...noting that we're heading into the 10th anniversary of Katrina.
This new book is entitled "PLEASE FORWARD - How Blogging Reconnected New Orleans After Katrina"...and it comes out in a couple months, in August 2015.
The book is a collection of blog posts that bear witness to the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, compiled by a journalism professor in the region - someone who saw the impact that the stories and the internet had, and wanted to share them, to remind us, to not lose those stories and the experience, and what it meant to some of us.
Like a compression of the stages of grief, the chronological progression of the blog posts moves from benumbed description through lashing back (at the national and local governments, the insurance companies, the media that has gotten so much wrong) to a sort of celebration, as residents returned and Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, and the New Orleans Saints resumed. Much of this would be classified as citizen journalism, yet many of the entries are from professional journalists, writing from a perspective more personal than they'd likely commit to print, as well as activists, chefs, musicians, poets, and a wide representation from the cultural gumbo that informs the city.
In August 2006, approaching the first year anniversary of Katrina, some folks here at dKos suggested that maybe we should do some sort of featured set of diaries about the hurricane and aftermath. My diary "
They Are Not Coming - A Katrina Diary" grew out of that suggestion.
All the stories were hard. Hard.
I wrote that in the diary back then, it was true then and it's still true. And the stories belong to us all - we are all a part.
And while it was true that "they are not coming...", well, it's also true that some of you, including some people here at dKos, you were already with us. From far-away and still somehow, you were already with us. Thank you.
Another of the stories in "PLEASE FORWARD - How Blogging Reconnected New Orleans After Katrina"is excerpted in the review...
“You’ve given up on us because we’re poor, black, Southern. We’re clowns, partying all day, drinking all night….We’re not going to go away. We are going to keep staggering along, demanding attention, pulling on your sleeve like some scabby beggar who knows you from another life….And if we go down, we’re going to take you down with us.”
I could add to that quote...something along the lines of...
And if we don't go down, it'll be because we decided that we are in this together, and we acted on that."
Cheers.
update: wow, rec list? Katrina-people thank you...cheers.