An Unjust Silence: The Omission of Katrina from the United States CERD Report
By Clare Bakota, Advancement Project
The United States has never been a particularly active participant or contributor to the United Nation’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). From the time that the U.N. adopted CERD in 1969 until the year 2001, the United States submitted only one report on its compliance with the treaty, which was a combination of three overdue reports.
This past April, the United States again submitted a long overdue report on the state of domestic racial and ethnic disparities in the United States. Although something is always better than nothing, advocates for minority rights are sure to feel slighted by both the slanted content of the U.S. report and its omission of key racial events and issues.
When compiling this report, the State Department was purposefully selective as to what information was recorded and what was omitted. For instance, nowhere in the report does the State Department mention Katrina nor the racial disparities that turned the natural disaster into a chaotic humanitarian crisis. This “distortion through selectivity” is rampant throughout the report.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has published a shadow report critiquing the State Department’s analysis. The ACLU’s report has been handed over to the United Nations and will be used to balance some of the discrepancies and gaps of the original State Department report. The ACLU report is accessible, clear, and poignant—offering a sobering analysis of race and racism in the United States. However, the ACLU report alone will not resolve the problem of the State Department’s inability to honestly and justly report on race in America.
Perhaps the most ludicrous and glaring gap in the U.N. report is the complete absence of Katrina. Considering the amount of international coverage that Katrina received, the omission of the events and the inequalities it exposed is an insult to the intelligence and integrity of the U.N. as an international body, and also to the injustices that Black survivors suffered before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. There was no mention of the problems that Katrina exposed in regards to U.S. prison policies, police brutality, economic inequalities, health care or housing in the State Department’s report. The omission of Katrina is felt throughout the report as a huge and conspicuous elephant in the room.
The omission of Katrina in the report was a brazen and arrogant move on the part of the State Department. The members of the U.N. need not look far for the proof that Katrina gave for the undeniable racial and socio-economic inequalities that exist in the United States. The images of prisoners left to suffer in the heat, linked and handcuffed on a bridge, and of desperate women and children pleading with indifferent, armed policemen all spoke to the gross racial inequalities that plague our country.
Katrina has been viewed internationally as a powerful testament to how much harm can occur when a country marginalizes its own citizens. The U.S. image has been so damaged that we have become an international example of racism and failed government policies. The Australian Prime Minister recently compared the treatment of aborigine children to Katrina, stating: "Many Australians, myself included, looked aghast at the failure of the American federal system of government to cope adequately with Hurricane Katrina and the human misery and lawlessness that engulfed New Orleans in 2005. …We should have been more humble. We have our Katrina here and now.” And a recent BBC article quoted Nick Johnson, the director of policy and public sector at the Commission for Racial Equality, as having concerns that “Britain is in danger of becoming a kind of “mini-America” [with] schools become increasingly segregated and [turning] into ethnic and religious ghettos.”
These two sentiments, both recently broadcasted across international media outlets, reflect an opinion of the United States not as a beacon of justice and equality, but rather as a poster child of racial inequality and political, demographic, educational, social, and political segregation. Katrina is “famous”; it is referenced internationally on a daily basis, and is used in both political and pop culture spheres as a euphemism for racism, neglect, governmental inaction and chaos.
The silence of the State Department on an issue of such paramount importance is astounding—it is a silence that speaks to neglect, indifference, and exclusion. Katrina blatantly exposed racial inequalities and was recognized all around the world as a complete failure of U.S. government policy. The conscious decision to exclude Katrina from the State Department’s report is telling of just how indifferent our government has become to racial and civil justice and to the serious issues that face its citizens of color. The gap it leaves is enormous and its implications are frightening. Had the report gone into the problems of Katrina and admitted its own shortcomings, it would have been received with praise. The State Department gained nothing from its denial of Katrina. It has only exacerbated the damage wreaked by its already tarnished image abroad, angered citizens at home, and weakened its relationship with the United Nations.
How are we to interpret the State Department’s silence on this issue? When a country does not hold itself accountable for gross failures and loss of human life it is tantamount to condoning its own actions. The policy of the United States to marginalize its communities of color is failing our nation and people. The loss of human life and the irreparable damage done to our image abroad are things that can not be undone. But the only way we will heal as a nation, and regain our standing abroad, will be to acknowledge the racial inequalities and institutional racism in the United States. Only by accepting our shortcomings will we ever be able to overcome them.
