Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability
Author(s): Henry A. Giroux
Reviewed work(s):
Source: College Literature, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Summer, 2006), pp. 171-196
Published by: College Literature
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Katrina:
ReadingHurricane
Race, Class, and the
Biopoliticsof Disposability
Henry
Emmett
Tin's
A. Giroux
in
home
arrived
body
in
1955. White
Chicago
September
had tortured, muti
racists in Mississippi
the young
lated, and killed
14-year-old
at a
African-American
boy for whistling
white
woman.
to make
Determined
Chicago,
While
Parlor
Funeral
be
left open
mainstream
on
for
the South
four
news
theGlobal TV Network Chair
at McMaster
Professorship
University in theEnglish and
visible
Cultural
the horribly mangled
face and twisted body
of racial hatred
of the child as an expression
the
and killing, Mamie
Till,
boy's mother,
insisted that the coffin, interred at the A.A.
Ranier
Henry A. Giroux currently holds
His
long
days.
organizations
the horrifying
image, Jet magazine
an unedited
of Till's face
photo
published
taken while he lay in his coffin. Shaila Dewan
Department.
latest book Stormy
Weather:
Side of
Studies
Politics
Katrina
and
draws
issues
on a number
expressed
ignored
is the word most
points out that "[m]utilated
the face of Emmett
often used to describe
after his body was hauled
river in Mississippi.
Tallahatchie
Till
more
like it:melted,
out
of
Inhuman
bloated, missing
the
is
an eye,
the
of Disposability
(forthcoming)
of ideas
and
the essay printed
here.
in
172
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
so large that its patch of wiry hair looks like that of a balding old
a handsome, brazen 14-year-old
not
had been castrat
man,
boy" (2005).Till
a
ed and shot in the head; his tongue had been cut out; and
blow from an ax
swollen
had practically
boy who came
severed his nose
from his face?all
to bear the burden
to a teenage
of slavery and the inhu
photo not only made vis
of this done
of the inheritance
man
that drives its racist imaginary. The
pathology
ible the violent
effects of the racial state; they also fuelled massive
anger,
blacks,
among
especially
to
and helped
public
the Civil
launch
Rights
Movement.
to the war
in
the beginning
of the Civil Rights Movement
and
violence
the grounds for
Vietnam,
images of human suffering
provided
a charged political indignation and collective
sense of moral outrage inflamed
by the horrors of poverty, militarism, war, and racism?eventually
mobilizing
From
widespread
a vast
to these antidemocratic
opposition
conservative
were
counter-revolution
forces. Of
already
well
course,
the seeds of
as
underway
images
of a previous era?"whites
only"
nonviolent
and
ing,
resistance?gave
signs, segregated schools, segregated hous
of cities
way to a troubling iconography
came to embody
the very
and armed black youth who
aflame, mass rioting,
on the reactionary
precepts of lawlessness, disorder, and criminality. Building
and
Richard
rhetoric of Barry Goldwater
Ronald
took
Nixon,
Reagan
a trickle-down
office in 1980 with
transform corporate
theory that would
and a corresponding
America
black
male
"gangsta"
vehicles
primary
the welfare
sizing,
for selling
state, ushering
privatization,
and
economy. The
visual
his
and
the
counterpart,
twin images of the young
"welfare
the American
public on
in an era of unprecedented
regressive
taxation.The
to dismantle
deregulation,
campaign
propaganda
the
became
queen,"
the need
down
was
so
bid
that George H. W Bush could launch his 1988 presidential
an African-American
male
convicted
of
the image ofWillie
Horton,
in
and
succeed
with
and
his
rape
opponent
trouncing
granted early release,
little public outcry over the overtly racist nature of the campaign. By the
successful
with
of the 1990s, global media
the out
consolidation,
beginning
coupled with
and a rigid national
break of a new war that encouraged
hyper-patriotism
both by the
ism, resulted in a tightly controlled visual landscape?managed
a
networks?that
and
delivered
Pentagon
paucity of
by corporate-owned
images
representative
informed
Selectively
of the widespread
(Kellner 1972).
systemic violence
and cynically inclined, American
civic life became more
and regulated.
sanitized, controlled,
Katrina
Hurricane
may have reversed the self-imposed
in the face of terrible suffering.
and public numbness
was
the body of Emmett Till
plucked out of the mud-filled
media
Tallahatchie
River,
another
set of
troubling
visual
silence
of
the
Fifty years after
waters of the
representations
has
HenryA. Giroux 173
that both
emerged
Hurricane
shocked
and
shamed
the nation.
In the aftermath
of
in the rot
Katrina, grotesque
images of bloated corpses floating
waters
streets
of
that
the
New
flooded
Orleans
circulated
ting
throughout
soon
the mainstream
media. What
first appeared to be a natural catastrophe
a
as further
into
social debacle
degenerated
images revealed, days after
had passed over the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands of poor peo
blacks, some Latinos, many
ple, mostly
elderly, and a few white
people,
into
New
the
Orleans
and the city's convention
center,
packed
Superdome
Katrina
on
stranded
food, water,
sun.1 Weeks
rooftops, or isolated
or any place to wash,
control
on patches of dry highway
urinate, or find relief from
receded
passed as the flood water gradually
of the city, and more
of
dead
bodies
images
without
any
the scorching
and the military
surfaced in the
and global media. TV cameras rolled as bodies emerged from the
flood waters while people
stood by indifferently
eating their lunch or occa
a
Most
of
the
bodies
found "were 50 or older,
sionally snapping
photograph.
to
tried
who
wait
the
out"
hurricane
people
(Frosch 2005,
1-4). Various
soon reported that over 154 bodies had been found in
media
hospitals and
gained
national
nursing
ety's
homes. The New York Times wrote
most
basic
covenants?to
care
for
the
that "the collapse
helpless?suggests
of one of soci
that
the
elder
to the bottom
ill plummeted
of priority
lists as calamity
ly and critically
New
Orleans
Dead
engulfed
poor African
(Jackson 2005).
people, mostly
on
in
the
left
uncollected
streets,
Americans,
porches,
hospitals,
nursing
some peo
and in collapsed houses prompted
homes, in electric wheelchairs,
had become
like a "Third World
ple to claim that America
country" while
others argued that New Orleans
resembled a "Third World Refugee
Camp
Federal
(Brooks 2005, 1-2).There were now, irrefutably, two Gulf crises.The
Emergency
Management
(FEMA) tried to do damage control by
Agency
to
rescue boats as they went out to search
forbidding journalists
"accompany
for
storm
victims."
As
a bureau
spokeswoman
told
Reuters
News
Agency,
that no photographs
of the deceased be made by the
requested
media"
But
about
and answerability
(Neal 2005).
questions
responsibility
not go away. Even the dominant media
would
for a short time rose to the
occasion
of posing tough questions
to those in power
about accountability
"We have
in light of such egregious
acts of incompetence
and indifference. The images
of dead bodies kept reappearing
in New Orleans,
refusing to go away. For
of
the
bodies
the
many,
poor, black, brown, elderly, and sick came to signify
what
the battered body of Emmett Till once unavoidably
revealed, and
America was forced to confront
these disturbing
and
the damning
images
behind
the
The
Hurricane
Katrina
like the
disaster,
questions
images.
Emmett Till affair, revealed a vulnerable
and destitute segment of the nation's
not only refused to see but had spent the better
citizenry that conservatives
174
33.3 [Summer
2006]
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part of two decades
tale
heart,
But
demonizing.
cadavers
a way
have
of
like the incessant
insinuating
of Poe's
beating
on
themselves
tell
consciousness,
answers to questions
that aren't often asked. The body of Emmett
demanding
Till symbolized overt white
supremacy and state terrorism organized
against
the threat that black men
of
all
sizes
and
ages) posed against white
(apparently
women.
But
the black
in 2005
Orleans
bodies
in New
and walking wounded
a
of
the
racial
different
state,
image
of the dead
a different
revealed
of state terrorism, marked
less by an overt form of white
racism
a highly mediated
race
as
a
of
central
for
concept
displacement
Katrina
its
in
and
the
broader
both
of
U.S.
understanding
place
history
modality
than by
of the
is,while Tills body insisted upon a public recognition
waters
in
of white
violence
the
supremacy, the decaying black bodies floating
a return of race against the media
of the Gulf Coast represented
and public
racism.2 That
that
insistence
this
disaster
was
more
about
class
than
race,
more
about
the
and growing presence of poverty, "the abject failure to provide aid
to the most vulnerable"
(Foner 2005, 8).Tills
body allowed the racism that
to
to
to
the systemic
it
be made
character of
visible,
destroyed
speak
American
racial injustice. The bodies of the Katrina victims could not speak
shameful
with
the same directness
to the state of American
reveal and shatter the conservative
The
mark
of the Katrina
bodies
an increasingly
of a new
emergence
now
considered
victims
racist violence
but they did
of living in a color-blind
society.
laid bare the racial and class fault lines that
fiction
and withering
and revealed
democracy
damaged
kind of politics, one in which
entire populations
an
disposable,
unnecessary
burden
on
state
coffers,
and
the
are
con
in New
themselves. At the same time, what happened
signed
of
also revealed some frightening
those
Orleans
signposts
repressive features
in American
that
artists, public intellectuals,
scholars, and
society, demanding
take seriously what Angela Davis insists "are very clear
other cultural workers
. .
not only con
and practices," which
fascist policies
of.
signs
impending
struct an imaginary social environment
for all of those populations
rendered
to fend
for
disposable but also exemplify
claims" (2005, 122,124).
a site and space "where
democracy
has lost its
**#
of
Coast, the consequences
and bleeding
the social and
the long legacy of attacking big government
as
state
sectors
became
evident
did a govern
of
the
service
glaringly
public
Soon
after Hurricane
Katrina
hit
the Gulf
to human suffering" (Herbert
that displayed a "staggering
indifference
made
it
clear
that only the government
Hurricane
Katrina
2005).
abundantly
to
and
address complex
had the power, resources,
undertakings
authority
the totality of the economic,
such as dealing with
environmental,
cultural,
ment
HenryA. Giroux 175
and social destruction
that impacted the Gulf Coast. Given the Bush admin
the legacy of the New Deal,
important government
programs, stripped
agencies were viewed
scornfully as oversized entitlement
to provide
of their power, and served up as a dumping
lucrative
ground
to lead
administrative
jobs for political hacks who were often unqualified
was
FEMA
such agencies. Not
downsized
and
under
the
only
placed
istration's
disdain
for
but its role in disaster planning
and
Security
to
the
all-inclusive
terrorists.
preparation
goal of fighting
to miss the total failure of the government
it was virtually
While
impossible
response in the aftermath of Katrina, what many people saw as incompetence
of Homeland
Department
was
subordinated
or failed national
than that. Something more
leadership was more
systemic
was revealed in the wake of
and deep-rooted
that the state
Katrina?namely,
no
a safety net for the poor, sick,
longer provided
elderly, and homeless.
into a punishing
intent on dis
institution
Instead, it had been transformed
state
the
welfare
and
the
homeless,
illiterate,
mantling
treating
unemployed,
to
and disabled as dispensable
be
and
criminalized,
populations
managed,
to disappear into prisons, ghettos, and the black hole of despair.
was not simply unprepared
The Bush
administration
for Hurricane
Katrina as it denied
that the federal government
alone had the resources to
address catastrophic
for the lives of
events; it actually felt no responsibility
made
poor blacks and others marginalized
by poverty and relegated to the outskirts
of society. Increasingly, the role of the state seems to be about engendering
the financial rewards and privileges of only some members
of society, while
race
now
the welfare of those marginalized
is
and
class
with crim
viewed
by
state with
inal contempt. The coupling of the market
the racial state under
means
are
W.
Bush
that
the
George
policies
aggressively pursued to dismantle
eliminate
welfare
affirmative
model
urban public schools after
state,
action,
prisons,
pursue
aggressively
anti-immigrant
and
policies,
incarcerate
with
and poor youth of color. The central commitment
impunity Arabs, Muslims,
of the new hyper-neoliberalism
is now organized
around the best way to
remove or make
are either seen
invisible those individuals and groups who
as a drain
or
stand
in
and the neoconservative
the way
of market
freedoms,
free
trade,
consumerism,
dream of an American
I call the
empire. This iswhat
new biopolitics of disposability: the poor,
not
of
color,
especially people
only
in the face of life's tragedies but are also supposed
have to fend for themselves
to do itwithout
from
being seen by the dominant
society. Excommunicated
the sphere of human concern, they have been rendered invisible, utterly dis
that allegedly no longer
posable, and heir to that army of socially homeless
existed in color-blind America.
How
explicit
else to explain the cruel jokes and insults either implied or made
allies in the aftermath of such massive
by Bush and his ideological
176
33.3 [Summer
2006]
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destruction
it became obvious
in the week
and suffering? When
following
Katrina
that thousands of the elderly, poor, and sick could not get out of
to take a taxi or any other
New Orleans because they had no cars or money
or were sick and infirmed, the third-highest-ranking
form of transportation,
inWashington,
Rick
stated in an interview "that people
Santorum,
politician
not
in
the future may need to be penal
who did
heed evacuation warnings
ized" (Hamill 2005). For Santorum,
those who were
trapped in the flood
an
of poverty,
had become
because
sickness, and lack of transportation
reminder of the state of poverty and racism in the United
States,
and for that they should be punished. Their crime, it seems, was that a natu
a social and
ral disaster made
disaster visible to the
embarrassing
politically
on facilities
to be its victims. Commenting
and they just happened
world,
unwelcome
that had been
mother
and
set up for the poor in the Houston Astrodome
H.W
the wife
of former President
George
in Texas, Bush's
Bush
said in a
interview, "So many of the people here, you know,
so this is working
for them"
anyway,
very well
underprivileged
to
Bush"
crit
Other
deflect
2005).
("Barbara
right-wing
ideologues
seeking
and
indifference
the
icism from the obscene
Bush
admin
of
incompetence
racism to frame the events of Katrina. For
istration used a barely concealed
National
Public Radio
were
in Florida stated that
example, Neil Boortz, a syndicated host onWFTL-AM
"a huge percentage"
of those forced to leave New Orleans were "parasites,
to a community
near you" (Norman
like ticks on a dog. They are coming
The
broadcast
of
Radio
host
On
the
13
Factor, Fox News
2005).
September
own
of
his
Bill O'Reilly
his
racism
millions
viewers
before
overtly indulged
in claiming
addicts who
in New
Orleans were basically drug
that poor black people
not have access
failed to evacuate the city because
they would
to their fix (2005).
In one of the most blatant displays of racism underscoring
the biopolit
increas
the dominant media
ical "live free or die" agenda in Bush's America,
after the hur
ingly framed the events that unfolded during and immediately
ricane by focusing on acts of crime, looting, rape, and murder, allegedly per
In predictable fashion, politi
petrated by the black residents of New Orleans.
Blanco
issued an order allowing
cians such as Louisiana Governor Kathleen
soldiers
to shoot
to kill
revealed
that almost
looters
in an effort
all of these crimes
to restore
calm. Later
inquiries
take place. The philosopher,
these stories were not facts, but
did not
Slavoj Zizek, argued that "what motivated
the satisfaction felt by those who would be able to say: 'You
racist prejudices,
Blacks
see,
really are like that, violent barbarians under the thin layer of civ
ilization!'" (2005). Itmust be noted that there ismore at stake here than the
that some groups have
racism; there is the recognition
resurgence of old-style
the power
to protect
themselves
from
such stereotypes
and others do not, and
HenryA. Giroux 177
do not?especially
poor blacks?racist
myths have a way of
not
Given
the public's
consequences.
precise, if
deadly, material
for those who
producing
violence
with
preoccupation
and
of black
are made
too-familiar
crime
safety,
culture with
terror
and
the culture
in
merge
the
of criminality,
images of crime
all
and
equation
from
and
images of poor blacks
indistinguishable
to
violence. Criminalizing
black behavior
and relying on punitive measures
a
solve social problems do more
than legitimate
defined
increas
biopolitics
an
the
state
of
national
under
by
security
ingly
authority
expanding
George
a state in which
W. Bush. They also legitimize
behind
closed
doors, take on public
operating
the police and military, often
functions
that are not subject
becomes
particularly
dangerous
to public scrutiny (Bleifuss 2005, 22) ? This
in a democracy when paramilitary or military
organisations
gain their legit
an
to
fear
and
from
terror,
imacy increasingly
appeal
prompted
largely by the
of
those
and
racialized
considered
both dan
presence
groups
class-specific
and
gerous
disposable.
a few days after Katrina
struck, New Orleans was under martial
law occupied
by nearly 65,000 U.S. military
personnel. Cries of desperation
and help were quickly redefined as the pleas of "refugees," a designation
that
an
alien
both
and
had
suggested
lacking
population
citizenship
legal rights
Within
inhabited
the Gulf Coast.
Images of thousands of desperate and poor blacks
gave way to pictures of combat-ready
troops and soldiers with mounted
bay
onets canvassing houses
in order to remove
stranded civilians. Embedded
journalists
now
military
operation
tion.
travelled with
in downtown
soldiers
helicopters
by the federal government
Given
the
government's
on Humvees,
armoured
carriers, and
rescue
had begun as a botched
USA.What
was
propensity
transformed
to
view
those
into amilitary
who
are
opera
poor
and
it was not surprising that the transformation
of New
contempt,
Orleans
and the Gulf Coast from disaster area to war zone occurred without
any audible dissent from either the general public or the dominant media.
New Orleans
increasingly came to look like a city in Iraq as scores of private
black with
soldiers
appeared
Homeland
on
Security
and businesses. Much
on contract with
the scene?either
or hired by wealthy
elites to protect
the Department
of
their private estates
like Iraq, the Gulf Coast became
another recipient of
as
as
soon
waters
the
flood
capitalism
began to recede.
deregulated market
The fruits of privatization
and an utter disregard for public values were all
too visible in the use of private mercenaries
and security companies hired to
acts
a
federal
in
often
of violence
that constituted
guard
projects,
indulging
clear-cut
case
Katrina
of
vigilantism.
in the United
States do not want to
lays bare what many people
see: large numbers of poor black and brown people
struggling to make ends
to
it difficult
meet, benefiting
very little from a social system that makes
178
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
obtain
health
child
insurance,
care,
social
assistance,
cars,
savings,
and
mini
mum-wage
jobs if lucky, and instead offers to black and brown youth inad
equate schools, poor public services, and no future, except a possible stint in
are the people
the
the penitentiary. As Janet Pelz rightly
insists, "These
have been teaching us to disdain, if not hate, since President
Republicans
the moral
laxness of theWelfare mom"
decried
(2005, 1-2). While
Reagan
Pelz s comments
provide a crucial context for much of the death and devas
I think to more fully understand
tation of Katrina,
this calamity it is impor
tant to grasp how the confluence of race and poverty has become part of a new
commit
and more insidious set of forces based on a revised set of biopolitical
ments, which have largely denied the sanctity of human life for those popula
tions rendered "at risk" by global neoliberal
economies
and have instead
embraced an emergent security state founded on cultural homogeneity.
*#*
in the new
of state sovereignty
decades, matters
so as to provide a range of theoretical
order have been retheorized
world
about
the
and politics,
between
the political
power
insights
relationship
nature of social and cultural life, and the merging
of life and politics as a new
Within
the
last few
of biopolitics. While
among itsmost prominent
the notion
form
of biopolitics
differs significantly
Foucault
(1990,1997),
including Michel
Antonio
Hardt
and
and
Michael
2002,
2003),
(1998,
Giorgio
Agamben
an
to
is
think
these
theorists
share
what
attempt
(2004),
Negri
through the
our
matters
within
of
"life
and
death
life
and
of
convergence
politics, locating
this
Within
of
about
and
ways
(Dean 2004, 17).
imagining politics"
thinking
a
no
discourse, politics is
through
exclusively
disciplinary
longer understood
sur
on
to
be
the
individual
centered
measured,
body?a
body
technology
veilled, managed,
Biopolitics
points
theorists,
and included
to
new
in forecasts,
relations
of
power
surveys, and statistical projections.
that
are more
capacious,
con
not only with
that
the body as an object of disciplinary
techniques
a
to
be "reg
render it "both useful and docile" but also with
body that needs
that produce ways
ularized," subject to those immaterial means of production
of life that enlarge the targets of control and regulation
(Foucault 1997,249).
cerned
of both sovereignty and power and the emergence
shift in the workings
are
made
clear by Foucault, for whom
of biopolitics
biopower
replaces the
dis
power to dispense fear and death "with that of a power to foster life?or
no
a
matter
is
of
allow it to the point of death....
longer
[Biopower]
bring
This
the living
ing death into play in the field of sovereignty, but of distributing
in the domain of value and utility. Its task is to take charge of life that needs
a continuous
(Ojakangas 2005, 6). As
regulatory and corrective mechanism"
is dialectical, productive,
and positive
Foucault
insists, the logic of biopower
HenryA. Giroux 179
does not remove itself from
136). Yet he also argues that biopolitics
a
life
that
is under power's control:
into
the
domain
of
break
"introducing
must
must
what
die"
live and
the break between what
(1997, 255). Foucault
in the economy
of biopolitics
is justified pri
believes that the death-function
(1990,
"is bound up with
the
biopower
through a form of racism in which
races
use
a
to
is
the
elimination
of
and
State
that
of
race,
obliged
workings
the purification
of the race, to exercise its sovereign power" (258).
have both modified
and extended
Michael
Hardt
and Antonio
Negri
marily
a mode
in which
of biopolitics
of biopower,
highlighting
affective
rela
immaterial labor such as ideas, knowledge,
images, cooperation,
extend
the
boundaries
of
the
communication
of
and
forms
tions,
beyond
as
means
to produce not just material
but
"the
economic
of
social
life,
goods
is biopolitical
social life itself. Immaterial production
(2004b, 146). In this
Foucault
s notion
to the educational
force of the culture and to the
instance, power is extended
various
and
social
it
mechanisms,
practices
technologies,
through which
to
in
is
various
life.
crucial
this
rather
forms
of
social
What
grasp
reproduces
is that power remains a productive
notion of biopolitics
force,
generalized
and registers cul
provides the grounds for both resistance and domination,
and diverse struggles waged
ture, society, and politics as a terrain of multiple
the impor
range of sites. For my purposes,
groups in a wide
by numerous
tance of both Foucault s and Hardt and Negri's work on biopolitics
is that
of culture, especially
those aimed at "the production
of
they move matters
... to the center of
communication,
information,
[and] social relations
poli
tics itself" (Hardt and Negri
these approaches, power
2004b, 334). Within
expands its reach as a political force beyond the traditional scope and bound
aries of the state and the registers of officially sanctioned modes
of domina
now touches all aspects of social life and is the primary polit
tion. Biopolitics
force
ical and pedagogical
new
takes
subjectivities
through which
the creation
and reproduction
of
place.
in Foucault
and Hardt and Negri
addresses the rela
in their views is less concerned
and death, biopolitics
of death than with
the production
of life both as an indi
While
biopolitics
tions between
politics
with
the primacy
vidual and a social
In Giorgio Agamben's
the new
formulation,
category.
is
the
administration
of
what
he
calls
"bare
and its
life,"
deadly
biopolitics
con
with
its ominous
incarnation
is the Holocaust
ultimate
of
the
specter
the Nazi death camps become
camp. In this formulation,
exemplar of control, the new space of contemporary
politics
centration
mary
individuals
are
no
longer
viewed
as
citizens
but
are
now
seen
as
the pri
in which
inmates,
including their right to live. The uniting of power and
stripped of everything,
bare life, the reduction of the individual to homo sacer?the
sacred man who
states
not
under certain
of exception
sacrificed"?no
"may be killed and yet
180
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
the far end of political
represents
longer
ed
version
of
ancient
the
the confines
beyond
killed without
category
of both human
states
life (1998, 8). That
sacer
homo
and divine
fear of punishment"
as modern
Agamben,
of
(Bauman
increasingly
suspend
is
the
law?"a
who
human who
2003,
their
is, in this updat
human
stands
can be
to
133). According
democratic
structures,
the very nature of governance
laws, and principles,
changes as "the rule of
or emergency,
law is routinely displaced by the state of exception,
and peo
are
to
state
violence"
(Bull 2004, 3).
extra-judicial
subject
ple
increasingly
life unfit for life, unworthy
of being lived, as the central category of homo
to sovereign power but is now central to its form
sacer, is no longer marginal
in the past, either
State violence
and totalitarian power, which,
of governance.
on
were generally
or
of
short-lived
existed
the fringe
politics and history,
The
have
now
become
the
rule,
rather
than
the
exception,
as
life
is more
ruth
and state power.
lessly regulated and placed in the hands of military
as Catherine Mills points out, "all sub
In the current historical moment,
if not actually abandoned by the law and exposed
jects are at least potentially
as a constitutive
to violence
condition
of political
existence"
(2004, 47).
Mirzoeff
Nicholas
resentment
has observed
and
of
that all over
the world
matched
there
the
is a growing
of
emergence
immigrants
refugees,
by
strategies and coupled with the rise of the camp as the key
detain-and-deport
The "empire of camps,"
of the new millennium.
institution and social model
toMirzoeff,
has become
the "exemplary
institution of a system of
according
in its high consumption,
low-price
global capitalism that supports theWest
consumer
Bauman
calls
such
camps
"gar
lifestyle" (2005, 145). Zygmunt
risons of extraterritoriality"
and argues that they have become "the dumping
grounds for the indisposed of and as yet unrecycled waste of the global fron
a key
regime of the camp has increasingly become
new
and the
world order. The connections
index of modernity
among dis
common
in
death
become
under
and
have
violence,
modernity
posability,
the order of power has become
For
those countries where
necropolitical.
tier-land"
example, Rosa
global violence
where
The
(2003,109).
as a local expression
of
analyzes feminicide
in the region of the U.S./Mexico
border
or disappeared,
thousand women
have been either murdered
Linda
over one
Fregoso
against women
to a "politics of gender extermination"
amounts
(2006,
not only generate wide
and necropolitics
of
109).The
disposability
politics
but also
and ever expanding "garrisons of extraterritoriality"
spread violence
sov
as
a
foundation
for political
have taken on a powerful new significance
constituting
ereignty.
appear
United
what
Biopolitical
increasingly
States under
to "let die" by abandoning
in light of the growing
authoritarianism
the Bush administration
(Giroux 2005).
commitments
credible
citizens
in the
HenryA. Giroux 181
the Bush
Given
administration's
and indefinitely
and torture
kidnapping,
"detainees"
illegally
use of illegal wiretaps,
the holding
of
in prisons such as Guantanamo,
the dis
of alleged terrorists, and the ongoing
in
the
of
civil
liberties
United
States, Agamben's
suspension
theory of biopol
in which
the state of
itics rightly alerts us to the dangers of a government
over
structure of control
the fundamental
becomes
emergency
populations.
appearance,
to
claim
that the concentration
camp
(as opposed
Agamben's
s panopticon)
states captures the
is now the model
for constitutional
commitments
contrariness
of biopolitical
that have less to do with preserv
While
Foucault
and death, its totalitarian logic is too
ing life than with reproducing violence
narrow and fails in the end to recognize
that the threat of violence, bare life,
in contemporary
and death is not the only form of biopower
life. The dialec
tics of life and death, visibility
that now constitute
and invisibility, and privilege
and lack in social
have to be under
the biopolitics
of modernity
in terms of their complexities,
and diverse social forma
specificities,
existence
stood
in which
the current articulation
of
instance, the diverse ways
to
some
in
the
works
States
and
United
render
groups disposable
biopower
a permanent
state of emergency
to privilege others within
need to be spec
ified. Indeed, any viable rendering of contemporary
biopolitics must address
tions. For
more
attempts not just to produce and control life
specifically how biopower
in general, as Hardt
and Negri
insist, or to reduce all inhabitants of the
state
to
the
militarized
space of the "death camp," as
increasing
dystopian
to
some
over others. The ongoing
also
but
lives
argues,
Agamben
privilege
response
by the Bush administration's
tragedy of pain and suffering wrought
to Hurricane
posability
reveals a biopolitical
the logic of dis
agenda in which
in the order of
of death are inscribed differently
around
wretched
and
broad-based
largely
power?structured
Katrina
and the politics
contemporary
racial and class inequalities.
I want to further this position by arguing
the dominant
have become
tion, and militarism
that neoliberalism,
privatiza
of the mid-twen
biopolitics
social state and that the coupling of a market fundamentalism
tieth-century
and contemporary
forms of subjugation of life to the power of capital accu
and disposability,
mulation,
violence,
especially under the Bush administra
a
new
has
and
the
tion,
produced
dangerous version of biopolitics.4 While
murder of Emmett Till suggests that a biopolitics
structured around the inter
on
section of race and class inequalities, on the one hand, and state violence,
the other, has long existed, the new version of biopolitics
adds a distinctive
not only
and more
register. The new biopolitics
ly different
dangerous
to
violence
includes
state-sanctioned
but also relegates entire populations
spaces of invisibility
state
has
been
and disposability.
so weakened
over
decades
As William
of
DiFazio
privatization
points
that
it
out, "the
. . . increas
182
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
retirement benefits and education
ingly fails to provide health care, housing,
to a massive percentage
of its population"
the social con
(2006, 87). While
tract has been suspended in varying degrees since the 1970s, under the Bush
Administration
it has been virtually abandoned. Under
such circumstances,
to take measures
the state no longer feels obligated
that prevent hardship, suf
its own disadvantaged
citi
fering, and death. The state no longer protects
are
seen
as
a
dead
economic
within
and
transnational
zens?they
already
now occupy a globalized
space of
political framework.
Specific populations
ruthless politics in which
the categories of "citizen" and "democratic
repre
In the
sentation," once integral to national politics, are no longer recognized.
were
race
at
who
could
class
and
least
past, people
expect a
marginalized
by
of support from the government,
modicum
either because of the persistence
of a drastically reduced social contract or because
they still had some value
as part of a reserve army of unemployed
labour. That is no longer true. This
new form of biopolitics
state of class and
is conditioned
by a permanent
are subject to conditions
racial exception
in which
"vast populations
of life
upon them the status of living dead" (Mbembe 2003, 40), largely
conferring
invisible in the global media, or, when disruptively
present, defined as redun
and dangerous. Within
this wasteland
of death and dispos
dant, pathological,
are
to
whole
what
Bauman
calls
ability,
relegated
Zygmunt
populations
"social
homelessness"
(2004,
13).While
the rich and middle
classes
in the
States maintain
United
lifestyles produced
through vast inequalities of sym
bolic and material
social protec
capital, the "free market" provides neither
are poor, sick, elderly, and margin
tion and security nor hope to those who
state of the those who
the increasing perilous
alized by race and class. Given
are poor
to reexamine
in America,
it is crucial
and dispossessed
how
functions
within
the
rise
neoliberalism
and
simultaneous
biopower
global
states
of security
around cultural (and racial) homogeneity.
This
organized
task ismade all the more urgent by the destruction,
politics, and death that
followed
Hurricane
Katrina.
In aMay 25, 2001 interview, Grover Norquist,
told National
for Tax Reform,
group Americans
head
of the right-wing
Mara
Radio's
Public
to abolish government.
I simply want to reduce it to
can
the size where
I
and drown it in the bathtub"
drag it into the bathroom
activist and practical strate
(Qtd. in Hertmann
2005). As a radical right-wing
been
instrumental
and successful in shaping
has
enormously
gist, Norquist
Liasson:
"I don't want
to "starve the beast," a metaphor
tax policies designed
for policies designed
to drive up deficits by cutting taxes, especially for the rich, in order to para
and dry up funds for many federal programs that offer pro
lyze government
HenryA. Giroux 183
saw his efforts pay off
for children, the elderly, and the poor. Norquist
in the
thousands of people, most of them poor and black, drowned
basin of New Orleans
and upwards of one million were displaced. Under
a decades-long
such circumstances,
official policy of benign neglect became
a market
rationalized
fundamentalism
in
through
malign neglect,
largely
tection
when
the cornerstone
of
striving of individuals becomes
that wages war against any
and democracy. This is a politics
social. And as Lawrence Grossberg
viable notion
of the democratic
points
an argument against
in neoliberalism
is fundamentally
out, "The free market
the self-interested
which
both
freedom
politics, or at least against a politics that attempts
rather than economic
terms" (117).
The
neoliberal
be understood
to govern
society
in social
to shrink big government
and public services must
in terms of those who bore the brunt of such efforts in
efforts
both
to
and in terms of the subsequent
inability of the government
Katrina. Reducing
deal adequately with Hurricane
the federal government's
is a decisive element of neoliberal
ability to respond to social problems
pol
New
Orleans
icymaking, as was echoed in a Wall Street Journal editorial that argued with
out irony that taxes should be raised for low-income
individuals and fami
lies, not
more
to make
available to the federal government
for
money
to
not
the
that
be
addressing
rectify
possibility
they "might
a
the
in
hatred
for
2002, 31). If
proper
(Qtd.
government"
Krugman
feeling
the poor can be used as pawns in this logic to further the political attack on
it seems reasonable to assume that those in the Bush admin
big government,
istration who hold such a position would
refrain from using big government
as quickly as possible to save the very lives of such groups, as was evident in
their needs
the aftermath
into
a
The
of Katrina.
an
ment?really
ed
but
steep
attack
decline
on
of
vilification
of the social state and big govern
non-military
aspects
tax
a massive
revenues,
of
translat
government?has
increase
in
military
spend
of poor Americans
immiseration
and people of color.
ing, and the growing
the Bush administration,
Under
Census Bureau figures reveal that "since
has dropped 8.7 percent
1999, the income of the poorest fifth of Americans
in inflation-adjusted
dollars . . . [and in 2005] 1.1 million were added to the
36 million
the number of
already on the poverty rolls" (Scheer 2005).While
to the combined
the poverty
line is comparable
living below
of
and
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas,
Arkansas, the Bush
populations
administration
chose to make in the 2006 budget $70 billion in new tax cuts
Americans
for the rich while
et al 2005).
$4.9 billion
slashing programs that benefit the least fortunate
(Legum
a
the
for
trillion
2007
includes
$2.7
Similarly,
projected
budget
in health funds for senior citizens (Medicare) and the
reduction
State Children's
support
Health
enforcement;
Insurance Program; a $17 million
cutbacks in funds for low-income
cut in aid for child
people with
disabil
184
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
in child-care
reductions
and development
for
for
low-income
defunding
housing
elderly; and an
back in student aid. In addition, the 2007 budget calls
to the rich and
lion dollars in tax cuts most beneficial
ities; major
block
grants; major
roll
unprecedented
for another
$70 bil
for a huge
provides
spending for the war in Iraq (Weisman 2006, A10).
While
President Bush endlessly argues for the economic
benefits of his
tax cuts, he callously omits the fact that 13 million
children are living in
in the United
than when Bush was first
States, "4.5 million more
poverty
increase
in military
(Scheer 2005). And New Orleans
inaugurated"
children living in poverty in the United
States
eracy
rate
in New
Orleans
before
the third highest rate of
illit
(Legum et al 2005).The
had
school
struck was 40 percent;
the
was
one
most
the
under
of
system
of Louisiana
residents lacked health
Scheer,
for the percentage
of people
and social critic, esti
in
people
living in dire poverty
the flood
embarrassingly
public
ill-equipped
19 percent
funded in the nation. Nearly
near
state
the
the bottom
insurance, putting
without
health
insurance. Robert
that one-third
the 150,000
to the flooding
in areas most damaged
left
elderly,
exposed
worse.
an
It
In
ironic twist of fate, one day after
gets
(2005).
by Katrina
the U.S. Census Bureau
Katrina hit New Orleans,
released two important
on
that
reports
poverty, indicating
(with a 21.6 percent poverty
"Mississippi
mated
Louisiana
of
a journalist
were
(19.4 percent)
rate) and Louisiana
New Orleans
(with a 23.2 percent
the
nation.
[Moreover,]
New
Orleans
are the nation's
poverty
is not
states, and that
poorest
is
12th
the
rate)
poorest city in
only
one
of
the
nation's
poorest
in poverty ghet
cities, but its poor people are among the most concentrated
tos. Housing
and the location
discrimination
of government-subsidized
to the city's economic
have contributed
and racial segregation"
housing
on politically
neoliberal
the
attack
Under
respon
(Dreier 2005).
capitalism,
sible government
has only been matched
by an equally harsh attack on social
nets
for the poor. And in spite of the massive failures of
and safety
provisions
from a soaring $420 billion
market-driven
neoliberal
policies?extending
to
deficit
the
of
schools,
underfunding
public health, community
budget
and
environmental
reigning right-wing
protection
programs?the
policing,
to pri
to "give precedence
continues
of the Bush administration
orthodoxy
over human lives and broad pub
vate financial gain and market determinism
lic values" (Greider 2005).
The
Bush
administration's
towards the essential role
ideological
hostility
in
services
and crucial infra
social
that government
play
providing
was
in the aftermath of
structure
for New Orleans
devastating
particularly
to 9/11,
Hurricane
Prior
Katrina.
the Federal Emergency
Management
as one of the three most
strike on New Orleans
listed a hurricane
Agency
should
likely
catastrophic
disasters
facing America.
The Houston
Chronicle wrote
in
HenryA. Giroux 185
scenario may be the
2001 that "[t]he New
Orleans
hurricane
of all" (Krugman 2005). And yet the Bush administration
consis
tently denied repeated requests for funds by the New Orleans Army Corps
cut the Army
of Engineers.
Ignoring such requests, the Bush administration
more
a
in
its
2002
than
half-billion
dollars
Corps' funding by
budget, leav
December
deadliest
for the levees that eventually burst. And in
the construction
ing unfinished
in
of
far
advance by experts that the existing levees
spite
repeated warnings
a
not
the Bush administration
could
4 hurricane,
in
withstand
Category
2004 rejected the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project's request
for $100 million,
instead a measly
offering
cuts in much-needed
the rich and massive
the Bush
more
tax
Huge
continued
tax cuts for
unabated
programs
putting the lives of thousands
in
of poor
in jeopardy. As David Sirota has reported, this dis
of efforts to build the levee infrastructure, coupled with
administration,
in the Gulf Basin
people
astrous underfunding
even
all the while
$16.5 million.
cuts
for
the
rich
and
less
revenue
for
the
states,
continued
Katrina
it almost impos
struck, making
right up to the time that Hurricane
to
in the Gulf region either
sible for governments
protect their citizens from
the impact of amajor hurricane or to develop the resources necessary for an
response plan in the event of a flood.
adequate emergency
President Bush did not address questions
about the lack of proper fund
he
for
dumb
in spite of overwhelming
the
levees.
and
evi
Instead,
ing
played
one
dence to the contrary came up with
of the most incredulous
sound bites
the breach of the levees (Rich
of his career: "I don't think anyone anticipated
In fact, Bush was briefed the day before Katrina hit and emphat
2005,10).5
of disaster officials
warned
that the levees could be
ically
by a number
course
breached?a
Bush
of
denied
later
2006,
(Husu andWeeks
position
of the press viewed Bush's remarks about the levees as indicative
Al). Much
to any information
of a president who was simply clueless and indifferent
to his own budget-busting,
that did not conform
ide
anti?big government
to
But
narrow
such
and
is
moral
indifference
linked
less
the
ology.
political
set of
mindedness
and rigidity of Bush's character than it is to a broader
biopolitical
tates who
commitments
lives and who
at work
dies
in a global system that increasingly dic
in the context of a rabid neoliberalism
and a
But it is more
than this still. The gov
morally
bankrupt
ernment's failure to respond quickly to the black poor on the Gulf Coast can
be related to a deeper set of memories
of racial injustice and violence, mem
an apartheid past and the present intensifi
ories that suggest a link between
now considered disposable.
cation of its utter disregard for populations
neoconservatism.6
186
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
a new form of biopolitics
in its current shape has produced
Biopower
the poor, the eld
marked by a cleansed visual and social landscape in which
a
common
fate of dis
the
and
criminalized
all
share
infirm,
erly,
populations
commu
in
from
view.
invisible
deindustrialized
Rendered
appearing
public
nities
far removed
of major
prisons
rundown
sections
from the suburbs, barred from the tourist-laden
in
interned
cities, locked into understaffed
homes,
nursing
bulging
in decaying
hidden
schools in
built in remote farm communities,
that bear the look of Third World
slums, popula
neighborhoods
tions of poor black and brown citizens exist outside of the view of most
of the American
the waste-products
Dream,
They have become
serve as an unwelcome
if not of modernity
itself. The disposable populations
social state no longer exists, the living dead
reminder that the once vaunted
now an apt personification
of the death of the social contract in the United
Americans.
social safety nets,
fallen through the large rents in America's
States. Having
on
a
reflect
bent
the
poor rather than
agenda
attacking
they
governmental
are
undermines
the
That
and
black
largely poor
they
attacking poverty.
nation's
to
commitment
color-blind
ideology.
Race
remains
the
"major
rea
treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country"
storms in our history
shamed us
(Krugman 2005, A27). One of the worst
In less than forty
into seeing the plight of poor blacks and other minorities.
as a largely,
the pristine
image of America
ruptured
eight hours, Katrina
a
after
theme
modeled
white middle-class
country
Disney
park.
son America
Underneath
neoliberalism's
corporate
ethic
and
funda
market-based
it the spaces in
and with
is disappearing
the idea of democracy
mentalism,
is produced
which
and nurtured. Democratic
values, identities,
democracy
common
the
and social relations along with public
spaces,
good, and the
are slowly being overtaken by a market
of civic responsibility
obligations
in which
it becomes more
and civic indifference
based notion of freedom
into social issues and collective
action or to
difficult to translate private woes
insist on a language
of sociality
notions
of all
of the public good. The upshot to the evisceration
in
is a sense of total abandonment,
fear, anxiety,
resulting
over one's future. The presence
of the racialized poor, their
and insecurity
needs, and vulnerabilities?now
visible?becomes
unbearable.
All
solutions
sense of safety, carefully
as a result now focus on shoring up a diminished
nurtured by a renewed faith in all things military.
are profoundly
solutions
values and military
Militaristic
influencing
of
American
from
life, ranging
every aspect
foreign and domestic
policy to
of public schools.7 Faith
the shaping of popular culture and the organization
in democratic
military-style
governance
uniformity,
and cultural
discipline,
pluralism
and authority
increasingly
gives way to
a powerful
with
coupled
HenryA. Giroux 187
nationalism
and a stifling patriotic
force of a genuine
have
the
inant
knowledge
power
democracy
or
all of which
correctness,
the average
that
by claiming
authority
to
see,
engage,
resist,
undermine
citizen
protest,
or make
the
does not
dom
accountable.8
Lost
spaces and public culture have been replaced with what
public
to Mirzoeff,
Mirzoeff
calls the modern
anti-spectacle. According
now
see and that
to
is
there
"the modern
dictates
that
nothing
anti-spectacle
Nicholas
instead one must
(2005,
keep circulating and keep consuming"
keep moving,
a
with
manufactured
culture
fear
of
16). Non-stop
images coupled
strip cit
to act as engaged social participants.
izens of their visual agency and potential
The visual subject has been reduced to the life-long consumer, always on the
all the while
discounts,
go looking for new goods and promising
travelling
in spaces that suggest that public space is largely white
and middle-class,
free
consumers
of both unproductive
and those individuals marked by the trap
and disability.
pings of race, poverty, dependence,
the logic of modernization,
Under
neoliberalism,
category "waste" includes no longer simply material
in the
those rendered redundant
beings, particularly
a
are no longer capable of making
that is, those who
to consume
and who
others
and militarization,
the
goods but also human
new global economy,
are unable
living, who
for the most basic needs
goods,
depend upon
dis
(Bauman 2000, 2003, 2004). Defined
primarily
through the combined
courses of character, personal responsibility,
and cultural homogeneity,
entire
are reified as prod
populations
expelled from the benefits of the marketplace
as
ucts without
to
most radical and
of
in
the
value
be
"leftovers
any
disposed
effective way: we make them invisible by not looking and unthinkable
by not
to
Even
when
young black and brown youth try
escape
thinking (2004, 27).
of disposability
the biopolitics
the seduction of eco
by joining the military,
nomic
com
is quickly negated by the horror of senseless violence
in
in
the
and
battlefields
and
and
streets,
roads,
pounded daily
Iraq
Afghanistan
concrete
in the form of body bags, mangled
made
and
bodies,
amputated
to be seen in the narrow ocular vision of the dominant media.
limbs?rarely
With
the social state in retreat and the rapacious dynamics of neoliber
security
the public and private policies
alism, unchecked
regulations,
by government
as bad business, just as the
in the public good are dismissed
of investing
notion of protecting
from
the
dire
misfortunes
of poverty, sickness, or
people
as
an
act
the random blows of fate is viewed
is now a
of bad faith.Weakness
true for those racial
is especially
sin, punishable
by social exclusion. This
at risk economi
and
who
been
have
groups
immigrant populations
always
and
have
such
become
groups
part of an ever
cally
politically.
Increasingly,
growing
prospect
army of the impoverished
of a decent job, productive
and disenfranchised?removed
education,
adequate
health
from
the
care, accept
188
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
able child
into
the
care services,
primary
and satisfactory
terror
of
agent
and
shelter. As
the state is transformed
concerns
corporate
democrat
displace
ic values, dominant
"power ismeasured
bilities can be escaped" (Qtd. in Fearn
dain for social values
and public
and
vidualism
acquisitiveness,
the nature of social obligation
undermine
a message
sends
by the speed with which
responsi
its pathological
dis
2006, 30). With
life and its celebration
indi
of an unbridled
the Bush
than
administration
does more
to
those
who
populations
and civic
are
responsibility;
and
poor
it also
nei
black?society
cares about, or needs you (Bauman 1999,68-69).
Katrina revealed
are: African
with
these individuals
clarity who
startling and disturbing
Americans
who
the poorest
sections of New Orleans,
those ghet
occupy
ther wants,
frontier-zones
created by racism coupled with
economic
inequality.
out of any long term goals and a decent vision of the future, these are
as Zygmunt
the populations,
Bauman
points out, who have been rendered
toized
Cut
redundant
in the age of neoliberal
and disposable
global
capitalism.
***
Katrina
reveals
remains
tarianism
that we
after
are living
the
storm
in dark times. The
and
clouds
hurricane
shadow
winds
a glimpse of its wreckage
and terror. The politics
is about more
and Mississippi
Louisiana, Alabama,
offering
affected
incompetence,
socio-economic
militarization,
polarization,
of authori
have
passed,
of a disaster
that
than government
environmental
scandal. Hurricane
Katrina broke through
the visual
disaster, and political
to reveal
blackout of poverty and the pernicious
ideology of color-blindness
the dire conditions
the government's
role in fostering
of largely poor
the hardships
incurred by the full
who were bearing
African-Americans,
at work
state.
in the racist, neoliberal
a
authori
occupy
space shaped by
tarian politics,
the terrors inflicted by a police
state, and a logic of dispos
social provisions
and the dis
ability that removes them from government
course and privileges
of the most
of citizenship. One
obvious
lessons of
wrath
of the indifference
Global
neoliberalism
and violence
and its victims
now
race and racism still matter
in America?is
fully operational
a
in
resides in the power and capac
which
"sovereignty
through
biopolitics
poor
11-12).Those
ity to dictate who may live and who may die" (Mbembe
to contribute
con
to the prevailing
minorities
of color and class, unable
Katrina?that
into the sinkhole of poverty
in desolate
and
ethic, are vanishing
and rural spaces, or in
enclaves of decaying cities, neighborhoods,
the Bush regime, a biopol
America's
prison empire. Under
ever-expanding
itics driven by the waste machine
of what Zygmunt
Bauman defines as "liq
sumerist
abandoned
uid modernity"
of
a
contemporary
registers
and
a new
savage
and brutal
authoritarianism.
racism as part of the emergence
HenryA. Giroux 189
the biopolitical
Any viable attempt to challenge
project that now shapes
American
life and culture must do more
than unearth the powerful
antide
mocratic
forces
now
that
and culture;
American
govern
economics,
education,
politics,
itmust
also deepen possibilities
of individual and collec
media,
tive struggles by fighting for the rebuilding of civil society and the creation
of a vast network of democratic
public spheres such as schools and the alter
in order to develop new models
native media
of individual and social agency
that can expand and deepen the reality of democratic
public life. This is a call
for a diverse
a
exhortation,
party," following
Stanley Aronowitz's
a
as
a
as
party that prioritizes
democracy
global task, views hope
precondi
to
tion for political
the
engagement,
primacy
gives
making
political more
and
the
of
the
of
understands
the struggle as
importance
pedagogical,
totality
it informs and articulates within
and across a wide
sites
and sectors
of
range
of everyday
and
social
"radical
and globally
life?domestically
movements
must
return
to
the
minded
Democratically
crucial
issue
of
how
citizens
race,
class,
to the suffering and hardships
the
of
and middle
color, and workingpoor, people
experienced
daily by
class people. The fight for equality offers new challenges
in the process of
a politics that directly addresses poverty, class domination,
and a
constructing
to strug
take seriously what itmeans
resurgent racism. Such a politics would
power,
and inequality
in America
contribute
over both ideas and material
and politically
relations of
gle pedagogically
as
at
affect
diverse
and
individuals
the
level
of
power
groups
they
daily life.
Such struggles would
combine a democratically
cultural
energized
politics of
a
a
at
resistance and hope with
politics aimed
offering workers
living wage
a guaranteed
standard of living, one that provides a decent
care to all residents of the United
and
health
States.
housing,
not
is
the
about
of
reduction
selected
of the
elements
Biopolitics
just
and all citizens
education,
of bare life or worse;
it is also potentially
about
a
new
to
and
life by linking hope
vision
the struggle for reclaim
enhancing
a language capable of translating individual
issues
ing the social, providing
into public considerations,
and recognizing
that in the age of the new media
the terrain of culture
is one of the most
important
pedagogical
spheres
population
to the necessities
through which
anism.
The
waste
to challenge
machine
the most
of
modernity,
basic precepts
as Bauman
of the new
points
out,
authoritari
must
be
chal
a new understanding
of environmental
lenged within
justice, human rights,
and democratic
with
its attach
(2000, 15). Negative
politics
globalization
ment
to the mutually
of
modalities
militarism
and
racial
segrega
enforcing
tion must
new
ance
if these
be exposed and dismantled. And this demands
that are both more global and differentiated.
But
forms of resist
struggles are
to
we
a
in
the
United
then
need
States,
emerge,
going
especially
politics and
one
s
to use the
of
that
takes
Hannah
Arendt
call
pedagogy
hope,
seriously
190
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
public realm to throw light on the "dark times" that threaten to extinguish
the very idea of democracy. Against
the tyranny of market fundamentalism,
unchecked
and ideological
claims to cer
militarism,
religious dogmatism,
as a crucial force in
tainty, an emancipatory
biopolitics must enlist education
the struggle
Central
over democratic
identities, spaces, and
to the biopolitics
is the
of disposability
the
and
powerlessness
atrophies
public imagination
sis. Consequently,
its policies
avidly attack critical
in an all-out effort to undermine
cultural production
ideals.
that abiding
recognition
to
leads
political paraly
at all levels of
education
critical thought, imag
To
confront
the force of a
ination,
agency.
significantly
new
in
service
the
of
the
authoritarianism,
intellectuals, artists, and
biopolitics
in
to
to the
various cultural sites?from
others
schools
education
higher
to secure the conditions
media?will
have to rethink what
itmeans
for crit
and
substantive
ical education
both within
and outside
of the schools.
In the context
of for
this means
commercial
against the corporatization,
fighting
to
of public schools. Higher
education has
be defend
mal
schooling,
ism, and privatization
the biopolitics
of racial exclusion,
ed in the same terms. Against
the univer
a
site
where
should
be
mutual
under
sity
dialogue, negotiation,
principal
to
for
and
the
and
students
respect provide
knowledge
standing,
experience
a
shared
for
differences
while
learn
space
affirming
develop
simultaneously
those
ing
shared
for an inclusive
democratic
necessary
and higher education must address with new
values
Similarly, both public
the history of American
society.
courage
in the United
slavery, the enduring
legacy of racism
its interface with
both political
nationalism
and the enduring
at work
in contemporary
fundamentalisms
and religious
society.
Similarly, racism must be not be reduced to a private matter, a case of indi
States,
market
and
and the broader
removed from the dictates of state violence
prejudice
of "taste, preference,
realm of politics, and left to matters
and ultimately, of
What must be instituted
consumer, or lifestyle choice" (Gilroy 2005,146-47).
is a critical and anti-racist pedagogy
and fought for in higher education
that
vidual
"breeds dissatisfaction with
the level
unsettles, stirs up human consciousness,
connects
and democracy
achieved thus far," and inextricably
of both freedom
the fates of freedom, democracy, and critical education
(Bauman 2003,14).
