We are proposing Dr. Michael Eric Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (Basic Civitas Books). Dr. Dyson is the author or other fascinating books, such as Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur; Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?; and I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.

Multiple Themes?
Natural (and some unnatural) disasters such as hurricanes and tsunami strike us humans universally without discriminating based on race, class or gender. Michael Eric Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster  lends itself to discussions about universal suffering; human preparedness; global warming; the science and technology of knowing storms and responding to them; city planning; levee engineering, geography; local, state and national government interrelationships; the economics of poverty; the notion of a paycheck-to-paycheck existence; the economics of insurance industry concerns and behaviors afterwards; their redefinitions of “flood”; media ethics and responsibilities; the legal and moral definitions of “refugee” and “fellow American”; the issue of charity versus solidarity; media power and assumptions; and a host of other issues stirred up by Hurricane Katrina’s unprecedented category 5 furies.

As advocates within the Closing the Gap Initiative, we having been searching for just such a book to help generate dialogue on the matters related to culture, identity, perceptions of race, understanding of abject poverty, full inclusion, exclusion and power that affect many of our students and their communities.

Conducive to Event Planning?
We can imagine many events, including inviting Dr. Dyson to speak. He is extremely interesting and dynamic in his talks, and because he keeps it real, he will draw large crowds and generate much attention and activity around our College. He teaches at UPenn in Philadelphia, last check, so he might be “easy” to schedule for a big event.

In conjunction with the reading of Dr. Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and  the Color of Disaster, we could organize public or classroom screenings of Spike Lee’s HBO production When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. It too is powerful and, in a word (or two), absolutely amazing.

Theatre Piece?
Katrina: The Girl Who Wanted Her Name Back by Jason Tremblay; or Katrina: A Whole Lotta Water by Emmitt Thrower. Katrina stirred up the creative community’s responses as well. Many have written poetry, plays, music, blog essay reflections, and personal journals about their experiences.
Current Social Issues?
Rebuilding New Orleans and Gulf Coast communities will be our responsibility for years. This obviously raises issues about priorities in federal spending and organizational attention: Iraq and Katrina; our nation’s humanitarian image overseas and our collective response to domestic needs of our people for shelter, jobs and respect.

Easily tied into CCBC events?
Clearly, Ethics Week might raise issues related to our nation’s response to Katrina. Hundreds of fund raising events could be planned, including service learning events on behalf of victims. Dr. Larry Coleman and other are already planning next year’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBU) college tour for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Fundraising and teach-ins surrounding this book could contribute to a common humanitarian response from our college community to the plight of victims who still struggle in horrible conditions to put their lives, their town, and their region back together.

Accessible Level?
We have conducted a readability assessment on two sections of the book and have discovered that Dyson’s writing is at the 12th grade audience level on the Flesch readability scale. Seems perfect. A group of Closing the Gap educators is preparing a teaching summary of the book to guide the understanding and teaching of Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster.

Not Lengthy/Independent Chapters?
In addition, the book is organized into chapters, each of which could stand alone as an essay. A quick Amazon check found the hardcover version to be $15-20 dollars. The text runs about 212 pages organized into 10 chapters.

Thank you for voting for Michael Eric Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster.