Hope to see you there!

On Thursday, the President promised a first installment of $100 million in aid, and gave us this update:

“I can report that the first waves of our rescue and relief workers are on the ground and at work.  A survey team worked overnight to identify priority areas for assistance, and shared the results of that review throughout the United States government, and with international partners who are also sending support.  Search and rescue teams are actively working to save lives.  Our military has secured the airport and prepared it to receive the heavy equipment and resources that are on the way, and to receive them around the clock, 24 hours a day.  An airlift has been set up to deliver high-priority items like water and medicine.  And we’re coordinating closely with the Haitian government, the United Nations, and other countries who are also on the ground.”

Just as reassuring was Secretary Clinton’s declaration that “we have a full court press going on here.” And that American aid efforts would be “long-term.”

Monday evening, I wrote the blog post <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/obamas-haiti-moment_b_421026.html” target=”_hplink”>”Obama’s Haiti Moment.”  </a>While our leaders said they were observing and planning, it was hard to tell just how quickly they would mobilize resources, on what kind of scale, and with what level of commitment.   Now they are showing us.  The President said that he “made it clear that Haiti must be a top priority” for our military, for our diplomatic and development agencies and departments.  This is what a President must convey if our assistance is going to be maximized and not squandered.

Just as reassuring was Secretary Clinton’s Today Show declaration that “we have a full court press going on here.” And that American aid efforts would be “long-term.”

This is the kind of leadership that inspires confidence in the hearts, in the bones, of Americans that have worried that in true times of national crisis, no one is at the wheel.

This is the kind of leadership that shows us that our Katrina response was not inevitable.  That we can do better now and in the future.

The Obama Administration is showing the world that we know how to use our power for good, in a timely manner, in a way concerned with saving lives and creating stability. With President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Special Envoy for Haiti President Clinton at the helm, we are being shown that we have the kind of team that can truly assist the resilient Haitian people in these daunting days, months, and years ahead.

However, it is up to us to keep letting our leaders know that we care, that after two weeks we won’t have disaster fatigue.  I encourage you all to write the White House and your representatives, to post online as well, and let them know how you feel about aid to Haiti, and how we treat immigrant Haitians stateside.  The more they know that we prioritize assistance to our neighbor in need, the more support they will feel, the better the chance we will continue to offer meaningful help.

www.stacyparkeraab.com

For more information about the Earth Institute’s Hurricane Katrina Deceased Victims List, please visit: http://www.katrinalist.columbia.edu/

Thank you!

Stacy

But is this always the wisest approach for individuals, much less nations? I saw what happened to men torn apart by unexamined pain. They poisoned others’ lives as much as their own. Obsession with past hurts is unhealthy for sure, but so is the silence that does not allow for healing, for any chance at self-acceptance, or forgiveness.

Consider New Orleans. Don’t look back is a common ethos of its Katrina survivors. Attempting to rectify, or even acknowledge injustices is risky, for it feels like ripping open the rawest wounds. Even if a survivor disagrees with the turn-the-page approach, the weight of reconstructing one’s family, home and livelihood can be a crushing one, for credit cards aren’t all that’s maxed out in the recovering Gulf Coast. Day after day, what energy is left to sort through the anger and shame that rose up as wickedly as the surge waters through sewer grates?

Sometimes it takes outsiders to help. Currently, the FBI is investigating alleged police homicides and civil rights violations committed in those nether days after the levees breached. Justice for the victimized will always be a healing balm, but we need more than convictions. We need truth. Truth that might be difficult for whites to hear, for blacks to hear, for all of us to hear. Truth that might be difficult for rich people to hear. For the government leaders then and now. We need deep examinations of our systems and of our personal fears that lead us to fail each other so profoundly. How else can we hope to make peace with one another?

The White House announced last week that the president will travel to New Orleans in mid-October. Many of us have competing ideas as how best to harness presidential power in the service of rebuilding the city. However, the president can bring the peace prize home early if he does one thing: announce the creation of an 8/29 Commission.

