Ever since I watched the documentary Trouble the Water, I have been intrigued by the accounts of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath as represented by sources other than our mainstream media. I vividly remember the descriptions of what was taking place and the sensationalistic nature of a city where all hell had broken loose and it seemed that people had reverted to animalistic behavior, as detailed on the incessant news coverage.
Enter director Spike Lee and others like him who have given a more realistic and humane version of the events.
There seems to be a consistent theme to all of these documentaries and first-hand eyewitness accounts: It was not our government that stepped in to aid the people who desperately needed rescuing. No, it was the neighbors, first responders and surrounding community members who had also lost everything that were floating refrigerators filled with children, busting holes in rooftops and wading through chest high, toxic muck to save each other.
And this is what I always come back to when I hear stories like these. Our media feeds us a constant and steady diet of racially degrading and demeaning stories like gang violence and the fear-mongering that accompanies such hype. But in the inner city neighborhoods of some of our most beautiful U.S. locations, when the chips are down and even the government that we have been taught to place all of our hope in doesn't show up, and because they consistently have lived a life knowing they can't depend on anyone but themselves...our inner city communities put we suburbanites to shame when it comes to taking care of each other.
Even in the midst of the worst natural disaster our country has ever seen...hope, compassion and love swam through the streets of New Orleans.
And it wasn't trucked in by FEMA.
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When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts can now be seen on Amazon Prime.
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