New Orleans Affirmative- 7ws strategy Page
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**ETHICS CORE**New Orleans key ethicsNew Orleans is a critical ethical exercise—we must recognize our responsibility to rectify centuries of discrimination. Morse 2008 - senior attorney with the Biloxi office of Mississippi Center for Justice; received Equal Justice Works Katrina Legal Fellowship; received Edwin D. Wolf Public Interest Law Award from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; co-founder of the Steps Coalition; Panelist for the Joint center for Political and Economic Studies, NAACP; published by the Joint Center For Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute (Reilly, “Environmental Justice Through the Eye of Hurricane Katrina” 2008, http://198.65.105.204/hpi/sites/all/files/EnvironmentalJustice.pdf )//ALo Finally, recognizing how major national policy choices in areas like energy, transportation, and municipal infrastructure affect communities of color is an essential component of environmental justice. Once some background is provided, people from all walks of life readily understand the implications of how different parts of our society interconnect, and it is necessary to push this understanding along to fully grasp the connections between race, environment, and infrastructure systems. An “8-29 Commission”—that is, an in-depth investigation into the disaster and recovery process—is one tool to promote transparency, interdisciplinary solutions, and opportunities to correct structural racial and economic imbalances following natural disasters. Decisions made centuries ago exerted their influence in the lives and deaths of victims of Hurricane Katrina. A mindnumbing parade of zoning and land-use choices, highway and seaway budgets, and social and political desensitization helped to bring this nation to the flooded rooftops of the Lower Ninth Ward. Along the way, isolated voices sounded alarms about the cumulative effects of these choices and the dangerous territory we were entering. But until now, these voices have been ignored, discredited as fear-mongers, enemies of prosperity, or naïve peacemakers. Now when people urge protection of the natural systems that protect us from disaster, the example of Hurricane Katrina makes this plea resonate. The same thing now occurs with demands for a strengthened social safety net for our most vulnerable and marginalized citizens, or for greater care in locating and containing facilities that generate hazardous substances, or for recognition of the inherent value of human life when making dry cost-benefit analyses. This region of our nation has paid an extraordinarily high and unnecessary price for its long history of discrimination against racial minorities and its refusal to rectify systematic economic impoverishment. Ultimately, that price is a shared debt of all Americans, spiritual as well as financial. If this nation truly embraces the sanctity of human life, then it must more forcefully employ the precautionary principle to protect life, from local land-use and zoning decisions to conservation of natural resources, and from the regulation of pollutants and toxins to how we fit our most disadvantaged fellow citizens into the fabric of our communities. Hurricane Katrina’s ultimate lesson for communities planning for or recovering from disaster is captured in the words of Justice Cardozo: “prosperity and salvation are in union and not division. There is an infinite obligation for government action on Katrina Jorgenson 11 Hurricane Katrina: Humanitarian Obligations and Lessons Learned Ellen Jorgenson Case-Specific Briefing Paper Humanitarian Assistance in Complex Emergencies University of Denver 2011 According to Fred Cuny, the root cause of most disasters is poverty (Van Arsdale 2011). Risk exists in the environment and impinges upon people; vulnerability exists within cohorts of people. Those in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina were at-risk as vulnerabilities such as impoverishment combined with the low-land geography and environmental risks of the 7 hurricane. Poverty is particularly highlighted as a primary construct in protection, relief, and prevention. Long-term vulnerabilities interact with risk factors that exist in the environment, creating problems in humanitarian emergencies. As Barbara Thomas Slater explains, poverty reflects long-lasting systematic inequalities in life chances (Van Arsdale 2011). Furthermore, speaking generally, those systematic inequalities related to ethnicity, gender, religion and caste, lead to unequal outcomes: income, power, privilege, fame, and deference. William Felice states that poverty should be a central concern for humanitarians (Van Arsdale 2011). Thomas Pogge argues that people of the developed world must be mandated to tackle poverty. To paraphrase him, “The inadequate response we’ve had to poverty is in part due to thoughtlessness, and we must morally situate ourselves in respect to poverty and chose to act. If we fail to act we must understand the consequences” (Van Arsdale 2011). Human accountability and responsibility are associated with a theory of obligation. These are not options, nor abstractions; we must help and sustain help to those in need. Humanitarian action and motivation must revolve around need, not be donor-driven. Within the theory of obligation ethics, practice and theory come into play (Van Arsdale 2011). Regarding ethics in the example of Hurricane Katrina, key philosophical questions must be asked. Can we really afford to proceed as a nation without addressing how race, poverty, and class infiltrate the opportunities of so many citizens? Why is it that the poor of New Orleans, as well as the poor of the nation, are hidden from us? The factors of race and social economic status contribute. The implications are critical as “lessons learned” emerge and as the United States learns to better prevent and respond to future disasters.8 Following the hurricane, the belief that the poor black population of New Orleans brought their suffering on themselves was reflected throughout the media, including remarks made by religious leaders and talk show hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. One journalist argued, “poor, often black hurricane victims brought all the misery and death on themselves, because they weren’t motivated enough to succeed in America” (Dyson 2006, 181). Race and socioeconomic status in fact are reflected as the theory of obligation is considered in practice. Poverty is not a choice, as several humanitarians previously explained. Yet obligations must exceed simple morality and be underlined in government, NGO and individual reactions to disasters, interpreted through policy and practice. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 1.03 Mb. Share with your friends:
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