The information economy
A lot of the talk about the people who remained in New Orleans during Katrina has been bugging me for a while now, and I've finally been able to put my finger on why.
The people asking why the poor of New Orleans didn't just leave have been called out on their lack of insight to the material challenges facing the poor, and rightly so. As Cherie Priest said, "If every single person in New Orleans had a spare $300 and a car, most of them could have run." But there's an element to that question that hasn't been addressed, at least not to my knowledge:
Why are we assuming the poor have as much access to information as we do?
I mean, do they have the internet, or the leisure time to use it? Do they read the New York Times or similar sources? I don't think poor people are ignorant or anything hateful like that, but access to information costs money, both directly and in terms of the amount of time we spend accessing that information that (since it's not a productive working hour) might as well be money when you're poor. I would be willing to bet that for an awful lot of those poor people there was a lot less foreknowledge about how bad this would be. Not because they're stupid, but because the cost of access to information and the wherewithal to use that access is just another thing that goes up as you cross class barriers in North America.
The people asking why the poor of New Orleans didn't just leave have been called out on their lack of insight to the material challenges facing the poor, and rightly so. As Cherie Priest said, "If every single person in New Orleans had a spare $300 and a car, most of them could have run." But there's an element to that question that hasn't been addressed, at least not to my knowledge:
Why are we assuming the poor have as much access to information as we do?
I mean, do they have the internet, or the leisure time to use it? Do they read the New York Times or similar sources? I don't think poor people are ignorant or anything hateful like that, but access to information costs money, both directly and in terms of the amount of time we spend accessing that information that (since it's not a productive working hour) might as well be money when you're poor. I would be willing to bet that for an awful lot of those poor people there was a lot less foreknowledge about how bad this would be. Not because they're stupid, but because the cost of access to information and the wherewithal to use that access is just another thing that goes up as you cross class barriers in North America.
Actually, the chief of police (I'm fairly sure) was on Morning Edition (NPR) this morning and was asked if they would forceably remove people from their homes. His response was that he didn't think it was necessary because most of the people the police encountered still didn't know how bad the situation really was.
Though I'm skeptical this is true of all of the people who remain, I think his comment speaks in interesting and important ways to your post here.
Another interesting tidbit, though I'm not going to say Gov Barbor is the great savior of Mississippi, he did claim that when he received the first warnings about the hurricane, he asked the folks at NOAH to put in their release that this hurricane would be worse than Camille. He knew that Camille was the benchmark of all hurricanes in the area, and he wanted to send a clear message to people who didn't pay as much attention to news...or, I suppose, have as much access to information.
Posted by
hermance |
11:39 PM
Interesting to hear all of that. Thanks for mentioning it!
And I hope you don't mind my asking, but I'm always curious how people I don't know got here... so how did you?
Posted by
Ian |
12:11 PM
No problem asking. I'm fairly sure that someone else's blog linked to yours, relating to something about music. (How's that for vague?) It might have been Pluralistic Moronitude, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, now I subscribe via Bloglines and really enjoy it! Your writing is concise, updates are frequent, and you have an interesting perspective on all sorts of matters.
Posted by
hermance |
1:04 PM
Wow, thanks a lot. I've never read or heard of Pluralistic Moronitude, so if they linked me that's really flattering. If you ever do remember what they were linking to or anything, I'm pretty curious about that.
Also, your profile isn't shared - do you have a blog yourself?
Posted by
Ian |
10:06 PM
Yes, I do. It's http://hermance.blogspot.com. Stop by some time!
Posted by
hermance |
8:58 PM