While many Katrina-related books have highlighted the egregious national government negligence in the immediate aftermath of the levee breaks in New Orleans, Jordan Flaherty’s Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six is more concerned with how local government decisions, such as the closing of Charity Hospital, the razing of public housing, and the firing of nearly all New Orleans schoolteachers, have plagued the recovery of the city five years later. As a New Orleans activist and citizen-journalist since 2001, Flaherty is familiar with how New Orleans’ most vulnerable populations—urban youth, immigrants, public housing residents, and prisoners—have been subjected to discriminatory practices for decades. Thus, he examines post-Katrina policies within the city’s history of political corruption, police brutality, and abandonment of public education and affordable healthcare.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric