PAST Media and Updates

NESRI Commentary: Disaster Exposes National Human Rights Crisis

The images of survivors struggling through the chaos left in Hurricane Katrina’s wake are so consistent that it is impossible to ignore what they reveal about the state of race, class and human rights in the United States.

Matt Lauer of NBC’s Today Show, said on the air, “The great majority of the people we are seeing suffering right now are black and they are poor. These are the people who don't have a safety net in their daily lives and clearly there was no net prepared to help them in a situation like this. How much of a wake-up call does this have to be for the people of this country?”

As the rest of the world sees this footage, a provocative secret is revealed: the income inequities and scarcity of resources experienced by poor countries are prevalent here, in the world’s most rich and powerful nation, branded as the champion of freedom. For those inundated with our pop culture exports and wealthy national leaders, this is probably hard to believe but here it is, in a form too glaring to ignore.

An even more shocking blow to the U.S. public image is the fact that its poor people, denied their human right to live with security and dignity, are often criminalized and attacked for their desperation. As unaddressed need escalated to the point of catastrophe, government officials promised to show “zero tolerance” to those struggling to withstand the nightmare by following the law of survival and scavenging for sustenance.

The social safety net protecting people from abject poverty in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama wasn’t there before this tragedy and has not emerged in its wake. Moreover, it is increasingly being dismantled across the U.S. Despite the grand façade of national unity, all of us are not treated equally or given adequate resources to survive. Hurricane Katrina has washed away whole cities and exposed this ugly truth. Social and economic disparity is on the rise.

According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2004 was the first time on record that household incomes failed to increase for five straight years. The poverty rate went up to nearly 13%, and income inequality rose to near all-time highs last year. Meanwhile, the average CEO pay rose last year to 431 times what the average worker earned, according to a recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies and Boston-based United for a Fair Economy.

While economic and social needs are growing, social programs that provide basic services to secure the right to live with dignity are being cut. Take for instance Medicaid, the country’s largest provider of health coverage to the poor, which is now being slashed from state to state, as more and more people cannot afford health insurance. In 2004, according the U.S. Census, the number of people without health insurance climbed 859,000 to reach 45.8 million.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumers Protection Act, that President Bush signed into law this year, is about to take effect in October. Yet another legislative decision favoring wealthy lenders and creditors over the nation’s poor and middle class, this law to curb people from filing for bankruptcy may add another layer of misery to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, if lawmakers do not intervene soon. Even if disaster survivors become exempt from the provision, its enactment will add to the burden of the many people in the U.S. finding it harder and harder just to get by.

The needs of poor people are frequently misunderstood or an afterthought, rather than seen as a government responsibility to the human rights of its people. In a climate where their existence is swept under the rug, it shouldn’t be surprising that the inability of many to evacuate from the hurricane due to lack of transportation was inaccurately viewed as some sort of baffling choice. Nor is it shocking that disaster relief efforts have shown a remarkable disregard and ignorance of the level of human need.

For those who have been paying attention to poverty in the U.S., the faces of those most devastated by the hurricane are painful to watch but also predictable in their color. Although income insecurity and violations of the fundamental human rights to health, social security, education and other social and economic rights are growing across racial lines, they are most prevalent in communities of color.

If the country were confronted with the images of those most impacted by preventable disease, under-funded schools, incarceration, infant mortality, hunger and homelessness, they would also be overwhelmingly black, brown or immigrant. However, whites are also facing these violations in increasing numbers. These issues are compelling, not only for moral reasons, but also because they are major indicators of state of human rights in the United States, which ultimately affects all of us.

Social and economic inequity brought instability and insecurity well before this catastrophe. In order to prevent future tragedies of this magnitude and protect human rights, we must be better at providing a basic safety net for all. The U.S. should not be forced by events this devastating to recognize the injustice of poverty, a much better target for “zero tolerance” than its victims.