(Im)Possibilities

We forget how devastating mother nature can truly be. I have always been one who has wanted to sit down and understand it more, especially hurricanes as they have torn apart individuals in my family. Although I have never got myself to sit down and discover what I have been wanting to do, this class has led me to do exactly that. In this class we recently have discussed the most devastating hurricane, Hurricane Katrina. We watched a film “When the Levees Broke which showed us mini clips with the survivors of Katrina due to the poor build of these Levees, they explained their personal trauma and how the help was never given when it said it would be. People waited days for answers. New Orleans faced not only destruction of their homes and lives but issues economically, socially, and politically as well. These poor families and individuals were left with what was nothing but themselves and they were given nothing to overcome this life-changing experience. Prior to the evacuation there was no help given to the families, no resources. The individuals suffered something that never knew would take place in front of their eyes, yet it did. I was nothing but disappointed when hearing how President Bush reacted to this hurricane and not taking responsibility for what needed to be his. As I looked into many outside resources I found some interesting news explaining the political effects which stood out to me the most when discovering how Katrina affected New Orleans, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_effects_of_Hurricane_Katrina , from Wikipedia it states “The variation of weather and maintenance budgets makes finding the appropriate “threshold” difficult. Due to this “cost efficiency / diminishing returns” factor, and the weather forecasting ability the primary protection for any flood situation is the proper evacuation of flood-prone areas in a timely manner.” Which is only one of the many issues these individuals had to face. What was the beautiful town of New Orleans, turned into the unfortunate truth of nothing. We learned that New Orleans is who they are due to the people who live there, their strength and perseverance is what made New Orleans. The fight was nonstop, the long tiring days as they tried to put their lives back together were unbearable, yet they came together and did what had to be done for their community and themselves. The perseverance these individuals had, helped me relate to many course concepts as well as Roaches texts.

This semester we have been given many course concepts and resources when looking into Hurricane Katrina and connecting them to how people of New Orleans were treated like “waste”. Joseph Roach introduces that “Violence is the performance of waste” and how it “It must have an audience”, “Third, that all violence is performative, for the reason that it must have an audience even if the audience is only the victim, even if the audience is only God” (Roach, 41). Which makes perfect sense as we treat others as if they are waste and connecting this to Hurricane Katrina as the ones who suffered from this devastation were treated like waste by their own government, they failed them. As it was said, FEMA stopped contributing to the cost of their food, housing, and many other supplies needed. They were pushed to the side as they suffered. We can see violence in many ways, and we can connect it to waste in many ways as well. in this situation we are explaining how when violence takes place, we are hurting and harming one another which leads to treating them as if they are waste. Roach quotes “violence is never senseless but meaningful, because violence in human culture always serves, one way or the other, to make a point” (Roach, 1996). This stood out to me the most as we need to understand even though destruction, change and violence is devastating, it opens new doors and allows there to be change. Although, I only took negative from the film When the Levees Broke and all of the damaging stories that were told, I find it important to recognize how in the end there was light, the community came together and made what was a mess into teamwork and strength.

The two main course concepts Beth McCoy explained in class were memory and forgetting, which I have connected the most with what we have been reading and talking about in class. When we dive into these two course concepts we understand New Orleans will forever be stronger from what they have overcome, yet forgetting it is never an option. It will always be a memory as well. Understanding that this was such a traumatic event that could take place again, anywhere, this is where we need to remind ourselves that forgetting is not an option. We mentioned many other important course concepts, but these two specific ones have stuck with me when looking at Hurricane Katrina and during our readings, such as Cities of The Dead.

Throughout this class I have noticed how beneficial it is when connecting certain moments of life to different though processes. Which is exactly what Roach has demonstrated in his books, and this helps us individuals understand the society we live in and the way we handle waste. From coming into this class thinking violence was just strictly putting harm to something, I have now been informed that this goes much further than that, it is a performance with a ton of meaning following it.  It has been extremely interesting to connect the course concepts with outside situations from the past and present and I am intrigued to recognize even more information given from this course!

