An “Act of God”: Race, Religion, and Policy in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

This essay addresses how characterization of Hurricane Katrina as an “act of God” exposed historical racial cleavages and policy challenges in post-Katrina America. Act-of-God rhetoric not only stemmed from religious history but was also largely informed by America's racial legacy. Usage of the term often absolved individuals and institutions from personal responsibility and economic liability, especially when the specter of race could be invoked. The term also revealed generational ideological differences within the Black community itself, posing significant questions about the discourse of race and religion in post–civil rights America.

Keywords:

• act of God
• blasphemy
• 50 Cent
• collective responsibility
• economic liability
• Hank Irwin
• Heritage Foundation
• Hurricane Katrina
• insurance companies
• Jay-Z
• Kanye West
• Louis Farrakhan
• Michael Marcavage
• natural disaster
• post–civil rights America
• public policy fraud
• race and policy
• Ray Nagin
• Tony Campolo
• weather
• wind and water damage

Notes

Ted Steinberg, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Disaster in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), xix.

Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (New York: Basic Civitas, 2006), 178–202.

Ibid., 143–144.

According to Kevin Rozario, “Disasters have been laboratories for social reform. They have allowed American leaders to introduce extraordinary, and sometimes severe policies in the name of necessity—dynamiting private property, executing looters without trial, subsidizing housing, instituting price controls, administering compulsory vaccinations, and generally expanding the powers of government in ways that helped to redraw the boundaries of public and private jurisdiction.” See Kevin Rozario, The Culture of Calamity: Disaster and the Making of Modern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Other books have recently explored the breakdown of the federal government's response and engaged the issue of emergency policy. For more, see Christopher Cooper and Robert Block, Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security (New York: Times Books, 2006). See also Joe Eagle, “Divine Intervention: Re-Examining the Act of God Defense in a Post-Katrina World,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 82, no. 1 (2007): 459–493.

Doron Taussig, “Jesus Geek Superstar,” Philadelphia City Paper, February 3, 2005.

A snug sense of satisfaction accompanied the wrath-of-god proclamations. While crime in New Orleans the preceding year had declined almost one percentage point, police reported that criminal offenses in public housing had increased by 257 percent in 2004. For many, this justified the forty years of white flight and exodus from cities to suburban enclaves. There was no significant inquiry as to how these mass migrations changed the demographics of inner cities and concentrated racial and economically disadvantaged as an easy target for poverty, the scourge of declining health, and the pestilence of predatory violence.

Emily Heil, “The Blame Game,” Advocate 954 (2006): 42–43.

“Hurricane Katrina Destroys New Orleans Days Before ‘Southern Decadence,’” www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html.

Thomas Spencer, “Senator Says Storms Are Punishment from God,” Birmingham News, September 28, 2005. Ironically, Senator Trent Lott (R—Mississippi)—a social conservative, although very friendly with gaming lobbyists—had one of his homes destroyed in the storm. See Thomas Barker and Marjie Britz, Jokers Wild: Legalized Gambling in the Twenty-First Century (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), 150; Denise Von Herrmann, The Big Gamble: The Politics of Lottery and Casino Expansion (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002), 112.

Sanders et al., “Alabama State Senate Joint Resolution 54, Expressing Profound Regret for Alabama's Role in Slavery,” www.legislature.state.al.us/searchableinstruments/2007RS/Resolutions/SJR59.htm.

See Hazel Trice Edney, “Are We Paying for Our ‘Decadence’?” Louisiana Weekly, February 21, 2006.

Mrs. Bush remarked, “What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.” See Bob Moon, “Houston, We May Have a Problem,” in Marketplace (American Public Media, 2005). See also “Barbara Bush Calls Evacuees Better Off,” New York Times, September 7, 2005.

Transcript of CNN Sunday Morning, October 2, 2005.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Perhaps the Bush administration had other options in mind for redevelopment. In September, Kellogg, Brown & Root Services, Inc. (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, had already begun work in the region from a $500 million no-bid Navy contract. See Dyson, Come Hell or High Water, 131–132. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that Baker's campaign's finance reports reveal a trend of contributions from insurance and development political action committees. Major campaign contributors include All State Insurance Company (PAC), American Council of Life Insurers (PAC), Associated Builders and Contractors (PAC), Bank of America (PAC), Countrywide Financial (PAC), Independent Insurance Agents of America (PAC), National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (PAC), and Professional Insurance Agents (PAC). A listing of the amounts contributed and official documentation is available at the Federal Election Commission.

