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Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster AUTHOR: MICHAEL ERIC DYSON PUBLISHER: BASIC CIVITAS BOOKS, 2006 PRICE: $23.00 ISBN-1 0-0-465-01 761-4
Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Avalon Professor in the Hu- manities at the University of Pennsylvania, has written an excellent critical analysis of how race, class and pov- erty shaped the local, state, and federal government's response or lack thereof to Hurricane Katrina. Those who, for sundry reasons, did not evacuate the area dur- ing the violent storm subsequently suffered horrincally during the natural disaster and in its aftermath. In the ten chapters of his book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster, he decisively and effectively makes the case that many of the more than 1,100 people who lost their lives may have been spared, had race and class not been key determinants of how those in charge responded to this event. He opens the text with a description of the demographics of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. Here, his discussion of the socio-economic, racial and political profile of those who populated the area, laid a backfrop for understanding many of the structural social factors that were present prior to the storm that impacted...