So I watched When the Levees Broke (Hurricane Katrina)

[Texas2step]

What I remember most about that doc was the fact that Canada's rescue teams came a day or 2 before our own government did

 

[notPsychosiz]

9 years late, I finally got around to watching Spike Lee's documentary "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in 4 Acts" (2006).



I knew the Hurricane was bad, even when it was happening, but I didn't pay thorough attention at the time. The memory I have of it was mainly how bad the destruction was, but also how much I hated the media for painting the people who needed help as "looters".

If you never watched this documentary....holy shyt, you really need to.

The damage and government failure was WAY worse than I could have imagined.

There's a part in the documentary where some people say they heard a loud explosion...that maybe the levees were blown up to flood the 9th Ward to protect the business district around Bourbon Street.

If true, that's some fukked up, evil shyt.

Anybody on the Coli have stories about the Hurricane?

Do they discuss the blacks trying to evacuate and the white police force forming a blockade to prevent them from entering white upper class areas?
I haven't seen the film.

 

[Remote]

Do they discuss the blacks trying to evacuate and the white police force forming a blockade to prevent them from entering white upper class areas?
I haven't seen the film.

There's a part where they talk about black people on a highway or bridge trying to exit the city...and the police were preventing them from leaving at gunpoint.

 

[IDFWU]

@Raul ever see Terme?

 

[Remote]

@Raul ever see Terme?

I downloaded it a while back after I finished The Wire, but I never started watching Treme.

I should do that now.

 

[Matt504]

I was down there last fall for a bachelor party, and we walked all the way down from the main area of Bourbon Street down to a spot called The Spotted Cat, and according to a local that I spoke to, a lot of that between areas were pretty much where white people didn't go. You could really tell though, it just had a hipster feel to it.

I wills say that being down there and putting into scope what I saw on television and then actually seeing those areas first hand and being under the overpasses where people were sheltered up, was just

it's pretty good for white people down there all over now, not to make it black/white, but whites definitely won big time after katrina, properties that were owned by Blacks were scooped up at dirt cheap prices because Black people couldn't afford to renovate after the storm, and were getting hit with all kinds of fines by the city for infractions like uncut grass, mind you, these were areas people couldn't safely access to cut the grass in the first place.

It looks beautiful though, whites have built all kinds of art galleries, cafe's, boutiques etc, but it no longer feels like home to me, it's just foreign.

 

[pickles]

You know there is a follow up to the documentary as well. I forget the name though. You should check it out, it basically revisits all the people in that documentary, I think 5 years later.

 

[WaveGang]

before they killed his mum to silence him

 

[IDFWU]

I downloaded it a while back after I finished The Wire, but I never started watching Treme.

I should do that now.

almost a complimentary piece to WTLB

another indepth look at the human atrocities that occurred

also glimpse in to NO food music and culture kinda like what the wire did for bmore

 

[The Bilingual Gringo]

it's pretty good for white people down there all over now, not to make it black/white, but whites definitely won big time after katrina, properties that were owned by Blacks were scooped up at dirt cheap prices because Black people couldn't afford to renovate after the storm, and were getting hit with all kinds of fines by the city for infractions like uncut grass, mind you, these were areas people couldn't safely access to cut the grass in the first place.

It looks beautiful though, whites have built all kinds of art galleries, cafe's, boutiques etc, but it no longer feels like home to me, it's just foreign.

I see where you're coming from on that, as we've seen a similar form of gentrification (minus the natural disaster, death, etc.) here in DC. Yeah, it's nice, but the soul and the funk are removed from the areas. It's a shame, IMO, when you essentially use those codes/fines to take advantage of a situation like that. And I'm sure that the black people that owned those properties went back forever and a day too.

It's a phenomenal city (minus the heat and the overall funky smell of Bourbon Street) but everyone I've talked to about NO after my trip said that the city died after Katrina and most likely will never be the same.

 

[notPsychosiz]

There's a part where they talk about black people on a highway or bridge trying to exit the city...and the police were preventing them from leaving at gunpoint.

Yeah. Thats what I'm refering to.

I knew Spike Lee would go in.

Gonna check it out. I had forgotten about the film. Thanks.

 

[Mowgli]

Is it on netflix?

 

[Prince Luchini]

I'm from the west bank but left the city a few years before the storm even happened but it pissed me off how they did my people. Especially in the lower 9th ward since thats where my mother is from. When I heard about what they did to preserve the french quarter was disgusting.With all the stories from the super dome and them shipping people off to different places on some slave shyt. I wouldn't put anything past them demons doing fukk shyt like that.

 

[iBrowse]

I lived in New Orleans my entire life until Katrina, I never moved back after. never saw the movie, don't want to, when I visit now it's depressing because white's have gentrified entire sections of the city, it's literally like a spreading disease. Areas where white people wouldn't be caught dead you're seeing them out late at night, jogging, walking alone, because all of the Black people have been displaced.

it's pretty good for white people down there all over now, not to make it black/white, but whites definitely won big time after katrina, properties that were owned by Blacks were scooped up at dirt cheap prices because Black people couldn't afford to renovate after the storm, and were getting hit with all kinds of fines by the city for infractions like uncut grass, mind you, these were areas people couldn't safely access to cut the grass in the first place.

It looks beautiful though, whites have built all kinds of art galleries, cafe's, boutiques etc, but it no longer feels like home to me, it's just foreign.

So true

 

[Remote]

Is it on netflix?

I watched it on the HBO Go app.

Netflix has it, but not for streaming. You'd have to send for the discs