, primarily Black segments of the urban populace most directly” (Sharkey 2007: 483). African Americans...

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... a separation due to race, but in fact due to environmental justice. Therefore there is not a substantial amount of evidence to support either author’s claims. The studies lacked evidentiary support in both reports, such as the correct number of deaths and had insufficient samples that were not directly affected and could have been influenced by the media’s response or prior opinion. While examples such as the bridge incident did include racism towards New Orleans residents, it did not specify the race or ethnicity of what kind of people were forbidden to walk across the bridge to safety, but instead excluded everyone. Perhaps therefore then the issue is not simply race, but more so geological, economical, and social inequality that has led those citizens to feel that they had been the target of such a tragic disaster that has changed their way of life forever.