FAUNTROY
TALKS TO MEDIA ABOUT KATRINA
In
the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Professor
Michael Fauntroy, a specialist in urban policy and
civil rights, spoke on BBC radio about the
issue of poverty and race in this country;
and to both USA Today and the NPR
program “Day to Day” about how
those in the black community felt about the
federal response to the flooding. “I
was stunned by the lack of understanding around
the world about poverty in the U.S.,” he
says, regarding his conversation with the BBC. “Evidently,
the footage that has circulated around the
world following Hurricane Katrina revealed
to many people an America they didn't think
existed.” But the facts about the levels
of impoverishment in this country do not jibe
with those perceptions. “Poverty has
increased in each of the last four years—after
eight consecutive years of decline—notwithstanding
the growth in the national economy,” Fauntroy
points out. “And there are many people
who believe the way the government determines
the poverty level actually under-reports the
severity of the crisis.”
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Professor Michael Fauntroy |
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Fauntroy spoke
to USA Today for a piece they did about
the racial divide when it came to the question of
rebuilding
New Orleans. “Some of the concern
I’m hearing [from African-Americans] is that New Orleans is going to be
rebuilt but gentrified in such a way that they can't go back,” he told
the paper. And as he tells Currents, “Gentrification is an increasing issue
for African-Americans around the country. Be it in D.C., Harlem, or Chicago,
there are numerous examples of blacks being ‘pushed out’ of inner
cities.”
Fauntroy is one
of SPP’s newest faculty members, as well as the author
of “Home Rule or House Rule?: Congress and the Erosion of Local Governance
in the District of Columbia.”
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