[Antiracism] Sunday Workshop: Disaster Racism

[Valerie Joseph]

                      DISASTER RACISM: Implications of Katrina
                      
                               Sunday 12:00
                              199 Main Street
                                3rd Floor
                               Northampton

On Jan 29, 2006 at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society in Northampton
a few doors west of Haymarket Cafe, anthropologist, Dr. Enoch H. Page, is
giving a workshop between 12 and 4 pm for a mixed audience on the topic of
Disaster Racism. 

During this power-point presentation, staged with intermittent discussion and 
meditation with the audience, Page invites his audience to consider the racial 
implications of the poor Hurricane Katrina response and will provide reasons 
why people of color and poor people everywhere must be more vigilant and self-
sufficient during what will be a long period of equally bad or worse natural 
disasters. 

While the increasing number of deep low frequency earthquakes is mentioned as
one source of ecological, economical and emotional disturbance, more focus is 
on the devastating impact of escalating weather disturbances. Page argues that 
such disturbances may be insufficiently explained by the current theory which
attributes the cause of global warming to greenhouse gases; additionally Page
stresses the importance of contemplating two alternate hypotheses as
explanations that complicate the greenhouse warming theory: 

1. what appears to be signs of new developments in the weather-modification
weaponry which our government has had since Viet Nam; and,

 2. growing evidence that other planets in our solar system, not just Earth, 
are heating up, which possibly suggests the occurrence of a change in local
astrophysical conditions. 

These are ideas to consider, Page says, that can not be proven at this time, 
but if either hypothesis is proven, in the near future, to have any merit, then
government is not telling us something of crucial importance. The aim of this
presentation is to begin a dialogue within the local community about what role
spiritual practice and spiritual activism play in such a scenario. Should 
people of color and the poor who are most vulnerable simply ‘sit’ during these
hypothesized changes, or should preparatory and precautionary action be taken
that possibly may include a need to be prepared to defend oneself and family?