Title: Accountability and Reparations: A Public Health Response to Destruction in the Gulf Coast
Author:
Section/SPIG: Community Health Planning and Policy Development
Issue Date:
As we grapple with horror, frustration, compassion and rage in the wake of Katrina, Americans must mobilize a call for both accountability and reparations. The abuses we are witnessing are deeply rooted in failures of policy and leadership that have undermined our social cohesion, our physical and public health infrastructures, our environmental and physical safety. It’s time for a policy agenda that revitalizes our nation.
Accountability. After the September 11 attacks we had no choice but to address our trauma as a nation. After Katrina, we watched innocent people die as a consequence of racism, poverty and inequality. We need a truth and reconciliation process that demands accountability from high officials who diverted funds from repairing New Orleans’ imperiled levees and into tax cuts and military adventures, as well as from individuals who blocked the path of fleeing citizens, turned away supplies, or separated families as though they were property. We have to name and confront these acts before we can move forward to punish, forgive and remedy.
Reparations. A program of reparations will be different on the Gulf Coast than it was in New York City, but the goal is the same: to make whole people and communities. Rebuilding the Gulf Coast offers the opportunity to rebuild lives and communities. Then as now, we must spend what it takes. Here is an initial list of some policies we need to implement:
Invest public dollars in lifting the community out of poverty. Give job preference to Gulf Coast residents who want to return home. Create physical structures, and a social and public health infrastructure, that support their lives. Our response must be more than another lucrative no-bid contract to Halliburton.
Provide publicly funded health care services, including mental health and social services, to the populations of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. We don’t know the death toll yet, but it appears to be staggering. Treating and maintaining the community’s health needs will demand safe, effective and responsive health facilities. For those who choose to remain in their newly adopted communities, the task will be more complex. However they must be guaranteed access to health care during and after relocation.
Clean up the environmental pollution that created Cancer Alley in New Orleans.
Finally, support revitalizing the unique artistic and musical culture that flourished in the Gulf Coast and enriches our national life.
We must ask our fellow citizens and our leaders to articulate and expand on a program of Accountability and Reparations. Fundraising, while essential, is not enough. It is time for action.