The NACE Competencies stands for the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This helps illustrate the skills that most people already have, but in reality, don’t know the power of these skills and how they impact one’s career within the workforce. There are eight career readiness competencies: career & self-development, communication, critical thinking, equity & inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology. When it comes to reading aloud Shakespeare’s The Tempest, there are many factors that contribute greatly to the process of each other’s understanding of the context of the play. Using a traditional text like The Tempest allows students to use their critical thinking skills to understand the text through a deeper meaning by analyzing an older text through modern meaning. Students can interpret an older text meant traditionally for a Renaissance English class, but this course gives students the opportunity to see a play about hurricanes and mythological beings/events to modern-day understanding of institutional discrimination seen within Hurricane Katrina. How ancient rituals and knowledge connect all human beings to each other like the burial rituals done within New Orleans. These understandings help students connect to a greater sense of knowledge. Through the utilization of NACE competencies such as critical thinking and teamwork, the class was able to collectively discern and discuss various connections within the dialogue of The Tempest to course concepts. For instance, Caliban is referred to in a dehumanized, earthly manner, often chastised by Prospero as wasteful. Prospero additionally prompts a natural disaster as a means of bringing about a renewal or cleansing in an attempt to free himself from previous worldly hindrances, an example of the expenditure concept we discussed during class. When it comes to reading something like The Tempest, reading aloud isn’t something that comes easy and natural to most. More often than not students read within their mind, but while reading aloud there begins to develop a level of professionalism that everyone is contributing to the reading as much as possible, putting in their best effort. This allows for equity and inclusion to build off of each other through teamwork. This shows the level of NACE Competencies usage within an English class that can occur using the basics of communication to work with others like one would within a workforce. So why does this matter? This is a question that may seem basic to most, but rather oftentimes overlooked. This concept of the NACE Competencies allows for an understanding of growth within your peers. We as college students are in different/similar paths of life, but are all learning the importance of how these skills can be used within the workforce and on our resumes outside the classroom. 

Written by: Elizabeth Gambino, Meredith Amodie, Katlin Mcneil,
Aidan Lewis, and Audrey Smeaton

“Waste” is a term that can reference a broad array of allusions. For some, waste can exist as a form of physical garbage, bodily excretions, or other tangible debris. And yet, for others waste holds a greater significance in representing concepts such as time, energy, thoughts, or even people. In an expansive sense, “waste” is something that has the ability to be spent, ridden of, abandoned, rejected, or discarded. Another implication of “waste” could be supported as something that could be sacrificed or expended with a sense of disregard and lack of care. Most importantly, however, I feel as though the strongest ability of “waste” lies within its capability of being forgotten.

People forget what they deem unimportant or unworthy of remembrance. This coincides with “waste” because the many insinuations of this term all reference the lack of merit that we deem our waste to have.  As for remembrance, memory is the process of retaining information, analyzing it, and storing it so that it can be brought to mind later. In Joseph Roach’s performance “Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance”, he explained how the process of “memory operates as both quotation and invention, an improvisation on borrowed themes, with claims on the future as well as the past” (Roach, 1996, pg.33). Therefore, memory is persuaded by the source and the environment from which the memory is being recalled; it is an easily influenced concept. He further explained that “memory circulates and migrates like gossip from location to location as well as from generation to generation, growing or attenuating as it passes through the hands of those who possess it and those whom it possesses”(Roach, 1996, pg.35). Comprehensively, he is reaffirming his idea that memory is interpretive and can be manipulated through interpersonal communication. It can be a biased misinterpretation of the past that can be wrongfully expounded in the future. Overall, our ability to forget “waste” and the misconstruction of memories create a threatening combination for our past, present, and future. 

Within his performance, Roach also referenced the consequential undertone that the term “waste” could carry, especially in regard to representing groups of people. With this, he explained the harm that is led to arise from the classification of people as waste, and he referenced both historical and more recent contexts in doing so. Historically, human societies have often turned to violence when one group of people identifies another group as “waste” that could be sacrificed, as they are considered inferior and worthless. Through this, he ultimately supported his claim that “violence is a performance of waste” (Roach, 1996, pg. 41).

Promptly after this claim, Roach clarified his definition of what violence truly entails; he explained, “first, that violence is never senseless but always meaningful, because violence in human culture always serves, one way or the other, to make a point; second, that all violence is excessive, because to be fully demonstrative, to make its point, it must spend things—material objects, blood, environments—in acts  of Bataillian “unproductive expenditure” (or Veblenian “conspicuous consumption”); and third, that all violence is performative, for the simple reason that it must have an audience—even if that audience is only the victim, even if that audience is only God” (Roach, 1996, pg.41). Comprehensively, this definition exploits the true intent of violence as a purposeful performance of brutality upon an “expendable” victim. Personally, I have always felt as though violence stems from an accumulation of internal anger that is eventually “taken out” on another through a physical or verbal act of rage. Furthermore, I have always believed that people tend to become violent against those that they deem inferior, as they are seen as unworthy of respect and civility. The collaboration of my thoughts on violence and Roach’s own personal and elaborate definition therefore both support Roach’s ultimate claim that “violence is a performance of waste” (Roach, 1996, pg.41).

