'Come Hell or High Water'
11 Questions for Michael Eric Dyson on Hurricane Katrina and Other Issues of the Day
By Angela Bronner, AOL Black Voices
Says Dyson: "I worked 18 hours a day for three months writing this book. The book has over 500 footnotes. I did my work because it's necessary to do meticulous work in order to make an argument to defend principles and persons who are vulnerable. If you don't do that work intellectually, then you make those people even more vulnerable."
Author, professor, cultural critic and self-proclaimed "hip-hop intellectual" Michael Eric Dyson has consistently borne witness to issues of import in the black community. He's taken on rappers, classism, Tupac Shakur, Martin Luther King and most notoriously -- Bill Cosby. He writes and speaks with a candor and academic rigor infused with strains of theology and old fashioned plain speak. In his latest tome, 'Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster,' Dyson meticulously outlines the factors that shaped the Katrina debacle both on practical and political levels. The book certainly answers the question, How'd we get here, but also begs the question, Where do we go from here?
Who's your audience for this book?
First of all, anybody who was riveted or repulsed by what they saw on television; for those people who claim as good citizens, that they're concerned about the folk in the gulf and issues that it raises. For those people who didn't know that those were serious issues but now because of Katrina have become much more aware of them. And finally, I wrote this for all of those black people who had dissed poor black people before, who had joined Bill Cosby and who now understand that maybe it's not that simple. Maybe there are some bigger issues that Katrina swept to the fore that we have to confront.
In your last book ('Is Bill Cosby Right or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?') you talk about have-gots and have-nots. In the event of Katrina, why do you think so many blacks stood up for the black underclass?
The previous assault on poor black people was on us: "You're embarrassing us" "You're not speaking the right way" "You're not dressing the right way." It's about us. Maybe, in the event of Katrina, we recognized that we are too are black folk. Because the question is not simply whether George Bush cares about black people. Do black people care about black people? Black Americans are the most well off black folk in the world. And we owe it to our brothers and sisters to do something.
How does your background as a minister inform your work?
Well, it's pretty pervasive. I became a minister in 1979. I'm quite involved in the black church, also as a critic and a social gadfly as well as a citizen. It's central to my own existence and my identity of who I am as a human being trying to make arguments on behalf of those who were left out. That motivates every fiber in my being to argue against the ignoring of, the negligence of and the kind of assault upon those who are the most vulnerable and those we are charged with in the Gospel to be voices for and advocates for.
Speaking of gospels, the "gospel of prosperity" is sweeping through black America these days. Do you think this lessens our identification with the "least of these?"
Oh absolutely. It's materialism, it's the marketplace, it's also about the black middle class trying to alleviate its conscience, and trying to assuage its guilt about dealing with those who are less fortunate. If you're pursuing richness as the voice of God you're perverting religion at its base. And for me that's a problem. Do these ministers speak about racism? Do they speak about sexism or homophobia? Do they talk out against the issues of the day?
Can there be a happy medium between wealth and morality?
You gonna serve the market or morality? You gonna serve materialism or you gonna serve spirit? Are you going to be conscientious about those whose backs are against the wall or are you going to put your foot on their necks on your climb up? It could be both ways but it ain't been. I'm not saying that people who got cash can't have conscience. I'm not saying they're mutually exclusive but the pursuit of one primarily does exclude the pursuit of the other fundamentally. But to pursue morality in the best sense, means you ain't gonna make as much money as you could've otherwise made, even if you're rich. There are some things you ain't gonna do.
Where does FEMA stand today and are you confident that it's ready to adequately deal with another natural disaster?
They're atrociously out of step with even the achievements of the Clinton administration where the head of FEMA was part of the cabinet, so that meant that FEMA received the administration's attention and certainly the president's attention. FEMA is so disorganized; many of the top leaders of FEMA have no emergency management experience. These are people who were part of George Bush's transition team or they had political hook-ups. So cronyism has corrupted the culture around FEMA. Also, this is the agency that has received the most racial complaints than any other federal agency, so how you going to be the one to reach out to help these poor black and white and Latino and Asian brothers and sisters who are devastated by natural disasters?
You took the media to task in the book. Said it got some cool points by throwing its "objectivity" out of the window in covering some of the suffering of Katrina but lost some by its use of language (i.e. "finding" vs. "looting") afterwards. Your thoughts?
Well, it's the MYTH of objectivity. But how can we give the media credit for first of all, finding its spine? You know, the media has virtually been embedded with the American government. They're basically an extension of the propaganda of American political life. The media, as the fourth estate, ought to be asking questions and being suspicious - not cynical - but suspicious. And to congratulate the media, because they got pissed...Well they were down there too. Let's not forget. They were down there and they were also without. And they figure, if they got left behind - my God, what are you doing to these other people? So part of that is even self-interest. But beyond that, I was glad to see their anger. But the media recovered only a little bit. And then what they gave with one hand, they took back with the other when they spread all these rumors and urban legends and stories about the looting.
What do you see in the rebuilt New Orleans?
The reality is that New Orleans now is not concerned about getting these poor black people back -- the black people that funded the city's aesthetic expansion. That made it what it is. That made it a gumbo of ethnicity within blackness and Cajun and French and Spanish and American coming together. That kind of melange, that kind of gumbo, that kind of creative fusion is all but lost with this white Republican leaning or at least neo-conservative or neo-liberal leaning business interest that will certainly take the city over and clean it literally of its ethnic grittiness. The beautiful dirt that constituted the m‚lange of different identities, that stuff will be swept away with the flood.
You write of theodicies in your book -- God being the reason for natural disasters. Why do you think black folk gravitate to these?
I think that first of all, we want to have an explanation. We're moral people rooted in religious consequence and we want to have an explanation of where God was. It's a very messy affair. We've got to figure out a way to have an explanation. And if God is present, what does that say about who God is. Does God love Black people or not? I think I had to raise those questions in this book because they were being raised in the culture and we had to bring them to a sharp head.
Were the rappers most honest when it came to responding to Katrina?
Oh sure, the rappers were the most honest, conscientious and responded. Despite whatever misgivings that we have about their other flaws -- and there are many -- the reality is that they were on this from the very beginning, they were on it before Katrina began, they talked about it many times, put these ghettos and their projects in their videos. And some of the greatest footage we have of how it used to be comes from rap videos that went up in there and showed this misery of New Orleans. It wasn't about Mardi Gras! It wasn't about The French Quarter! It was about Desire projects or Calliope Projects. Those people responded and are often very powerful in a different fashion.
What should we as a community do next?
We have to deal with the issues of race, poverty and suffering. We also have to figure out ways to deal with the systemic issues that were revealed here. Three, we've got to move from charity to justice. Charity is beautiful. You give people stuff when they need it and then you move on. No. Justice. Martin King Jr. said it's one thing to be the good Samaritan on the Jericho Road, that's one thing. But hey, let's transform the Jericho road itself to make sure people are not getting robbed there. And that's what black people have to do
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