See “Excerpt from Mayor Nagin's WWL-AM Interview with Garland Robinette,” in CNN Reports: Katrina—State of Emergency (Atlanta: Lionheart Books, 2005), 79.

Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, 1st ed. (New York: Morrow, 2006), 621.

“Transcript of Nagin's Speech,” Times-Picayune, January 17, 2006.

On the fear of the “political” rapper label and Jay-Z, see Jeff Chang, Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005), 448.

S. Craig Watkins, Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 75.

Ibid.

The purpose of Bush's fly-by remains to be interpreted. Bush may simply been invoking a long tradition of presidential publicity campaigns during national disasters stemming from Eisenhower's perusal of the post–Hurricane Diane disaster. See Rozario, Culture of Calamity, 217. Despite the ambiguity of the fly-by, the implicit racial metaphor of a God's-eye-view survey lends itself easily to a president whose administration had been marked by distancing itself from the Black underclass and political leadership.

See “Excerpt from Mayor Nagin's WWL-AM Interview with Garland Robinette,” 79.

Brinkley, The Great Deluge, 406.

Jay-Z, Kingdom Come (Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam, 2006). The album went double platinum and hit the top of the Billboard charts. How much of this acclaim can be attributed to this particular track remains questionable. Importantly for this discussion, Jay-Z excavates deeper racial themes that other discussions had left untouched.

Lisa de Moraes, “Kanye West's Torrent of Criticism, Live on NBC,” Washington Post, September 3, 2005.

“Minister Farrakhan Speaks on Tragedy of Hurricane Katrina,” FinalCall.com News, September 8, 2005.

“50 Cent Says Kanye West Wrong About Bush,” www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9898116.

Heritage Foundation, “Moral Reconstruction: A Model for Urban Transformation Conference,” 2006.

Eagle, “Divine Intervention,” 461.

While most major insurance stocks took an initial dive immediately following Katrina, overall many companies experienced a “modest rise” in stock prices, according to Towers Perrin, Hurricane Katrina: Analysis of the Impact on the Insurance Industry (Towers Perrin, 2005), 22.

“Insurance for Katrina Damage,” www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec05/insurance_9-27.html.

Kathy Chu, “Lawsuit Accuses Insurers of Excluding Storm-Surge Coverage,” USA Today, September 16, 2005.

President Bush's Gulf Coast Rebuilding Coordinator, Donald Powell, originally perceived as indifferent to the disaster, eventually had a change of heart. He was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “I realized that while Mississippi was an act of God, Louisiana was an act of God and man. There were some flaws. The levees breached.” See Dan Baum, “The Lost Year,” New Yorker, August 21, 2006.

John Simons, “A Civil War Over Claims?” Fortune 152, no. 7 (2005).

See Thomas S. Marshall and Faith R. Neale, “Troubled Waters in Mississippi,” CPCU eJournal 59, no. 11 (2006): 2–8; Rhonda D. Orin, “Wind v. Water: Battle Royale Over Hurricane Claims,” Risk Management, May 2006.

“Insurance for Katrina Damage.” For the insurance company perspective, see Marshall and Neale, “Troubled Waters in Mississippi.”

Betty Plombon, Katrina and the Forgotten Gulf Coast (Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing, 2006), 161.

In Leonard v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., U.S. District Judge L. T. Senter Jr. ruled that Paul and Julie Leonard's Nationwide Policy 63 23 MP 559938 (form HO 23A) does not cover flood and water damage.

Kathy Chu, “Homeowners Lose Katrina Insurance Flood Case,” USA Today, August 16, 2006.

Steinberg, Acts of God, xxii.

According to Steinberg, “Once, the idea of invoking God in response to calamity was a strategy for eliciting moral responsibility. In the 20th century, however, calling out God's name amounted to an abdication of moral reason. With the religiously inclined less disposed than ever to take acts of God seriously, the opportunity has arisen over the last century for some public officials to employ God-fearing language as a way—thinly veiled though it may be—of denying their own culpability for calamity.” Ibid., xxii–xxiii.