This past weekend, I spent a lot of time lying on a heating pad and watching two long
documentaries about Hurricane Katrina, released for its 20th anniversary this past August.

At the time the storm hit, in 2005, I was turning 13 and heading into eighth grade. I don’t have any memories of being aware of the hurricane and following flood, other than a vague memory of a relief van being packed full of supplies in my school parking lot (it’s not a strong memory because this was a Catholic school and there was always some sort of charity drive going on).

The storm was bad. The flood that followed when the levees broke, putting 80% of the city
underwater, was worse. But it was the response (or lack thereof) that upgraded Katrina from a disaster into a tragedy.

If you remember watching the news at the time, you might remember a lot of stories about looting and shooting and a crime wave happening in the days after the hurricane.

But the city didn’t descend into anarchy or a gangland. What happened was exactly what you’d expect when you trapped tens of thousands of people in a place with no water, food or electricity in the heat of summer. Some people did break into stores to get supplies to keep their families alive. Most folks would probably do the same thing under the circumstances.

But because the people involved were largely poor and black — New Orleans’ population was 67% Black at the time — the government response was, “we need guns and armed troops to restore order” rather than “we need to get these people out of this desperate situation.”

What struck me while watching these documentaries was the uselessness of the military
response. Thousands of National Guard poured into New Orleans in the days after the
flood. Some of them did good, heroic work. But a lot of them ended up being useless … or
worse than useless.

As I watched the archival footage of the politicians threatening to send in troops, I couldn’t help but think about the Trump administration recently deploying National Guard troops to American cities.

What the people of New Orleans needed, especially the tens of thousands essentially trapped with inadequate supplies and no electricity, was evacuation, medical aid and relief supplies. The military was, by and large, ordered to march around armed, responding to a non-existent crime wave, which only made crime more likely; if your kids are out of food and the only option is to steal some from the local half-flooded grocery store, what are you going to do?

Most reasonable people look back on the response to the disaster now and realize it was terrible and it was largely due to racism. It’s hard to believe that the government would take four days to send buses to evacuate 25,000 middle-class white people from a “shelter of last resort.”

We learned some lessons from Katrina, to be sure. FEMA made improvements, agencies
got better at coordinating and disaster relief in general improved. But we’ve failed to learn one of the most important lessons: sending in military troops to carry out law enforcement
based on rumors is just going to make every problem worse.

Trump deployed armed National Guard to Washington, D.C., to “crack down on crime.” According to the Department of Justice, however, violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low. But the city’s population is now 40% Black and, as the Katrina reactions demonstrated, many people tend to think “cities plus Black people equals scary crime wasteland.”

Same goes for his deployment of National Guard to Los Angeles, a move recently ruled illegal by a federal judge. Crime is down in the city. But demographically, Los Angeles is almost half Hispanic or Latino.

Nationwide, according to the FBI’s statistics, crime rates in general are at a two-decade low.
I believe the phrase is “facts don’t care about your feelings.” None of the cities that the National Guard is being deployed to are legitimate disaster areas, like New Orleans was after Katrina.

If anyone actually cared about preventing crime, the money being wasted on these deployments could go towards the programs and resources we know can reduce crime: housing, healthcare, education, community programs and business development.

After all, the safest neighborhoods aren’t the neighborhoods with the most cops (or soldiers), they’re the neighborhoods with the most resources.

But just like in 2005, large number of white Americans are scared by cities full of people of color, and it makes them feel safe to send armed troops to crack down on their fellow citizens.

Heckuva job, indeed.