Hannah
Arendt
illumination,"
from the world
not
merely
a
once
and one
argued that "the public realm has lost the power of
result is that more
and more people "have retreated
and their obligations
space
where
the
political,
within
social,
it" (1955, 4).The
economic,
and
public
cultural
realm is
inter
connect; it is also the pre-eminent
is, a space
space of public pedagogy?that
are
are
where
cornmitments
and
choic
formed,
subjectivities
shaped, public
es are made. As sites of cultural politics and public pedagogy, public spaces
for critically engaged citizens, young people, aca
offer a unique opportunity
HenryA. Giroux 191
to engage
demies, teachers, and various intellectuals
for social empowerment.
that provide the conditions
waged
through the new media, films, publications,
range of other
Poster
has
argued,
It is especially
of cultural production.
forms
that
scholars,
teachers,
public
intellectuals,
crucial,
artists,
asMark
and
cul
of understanding
how the new media
construct
with
forms of literacy
multiple
technologies
subjects differently
means deploy
This
also
that engage a range of intellectual
(2001).
capacities
new
as
communication
such
of
the
Internet, camcorder, and
ing
technologies
tural theorists
take on
in pedagogical
struggles
Such struggles can be
and a
radio interviews,
the challenge
in political
and pedagogically
strategic ways to build protracted
a
and
of
reclaim
the
that insists on racial, gen
promise
democracy
struggles
new
The
is a powerful pedagogi
economic
technoculture
and
der,
equality.
cal tool that needs to be used, on the one hand, in the struggle against both
and the hegemonic
dominant media
ideologies
they produce, circulate, and
on
as
a
the
other
valuable
tool in treating men
and
hand,
and,
legitimate,
cell phone
as agents of change, mindful
of the consequences
of their actions, and
of
of
models
pursuing
truly egalitarian
utterly capable
democracy.
cannot be found in modes
The promise of a better world
of authority
a
renounce
the promise of democracy,
that lack
vision of social justice,
and
women
instead of dreams the pale assur
reject the dream of a better future, offering
ance of protection
terrorism. Against
from the nightmare of an all-embracing
is
of
this stripped-down
the
of
promise
public spheres,
legitimation
authority
in their diverse forms, sites, and content offer pedagogical
which
and politi
cal possibilities
within which
social
agency,
the social bonds of democracy, new spaces
for strengthening
to cultivate the capacities for critical modes
of individual and
and
crucial
opportunities
to
form
alliances
to
collectively
that expands
the scope of vision, operations
of
struggle for a biopolitics
a
and
the
of
democratic
institutions?that
is, biopolitics
range
democracy,
that fights against the terrors of totalitarianism.
Such spheres are about more
freedom
of speech; they are also sites that
than legal rights guaranteeing
demand a certain kind of citizen informed by particular forms of education,
a citizen whose
education
the essential conditions
for democratic
provides
to
Cornelius
flourish.
the
of
Castoriadis,
great philosopher
public spheres
not as a pri
argues that if public space is not to be experienced
democracy,
vate affair, but as a vibrant sphere in which
to
learn
how
people
participate
in and shape public life, then it must be shaped through an education
that
the
decisive
traits
of
and
all
of
which
shame,
courage, responsibility,
provides
connect the fate of each individual to the fate of others, the planet, and glob
In the aftermath of Hurricane
the
Katrina,
(1991, 81-123).
of
massive
calculus
differentials
and
market
power
biopolitical
iniquitous
relations put the scourge of poverty and racism on full display. To confront
al democracy
192
33.3 [Summer
2006]
CollegeLiterature
the dark times in which
the biopolitics
of disposability, we need to recognize
we live and offer up a vision of hope that creates the conditions
for multiple
and global struggles that refuse to use politics as an act of war and
collective
as the measure
is
markets
of democracy. Making
human beings superfluous
the essence
and democracy
is the antidote in urgent need
of totalitarianism,
of being reclaimed. Katrina
should keep the hope of such a struggle alive for
some
time
because
for
many of us the images of those floating bodies
quite
serve as an desperate reminder of what itmeans when justice, as the lifeblood
in the face of death.
of democracy, becomes
cold and indifferent
Notes
i
It is worth
Katrina
differ
and
the
phe"
Katrina
initially
it had
become
to be
addressed.
erage
of
politics
and
seemed
The
aspect
that
tragedy
enabled
of
Grace
Pollock
with
a brilliant
Eric
Klinenberg
service
social
ties
in many
that
tragedy
that matters
of
the
disaster
opened
it was
only
and the
because
and,
over
control
related
the way
to poverty,
Bill
the media
race,
and
in 1994, all levels of government
to
responsibilities
cases
they
the following
eds., Not
Holmstrom,
are not
racial
the
occurred
sup
and
class
negligence
on domestic
the
constructed
Iwant
inequality.
had
cov
state-man
the
to criticize
insight.
of the racial
state, see Goldberg
(2001).
analysis
out
in an interview
in In These Times
points
are a number
There
that
catastrophes
in the aftermath
that
event
until
class
for media
the door
are
paramilitary
suited
poorly
of
important
particularly
for
Sale:
works
event,
to thank
"Beginning
traditional
or
military
organizations?responsibili
to handle_[Moreover]
they
on
useful: Anatole
In Defense
that
have delegated
designed to operate behind closed doors, and much of the work
and not subject to public scrutiny" (Bleifuss 2005, 22).
found
and
natural
public
the
disaster,
criticism
race
of
in a way
dissent
words,
a natural
social
this
for
For
the Crime
the
the media
the government
had
less
in invoking
issues
particularly
and
of
the government,
soil,
as
Labeled
realm
political
articulate
Iraq and Hurricane
a "natural
catastro
of
perspectives
debacle".
In other
in themselves;
in
the
could
not.
could
coverage
incompetence
from
aftermath
"natural"
contrasting
"social
the war
of
coverage
the
removed
in the
to be
politicized
that
emerged
posed
from
man-made
ensuing
clear
war
the media
viewed
a domestic
ufactured
how
noting
when
of Public
the politics
of neoliberalism.
Anton, Milton
Goods
(Boulder:
are often
they do is classified
I have
Fisk, and Nancy
Westview
Press,
2000); Zygmunt Bauman, Work, Consumerism and theNew Poor (London: Polity,
1998); Ulrich Beck, Individualization (London: Sage, 2002); Pierre Bourdieu, Acts of
Resistance: Against theTyranny of theMarket (New York: The New Press, 1998); Pierre
Le Monde Diplomatique
Bourdieu, "The Essence of Neoliberalism,"
(December
1998),
Bourdieu,
Pierre
online:
http://www.en.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/12/08bourdieu;
the Tyranny
2,
of theMarket
Firing Back: Against
trans. Loic
Wacquant
(New
York: The New Press, 2003); Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and the
Global Order (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999); Jean Comaroff and John L.
Comaroff, Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism (Durham: Duke
HenryA. Giroux 193
University Press, 2000); Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural
Politics, and theAttack on Democracy (Boston Beacon Press 2003); Henry A. Giroux,
The Terror ofNeoliberalism (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2004); David Harvey, The
New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003); David Harvey, A Brief
ofNeoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Doug Henwood,
After theNew Economy (New York: The New Press, 2003); Colin Leys, Market Driven
Politics (London: Verso, 2001); Randy Martin,
Financialization
of Daily Life
Press, 2002); Neil
Smith, The Endgame of
(Philadelphia: Temple University
Globalization (New York: Routledge,
2005); Alain Touraine, Beyond Neoliberalism
History
(London: Polity Press, 2001).
Frank Rich notes the revealing similarity between George W
think
the
anyone
claim
"I don't
anticipated
think
anybody
breach
of
levees"
could
have
and
Condoleezza
that
predicted
these
is not
one
Fukuyama,
and
ship
in
argued
argument
the
stars
of
the New
made
being
he
can
only
York Times
that
take
an
(2005, 10).
critics
by
the neoconservative
and that "as both a political
Leninism
into
of
an
post-9/11
could
people
air plane and slam it into theWorld Trade Center." See Rich
This
Bush's "I don't
Rice's
on
the
has
recently
movement,
neoconservatism
Left.
jumped
resembles
increasingly
symbol and body of thought,
Francis
it has evolved
no
2006).
support"
longer
(Fukuyama
7something
See, for example, Gabbard and Saltman (2003) and Beger,
8
See Kohn (2003, 165-92) and Lutz, (2002, 723-35).
(2002, 119-30.)
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"Barbara
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Evacuees
Calls
Better
Off."
New
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September.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/national/nationalspecial/07
barbara.html?ex=1140498000&en=61560581b40ea782&ei=5070.)
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Giorgio.
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Heller-Roazen.
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Milton
Anton,Anatole,
Barry,
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of Public Goods.
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Dan.
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