The Chicago Tribute Editorial Board member's piece: In Chicago: Wishing for A Hurricane Katrina (Later renamed but still offensive) spurred a mountain of justifiably hot takes. With the Hurricane Katrina 10-year anniversary in less than two weeks, I had too much outrage fatigue to write a hot take. So this is a cold one, and it doesn't single out the writer of the editorial (though it was awful) as much as the meme in general.
The meme "Thanks to Katrina, ___ is Now Better Because Locals Have Been Shown the Way" is as welcomed by New Orleaneans as I imagine the 9/11 Commemorative Cheese Plate was to New Yorkers on their last major disaster-versary. The cheese plate was eventually pulled from commerce, but it wasn't a specific infraction as much as it was a symbol of the full body dry heave disaster marketing induces to those who survived said disaster. No survivors enjoy their trauma being turned into a product, whether it be change, cookery or cocktails. "Thanks To Katrina" has snowballed in headlines to the point that a writer metaphorically wished for her own in the infamous: "If it's so great, why can't WE have one?" editorial. To her I can only say, since I don't have time to go full long read: It wasn't great. You would not have liked it.
This reaction to the Thanks To Katrina meme is not a recoil against the thousands of people who showed up and were so impressed by bootstrapping locals who brought their own city back; they moved here. Most of Hollywood moved here and is a huge economic driver. Now that marriage equality has passed, the wedding industry in New Orleans is about to get a massive and fabulous upgrade. There are dozens of bright spots, but don't ask the person who lived through a horrible disaster to enjoy the truly out of control narrative that New Orleans was bad and its people were stupid, but most of the levees failed and now we're slowly being taught to put foam on foods.
We were aware of foam well before Hurricane Katrina, but kept it on top of our beer as God intended. There were cheese plates before 9/11, so the fact that a disaster could be marked on one with tiny plane illustrations was not an upgrade. This is a hard topic to tackle with a hot take, because it implies that I'm not grateful for the outpouring of love and support that came our way for years after Katrina. That help came from Chicago as much as anywhere. My husband and I moved to Illinois for 5 years and aside from a few early "why rebuild?" conversations, every community we encountered was nothing but supportive of us and our music charity. The Tribune editorial was base, ill-informed traffic trolling and it is not the first.
Telling people in pain that it was probably their fault has become a major web traffic-driver as journalism swirls toward yellow to turn a profit. So is telling people who rebuilt a city when no one thought they should: "Don't worry -- I'm here now. And you'll never have to do without foam (or any other additive) on your food (or any other tradition) again." At some point during the Katrina-versary someone will probably serve me foamed salmon on a disaster cheese plate, and I'll take this all back in the spirit of forgiveness, but for now this is my guide to taking part in a disaster milestone:
Do not ask anyone who had friends die, homes implode, careers wither and souls chip away to thank anyone who moved here to show New Orleaneans how to be more like the rest of the United States. If we weren't different, you wouldn't have moved here. The upgraders will always be with us, and they're welcome to big ideas. But on August 29, cancel whatever you had planned. If you don't have any local friends, make some. Then go to wherever we're commemorating our loss. So many souls left us in the years just after the storm, suicide became an epidemic. It took years to be able to move home and the whole thing is hard to think, much less talk about.
Mostly What We Are is Still Here. I know that's not a grabber headline, but the true ones rarely are.