Hurricane Katrina and the Revival of the Political Athlete (846 hits)
After Hurricane Katrina, athletes spoke out in rage for the first time in decades. It can’t stop and it won’t stop.
If there was ever a moment that signaled how little black lives mattered to people in power, it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This is not a novel observation, by any means. It was called out in real time by New Orleans residents, racial-justice activists around the country, and Kanye West’s off-script and utterly true comments that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” (These comments apparently left a more lasting impression on Bush than the actual dead of New Orleans.)
My Nation colleague Mychal Denzel Smith has written a searing piece—“The Rebirth of Black Rage”—about how Hurricane Katrina signaled a new era of urgent black protest, how this upsurge was blunted by Barack Obama’s 2008 run for president, and how the promise of the impatient, righteous rage that followed Hurricane Katrina is finally being realized in today’s movements ..against ...police ...violence.