As mentioned prior, groups of people have been categorized as “waste” throughout history and have therefore been considered to be expendable; consequently, suggesting that violence could be administered upon these groups. Such examples of historical violence have often resulted after a catastrophe, a word which Roach defines as a “…word rife with kinesthetic imagination, which carries forward through time the memory of a movement, a “downward turning,” redolent of violence and fatality but also of agency and decision.” (Roach, 1996, pg. 33).  Hurricane Katrina is an example of such a catastrophe that revealed a sense of violence against the people of New Orleans performed by national leaders and organizations of the United States. 

The tragedy of this category 5 hurricane and the violence that followed was depicted in Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke: a film that exposed the truth behind the events before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina occurred. Throughout the four acts of this film, Lee unveiled an array of people that were involved in or affected by Katrina and had them tell their side of the story. Many of these stories explained their mentality prior to Katrina, and then the hardships they faced as a result of such a severe storm. Most of these people referenced their frustration and helplessness during and after the storm’s outbreak, and many pointed their fingers at the same common enemies: the United States government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Following this hurricane, thousands of New Orleans residents were left stranded in the flooded city and forced to deal with starvation, dehydration, unbearable heat, and unsanitary living conditions. Over one thousand people died as a result of this tragic event, and yet, many feel as though this high death toll could have been avoided. 

Returning to Roach’s performance, the people trapped in New Orleans felt “expendable” by the U.S. government. There were countless preparations that should have been executed prior to the hurricane, especially knowing the damage that a category 5 hurricane is capable of causing. The main example of this was the structural incompleteness of the levee in the 9th ward of the city of New Orleans. For this, many residents blamed the federal government of Louisiana for their ignorance of the inadequate design and construction of the levee; and as a result, this levee was incapable of withstanding the force of the hurricane. In the book, Unfathomable City Solnit and Snedeker referenced the federal involvement in New Orleans in stating, “Like many urban Infrastructure systems in the United States, the city’s trinity of waterways has not been well maintained. People haven’t been willing to or able to pay up– and we haven’t adapted these systems to the problems we had” (Solnit, 2013, pg.156). From this, I, like many of the New Orleans residents, questioned: what is the true reason why the levees were inadequately constructed? Knowing that a majority of New Orleans’s geography lies below sea level, as well as its proximity to a quickly eroding coast, why wouldn’t the federal government prioritize the establishment of adequate flood protection? These were the questions that fueled so many residents’ frustrations following Hurricane Katrina, as preventative measures could have been taken to potentially have avoided the storm’s detrimental effects. This idea was further expressed in the lyrics of the Wood Brothers’ song, “River Takes the Town”, as they stated, “nothing’s ever for certain until the levee breaks down–The water comes in and the river–The river takes the town”.  Overall, as these precautionary measures were not taken to prevent flooding water from drowning the city, it could be argued that the U.S. government was willing to sacrifice the people of New Orleans. 

This argument was further supported by the aftermath of the storm depicted in Spike Lee’s film, whereas the people of New Orleans were abandoned in dehumanizing conditions and left helpless. Families were separated, dead bodies lay in the streets, people remained trapped in buildings, and thousands faced starvation and dehydration, and yet, where was the United States Government to provide relief? The Federal Emergency Management Agency was not sufficiently prepared for the severity of the storm and took multiple days to begin helping those in need. Furthermore, President Bush remained on his vacation following the hurricane, and waited three weeks to arrive and begin assisting the flooded city. This delay infuriated the many scared and desperate New Orleans residents. One example of this was expressed in a poem by Patricia Smith, where she wrote from the perspective of a  New Orleans woman in stating, “Looks like this country done left us for dead”(Smith, 2008, pg. 22).  Evidently, there should’ve been a greater sense of urgency for the government to assist the people of New Orleans. These people felt expended by a government that is supposed to protect and care for them. Their helplessness quickly transformed into frustration against the powers of the United States that had sacrificed them as “waste”.

Throughout history, Roach explained how we  “tend to place catastrophe in the past, as a grief to be expiated, and not necessarily in the future, as a singular fate yet to be endured”(Roach, 1996, pg.35). Yet, considering all of the hardships faced by the victims of Katrina, I argue that we should not allow this catastrophe to be left in the past. The hardships these people faced impact their lives to this day, and the United States government should still be held accountable for the wrongs they executed. In the context of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath, it is important that we do not forget the truth that the United States government was willing to sacrifice the people of New Orleans.  The government enacted violence against these residents as they abandoned them and left them helpless. The horrifying injustice of this catastrophe is something that cannot be ignored because this violence could be repeated again if another tragedy were to occur in an “expendable” city. As civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. once stated, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars”. With this, we must hold the United States government accountable for their consideration of people as waste and remember the true violence that the people of New Orleans underwent during and after Hurricane Katrina.

