Complications

Here's the thing.
The work that needs to be done down in New Orleans is so, so broad in scale. I realize that I'm making a pretty obvious point, but I read an article in the New York Times today (although it was from a few days ago) that really made me think. The article focused mainly on one high school and on one type of student. The school is John McDonogh School, the largest functioning high school in the city. The type of student is the student who is alone, students who are either living with extended family or by themselves. The principal of John McDonogh school estimates that up to one-fifth of the student body lives without their parents, parents who are forced to stay in their relocations to pay off debts and rents. The psychological consequences for these kids living on their own have manifested physically. Since the school opened two months ago, six "very serious" assaults have occurred, and fights break out daily. A student, refused entry in to his class because he was tardy, beat his teacher "unmercifully" to the point of hospitalization. The violence has resulted in heightened security, but the 25 guards in the building, the four police officers and cruisers on the side walk, and the metal detectors are only adding to the unease and aggression.


What surprised me so much about this story is that it went against what I believed to be the intuitive response after Hurricane Katrina; that after such a devastating event, family becomes most important. Reading something like this feels unfortunate, but even more it feels unnecessary. We want so badly for a simple solution for rebuilding New Orleans, that if we could just raise a little more money, get a little more support from the government, build a few more houses, then everything could, and would, come back together again. But this article has made me think about how deep the problems run in Katrina affected areas. Rebuilding houses is one piece of an entire jigsaw puzzle of problems that need to be addressed. It'd be nice to have someone to blame for all of this, someone who, when fixed, fixes the problems of the city with them. Perhaps this is a wholly American response: quickly looking to find fault, quickly looking to blame instead of looking for change. I don't know who to blame. I can't blame the parents, because many of them are forced to stay to pay off debts and rents. I can't blame the guards, because the high school students are ignoring authority and fighting all the time. But I can't blame the kids, because being parent-less and having my every move watched by law enforcement would make me lash out as well.

I don't know who to blame and I don't know how to change things. All I know is that i truly wish I had the ability to do more than just build houses down there.





If you're interested, this is the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/education/01orleans.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=e95f64cb644eb8e1&ex=1163826000