When discussed or brought up, the word “race” evokes a muddy array of denotations and connotations. (Throop, Lecture, 10/15/15). However, anthropologists have concluded that race has no biological basis, but is rather a cultural category that entails certain social implications that impact people’s lives due to dynamic nominalism. (Throop, Lecture, 10/15/15). These ideals are exemplified in Marc Perry’s article “Who Dat?: Race and Its Conspicuous Consumption in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” as he explores the refashioning of post-Katrina New Orleans vis-à-vis clashing racialized methods of exploitation and exile, explains race in the city as a socio-economic issue, and describes the certain forms of commercially acceptable and unacceptable blackness
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Like Perry, they discuss how race and economic standing factor into the decisions being made in post-Katrina New Orleans, and they focus on how the low-income community Ninth Ward has faced “chronic neglect” from city services and is victimized (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 749). They argue that actions are being taken to make today’s New Orleans population “whiter and wealthier” than it was before the hurricane and destruction (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 758) Furthermore, they explain that majority of the New Orleanian upper-class is mostly white and Republican, and that it strives to reduce the overwhelmingly black-and-constraining underclass by creating policies that intentionally undermine and displace them (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 756). Both Breunlin and Regis are Louisiana natives, and have close ties to the people and land in New Orleans, and they ask the opinions of several former residents of the Desire Public Housing Development that was “torn down in the name of ‘progress’” in the Ninth Ward and find that despite the negative connotations that often get associated with New Orleans and especially the Ninth Ward, these displaced people love the places they lived before Katrina (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 744-745, 750-751). Like Perry, …show more content…
However, Breunlin and Regis are not any less credible in their arguments because of their ties to local communities in the area. In actuality, their involvement adds to their emic understanding because they engaged in everyday conversation and fully participated with others in the local communities (Breunlin and Regis 2006). Comparable to Perry, Breunlin and Regis express their disapproving opinions on structural violence, but their article focuses more on preserving the city’s cultural likeness, challenges the prevailing view that lower-income people there have marginal lives, and declares that their “individual and collective struggles form a core part of their identities” (2006:
Like Perry, they discuss how race and economic standing factor into the decisions being made in post-Katrina New Orleans, and they focus on how the low-income community Ninth Ward has faced “chronic neglect” from city services and is victimized (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 749). They argue that actions are being taken to make today’s New Orleans population “whiter and wealthier” than it was before the hurricane and destruction (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 758) Furthermore, they explain that majority of the New Orleanian upper-class is mostly white and Republican, and that it strives to reduce the overwhelmingly black-and-constraining underclass by creating policies that intentionally undermine and displace them (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 756). Both Breunlin and Regis are Louisiana natives, and have close ties to the people and land in New Orleans, and they ask the opinions of several former residents of the Desire Public Housing Development that was “torn down in the name of ‘progress’” in the Ninth Ward and find that despite the negative connotations that often get associated with New Orleans and especially the Ninth Ward, these displaced people love the places they lived before Katrina (Breunlin and Regis 2006: 744-745, 750-751). Like Perry, …show more content…
However, Breunlin and Regis are not any less credible in their arguments because of their ties to local communities in the area. In actuality, their involvement adds to their emic understanding because they engaged in everyday conversation and fully participated with others in the local communities (Breunlin and Regis 2006). Comparable to Perry, Breunlin and Regis express their disapproving opinions on structural violence, but their article focuses more on preserving the city’s cultural likeness, challenges the prevailing view that lower-income people there have marginal lives, and declares that their “individual and collective struggles form a core part of their identities” (2006: