LaShandra, who did not want her last name used, was standing on her porch just off of St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans’ St. Roch neighborhood. A few blocks away, the tenth annual Katrina march and secondline, billed this year as the “biggest secondline ever,” wound its way from the site of the Ninth Ward levee breach to Hunter’s Field.
But LaShandra wanted no part of it. Sure, she’d made it back to the city, but she saw little reason to celebrate.
How does mailing books to prisoners connect to throwing dance parties in a bankrupt city? What does making a film about coastal land loss have in common with using hand signals to create focus in a 2nd grade classroom?
These are all ways people in New Orleans and Detroit are using media to respond to disasters, both macro and micro. These stories, and more, came out when we took our Deep Dialogues series (hosted by WTUL News & Views and Bridge The Gulf Project) on the road to Detroit for the Allied Media Conference.
Where are you from, originally? This simple question was the topic of a discussion at Community Book Center in New Orleans last week, and prompted a sweeping conversation about race, class, displacement, and what it means to be from this rapidly changing city with deep roots.
Where are you from, originally? This simple question was the topic of a discussion at Community Book Center in New Orleans last week, and prompted a sweeping conversation about race, class, displacement, and what it means to be from this rapidly changing city with deep roots.
