Your Weakness Only Makes You Stronger
If nothing changes nothing will change.
Whenever I am challenged with new experiences I have two opinions. I can either embrace the change or reject it entirely. Of course each opinion is based on how I will benefit. But there are some changes out of my control out of my grasp and that I have no control over. When I am faced with these changes I do have different response. I react in the state of shock. This how companies benefit off of disasters they get people at there weakest time. When these people need the support of the government and companies they instead greeted with a way of how they will be another check. In the article The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein she explains how this shock of victims of Hurricane Katrina was viewed by corporations and the government as just another way to remake New Orleans into their image of what it should look like.
In the article she gives her readers background on how the government views this disaster. Also how the idea of hope meant different things to the victims and the government. in particular she focuses on how Friedman influence the citizens of New Orleans to think that charter schools were the best for their children. Friedman believed providing free education was damaging the market. So he proposed to George W. Bush the day after the disaster to change all the schools that were ruined to charter schools. He saw the disaster as a way to start over to mold New Orleans into whatever would make the most money for corporations as well as himself. While reading this article all I could do was think about what was happening back home. I am from Northern California more specifically Oakland, CA. Similar to what happened during hurricane Katrina is happening in Oakland, CA as well.
According to the article “Gentrification Could be Hurting Oakland” 57% of residents in West Oakland become homeless because of the cost of housing. The whole goal of gentrification is for companies and government to turn a place that is full of culture and strip it of whatever the people have establish there and make it into their image. The things that they find to make the area worse then end up driving those things out. To companies and the government these things are people but they don’t see them as people. They see them as money and the reason why the area isn’t as great as it can be. This not accident that these two places of full of people of color more specially Black people. From history we been segregated and seen as the problem. We have always been looked at if we need to leave for places to be better. There is so much culture and heritage in both New Orleans and Oakland. But that isn't appreciated. When the hurricane happened in New Orleans it was not about rebuilding the culture. It wasn’t about building the places that had significance to the citizens there. it was more important for the government to use this disaster way to start fresh. Of course the citizens agreed and didn’t think much of it. They were persuaded into think ideas such as charter schools were in their benefit. That the governments a companies were helping not hurting. But like many disasters the hurt is realized too late after the act has already happened. Once you realize your moment of shock was taken advantage of there is little you can do.
ln Klein’s article she also mention how students were selected based on their intelligence. If a child has a learning disorder they were more likely to not be able to attend a charter school. Klein also speaks on how in charter school there were certain regulation. I the students broke the rules they would expelled. School Segregation is not a thing of the past. According to “School segregation persists in the new New Orleans, study says” this article expresses how New Orleans is still suffering form school segregation. This article was written in 2017. In this article it expresses how segregation is still based off of race and income. i was informed before I went to college that when i come back nothing would look the same. This was very hard for me to accept because I have been attending school in Oakland since i was in the fifth grade. So knowing the places I grew looking at and experiencing memories at would look different is heartbreaking. But companies don’t look at these. They see disaster as opportunities to make money not help people. Companies must change this idea of getting over on people at their weakest moments. Companies and the government are just like bullies why don’t they try to pick on others their own size. The more battles we face the stronger we get. The more resilient we become.
