Broader Statement about Social Justice
1st Annual Bridging Art and Awareness Challenge:
"Katrina in Our Lives"

The late 1960's has been called "the revolution of rising expectations." It may be hard to imagine now that during a three year period there were urban rebellions in 458 different cities around the United States. The issues that moved people to take to the streets included: police brutality, poverty, structural racism, and the assassination of national leaders. Forty years ago, the face of outrage was seen in screaming confrontations with riot squads, burning buildings, and accelerated white and middle class flight from urban areas.

Today, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that these issues still seethe below the surface of America's prosperity. We wonder about structural injustice as those who own cars fled the gulf areas while those without vehicles were left behind. We have seen images of exhausted and wet American citizens harassed and prevented from fleeing by police and military units. We wonder if our dependence on automobiles and synthetic plastics has spurred the growth of oil fields that replaced the wetlands that served as New Orleans' natural barrier against the ocean storms. Scientists acknowledge that global warming contributed to accelerating the storm's ferocity as it approached the Gulf. Is there a connection between the government's unpreparedness and the thousands of young soldiers killed and injured and billions of dollars spent on the War in Iraq? We notice the contrast between the fervor of sending troops to war and the crumbling Veterans Administration and joblessness to which many U.S. soldiers return.

We commit that the face of outrage this time will not be in the destruction of property, but in the destruction of unfair systems, in the building of new collaborations and new ways of listening to each other, and inspiring social justice. As a nation moved to help people meet their physical needs of food, clothing, and shelter during the immediate aftermath, we also must move to address the cracks in the national foundation that Katrina revealed.