The images of Hurricane Katrina defied comprehension. As the scenes and stories left floating in Katrina's wake filled America's conscience, a limitless mass of incredulity covered the country. More than once in gas stations, bars and homes I heard people remark that a disaster of this magnitude belongs somewhere else. The simple yet remarkable fact that the words efugee camps"" were being used to describe the immediate future of our fellow Americans testified to the unraveling of certain, almost mythical truths that Americans hold about America. In more ways than one, the images ran against everything we believe is America.
As Andrew Sullivan, blogger of the Daily Dish, points out, a central tenet of the American dream is that bad things don't happen to a lot of us. After all, can you think of any other nation where ""the pursuit of happiness"" is an explicit right? But clearly this is not the case. In the aftermath of Katrina, the poor suffered nature's wrath, while the rich checked into Holiday Inn. The thousands of victims of Katrina have moved on to a better place, but the same can't be said about the American dream.
Matter of fact, the American dream-the idea of America as a meritocracy-is long deceased. Sure, there are always going to be exceptional tales of rags to riches, but they are just that ... exceptions. The reality of class mobility is a myth. As the gap between rich and poor has widened since 1970, the odds that a child born in poverty will climb to wealth remain stuck. To put this into better perspective, an American born in poverty is more likely to die poor than a child born in continental Europe, Japan and even Canada. Despite this evidence, many Americans hold fast to the belief that America remains a golden land of opportunity, where prosperity is limited only by one's wits and will. Wealth befits the virtuous, and poverty the vice-ridden. So the dream goes.
But Hurricane Katrina, in no uncertain terms, has shattered this seemingly invulnerable dream. As Americans open their arms, homes and wallets to the victims of the hurricane's handiwork, they are being confronted with a simple yet immeasurably portentous revelation: the poor of New Orleans are not bad people. This may seem obvious and a bit silly, but all Americans who are not poor have in unfathomable ways internalized and accepted gradations of this concept. How else can the wealthiest country in the world justify the fact that one out of every ten citizens didn't make it to the Promised Land?
As the haves of America are being stirred to help the have-nots, there is tremendous momentum at the national level to ""do something"" about poverty. As Americans begin giving untold millions to those affected, it is important to remember that poverty has evolved into far more than just an economic condition. It is also a sociological affliction that is impossible for the haves among us to comprehend.
A sobering example of this is an article penned by Jodi Wilogren of the New York Times. Wilogren followed two families fighting to evacuate New Orleans-one family white and middle class, the other black and poor. The middle class family survived in a way familiar to us. She used church contacts to attain a room in a Holiday Inn in upstate Louisiana, and paid for it with American Express. The other family's tale was one much less familiar. The husband had never left New Orleans and the wife didn't know how to drive, and neither had contacts outside the community they could have used as a refuge. The family had $2,000 in savings, but no bank account, so when a fire engulfed their apartment they were penniless. The family of six suffered through two hellish nights at the Superdome before being ushered to safety. The poor family lacked skills and assets taken for granted by members of the middle class, for instance they never learned how to set up a bank account or drive a car. We all learned these things from our parents, but the poor have no such examples.
It will take a bold initiative to rectify such discrepancies in personal agency, but I can think of one: Education. College is the only silver bullet against poverty, an education is the only means of achieving financial freedom, and the skill sets, that are required of the middle class. That's why I propose that every victim under the age of 18 should be the beneficiary of a Hurricane Katrina Scholarship. After 9/11 New York Governor Pataki passed a law guaranteeing a full ride at any state school for any children of the victims with a high school GPA of 3.0. We should do the same at a federal level, it is the big dream of an idealist but for the people who have split the atom, sent a golfer to the moon and liberated untold millions, such a dream is not out of reach.
