Swamp Song

This bog is thick and easy to get lost in
'cause you're a stupid, belligerent fucker.
I hope it sucks you down. -- Tool

If you haven't yet seen Spike Lee's epic Katrina documentary on HBO, definitely check it out. The usual detractors will (and have, I'm sure) declaim what they perceive to be Lee's selective retelling of a national tragedy. But it's impossible to look at the sheer devastation and be unmoved, unless you're Jonah Goldberg and picture it as ripe opportunity for a cheap post-apocalyptic Waterworld riff.

Beyond the physical devastation, what really comes through is the human emotion. You have the seething anger and frustration of many of New Orleans' citizens who stayed or returned, and the hopelessness and despair of the diaspora, many of whom had never been out of their city and are now stuck indefinitely in places like New York or Oakland. Post-traumatic stress disorder and crime are rampant in New Orleans, as is a palpable sense of betrayal. The opportunism and cupidity, the sheer mendacity and incompetence of the people who were supposed to step in and help in a timely fashion, is manifestly evident.

There is an abiding attitude of contempt, crystallized for all time by Barbara Bush in her infamous "this has worked out very nicely for them" chuckle at people who had been repeatedly referred to as refugees in their own country. More than most scenes in this touching movie, that one has perhaps affected my perception of the tragedy -- and of the path of this country -- very deeply. It is difficult to fathom the ugly sense of privilege and excess, of condescending noblesse oblige, and yes again of sheer contempt for one's fellow human beings in their most dire time, that she conveys with her dismissive tone.

As with 9/11, I think it's important to step away from the neatly compartmentalized paradigm of commemorative grievances, which is why I didn't bring this up a couple weeks ago. Staying within the officially-sanctioned timeline only serves to discourage critically thinking about these events throughout the rest of the year -- how they come to pass, how they are reacted to, and how they are discussed in the aftermath. It is damn near impossible to watch this movie without bearing witness to the fact that, on a lot of levels, hundreds of thousands of American citizens were let down by their country for no good reason at all, and just because the media have moved on, doesn't mean it's not still happening.