We see them through our respective prisms of race, and call them "refugees," as if they are foreigners in their own land. They are the Other, these victims of Katrina. And in this country, the Other is black. Poor. Desperate.

- Lynne Duke and Teresa Wiltz, Washington Post

While the most affected victims of that force of nature called Katrina are, more often than not, Black, the true is that poor whites and Latinos too have paid the price. The inescapable fact is that the poor are paying the highest price. The relentless coverage of the media, especially TV has made it impossible for us to ignore a social reality we work hard to keep hidden: The other America, the poor, the destitute, the disenfranchised, We have seen it, read about it, heard about it, tens of thousands of American citizens, almost all of them poor and Black, living in indescribable conditions with no food and water, waited for days while the better off, the haves, drove away from danger in their own vehicles and evacuation buses drove by to pick up tourists from hotels.

The New Orleans disaster was totally “unexpected” even when government reports had predicted it for decades. As processes and institutions of governance failed, so did the crafted image we had of us and our society. In the words of Duke and Wiltz “Katrina blew open the box, putting the urban poor front and center, with images of once-invisible folks pleading from rooftops, wading through flooded streets, starving at the Superdome and requiring a massive federal outlay of resources.”

· What does Katrina, and its aftermath, mean for us, citizens of this rich nation, what does it tell us about the society we have put together?

· What can we do to participate in the civic exchange on race and class taking place nation-wide? What does it mean to be a citizen?

· And here at GSU: Are we in this university contributing to the education of the citizens or merely training the consumers?

Please join us.