Activists, including Sandy Rosenthal of Levees.org, have long called for such a commission. Since this is still an idea and not a mission, yet, its marching orders are still to be determined. I imagine the panel as equal parts 9/11 Commission, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Medical Examiner of the body politic. The panel should be tasked to establish once and for all why the levees failed, and allow us a good look at all of the pre-existing conditions present at the time of the trauma. This panel should also shine glory on those who rose to their challenges (Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, the US Coast Guard, heroic medical personnel and a 1000 churches come to mind). Like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this is not about putting people in jail, or widespread wealth distribution. This is about hearing people out. This is about creating a shared understanding of events. This is about agreeing on the wisest use of public resources to improve security and prosperity for all. This is about having a political class that knows how to take responsibility, not one that invariably runs from blame and liability.

I have faith that when the President travels to New Orleans this month, he will do more than visit a school, check out a levee, and walk the Lower Ninth. If the President creates the 8/29 Commission, he will prove to us that we are not a nation forever doomed to sweep problems under the rug until the floor rots beneath us. He will initiate the hard work necessary to bring us peace.

For more on the 8/29 Commission, please visit Levees.org.

If you know someone who has suffered a Katrina-related death, including indirect deaths, consider contributing their name to the Hurricane Katrina Deceased Victims List

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/bring-the-nobel-peace-pri_b_316509.html

But observers may be surprised to know that this Katrina anniversary, instead of organizing a memorial per se, or staging a protest, Chaplain Cull has made another choice.  Perhaps a radical choice.  He has organized a celebration of hope called “Silent Heroes and Hidden Gifts of Katrina,” an event designed to spotlight the positive in a city that still struggles to recover, a city where grief is breathed in and breathed out with the moisture in the air.

“The focus continues to stay on the chaos and controversy which I guess is simply the nature of the beast,” said Chaplain Cull in a recent interview. “I am not trying to deny the reality of all the suffering and terrible things that went on [during and post-Katrina]. But there is such a profoundly beautiful side to the people here in New Orleans and the events surrounding Katrina that is just waiting to be exposed.”

While first responders will be honored, the profound actions of everyday people are also on Chaplain Cull’s mind, especially the actions of those who on TV may have only appeared to be pitiable victims in distress.  “Witnessing a grandmother like Gwendolyn Martin Washington lay injured on a shadeless expressway and offer her umbrella to the two young children with her is an act of kindness and love I will never forget. True selflessness epitomized.  A lesson everyone can learn from, no matter who you are.”

A focus on the positive this anniversary can make some of us anxious, make us afraid that people will forget the crimes and cruel indifferences we vowed to rectify somehow.  But in traveling back and forth to New Orleans, I’ve learned that while no one in New Orleans or the diaspora wants to be forgotten, no one wants their lives reduced to mere victimhood eiyher, and they don’t want their abiding faith, their progress, or their positive moments ignored or diminished.  For too many who are simply trying to cope, it can be discouraging to encounter national news coverage of life post-Katrina and have the focus so squarely on disappointments.  If recovery requires optimism, as my oral historian friend Mark Cave says, then we can help our New Orleans neighbors by seeking some balance in the news coverage.  We can seek the light as much as we seek the dark. 

“The amount of suffering that took place here during Katrina was definitely beyond the scope of anything I have seen before,” said Chaplain Cull. “But this in my mind and heart makes the acts of kindness and generosity I saw even more profound.”

I couldn’t agree more.  This anniversary, I am going to try and be as radical as Chaplain Cull and celebrate love, heroism, and the progress that survivors have made, wherever they are.  I am going to reach out to my friends and near-family and let them know that they are cherished. If you have family or friends in the affected regions, I ask you to reach out to them, if just to say hello and see how they’re doing and to listen to what they have to say.  Just letting them know that they’ve got friends who care is an invaluable gift.  Let’s them know that they are never truly alone.  Gives them the support no government can give.

For more information on “Silent Heroes and Hidden Gifts of Katrina” please click: http://www.silentheroesandhiddengifts.com/page1.aspx

For more information on the Hurricane Katrina Deceased Victims List, and to contribute the name of someone who died directly or indirectly, please click: http://www.katrinalist.columbia.edu/

[This was cross-posted on the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/the-radical-choice-this-k_b_259169.html]