“Violence is the performance of waste.” I have probably read this quote from Joseph Roach’s “Echoes in the Bone” one hundred times trying to find what it means to me. Ultimately, it just means what it says. Violence emphasizes waste, it breathes life into it, it is a performance resulting from it. Waste, in this case, is something spent; it is something used then tossed aside like trash, something no longer wanted, and usually forgotten. Roach follows this idea by saying, “violence is never senseless, but always meaningful, because violence in human culture always serves, one way or another, to make a point…violence is excessive, because to be fully demonstrative, to make its point, it must spend things–material objects, blood, environments,” (41). What Roach appears to be saying here is that there is a cost to violence; there is a waste that comes with it, but it never comes without reason. 

This idea of waste ties heavily into the concepts that center around our course on hurricane stories. Our course concentrates on themes of forgetting, memory, origins, death, and waste, among others. With these in mind, over the last few weeks we have been watching Spike Lee’s docuseries, When the Levees Broke, about Hurricane Katrina’s effect on New Orleans. The series calls itself a “Four part requiem,” meaning that it is a call to the dead, or a way to remember what was lost. Throughout the episodes the survivors of Katrina tell us the beginning of the hurricane, the devastation during and following its destruction, and finally the beginning of the healing of New Orleans. All of this happens while continually memorializing the dead and the waste left in Katrina’s wake. This idea of a requiem makes the series itself a performance of the waste Katrina caused and left in New Orleans. Not only did Katrina cause waste in its destruction–houses, grocery and convenience stores being torn down and drowned–but it also in how the people of New Orleans were forgotten in their time of need. In When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee shows the living conditions New Orleaneans were put through following the hurricane. There was very little food and water, tight spaces with extreme heat, and terrible hygiene circumstances. They lived like this for days with no help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), before being evacuated to different states and separated from their families. This inconsiderate and forgetful treatment of the people of New Orleans following Katrina is a show of people being treated like they are nothing, a performance of waste. 

This being said, death, forgetting, and waste are not our only course concepts. New Orleans celebrates what is known as the Dirge and the Second Line. The dirge is like the requiem, a recognition of death. It is something mournful, something sad. The second line can be described as hope. It is the beginning of something new and optimistic. From the dirge we are brought to the second line and to our other course concepts such as origins and memory. After the hurricane, as people were returning to New Orleans, many of the survivors never forgot where they came from. New Orleans itself, and what it meant to them, was their home. The New Orleans culture and community is where they are from, it’s where they began, and that could never be destroyed. Upon returning, parades and funerals were held in memory of what was previously lost, as shown in When the Levees Broke. 

It is important to think of violence in this way for the very reason not to forget it. Remembering violence as something that carried any sort of meaning, makes it memorable, as Joseph Roach was trying to say at the very beginning. Keeping these things in mind–acts of remembrance, forgetting, origins, and waste–as we move through these hurricane stories in class will help to better understand how people survive these disasters and what they do after. Making a performance of what has been wasted, or treated like so, breathes life into the waste itself, and makes it unforgettable. 

Hurricanes are often seen as a destructive force, however; they can also be seen as a way to create new beginnings. In Joseph Roach’s “Echoes in the Bone,” he says: “amnesia as the inspiration to imagine the future.” (Roach 1) In this phrase, Roach is basically saying that in order to build upon the future, you have to fully erase the past. In class, we discuss death, sacrifice, and forgetting as major course concepts. Hurricanes serve as all three of these; bringing death, forcing sacrifice, and forgetting the way of life you had before everything was lost. Hurricanes are the thing that is ending creation and reset the narrative to bring change in life. 

To begin, focusing on death and renewal, Roach says: 

“Turner and others have hypothesized that celebrations of death function as rites of social renewal, especially when the decedents occupy positions to which intense collective attention is due, such as those of leaders or Kings.” (Roach 3)

In viewing death as a celebration, most people allude to the things that come after death. How they’ll either be “born again,” or in a “better place,” etc. Viewing death as a form of rebirth coincides with the idea of death bringing new beginnings. If we are talking about viewing death as a celebration in order to bring new beginnings, we are also discussing the dirge and second line. The dirge would be the hurricane itself: the sadness; and the second line would be the way of viewing the damage caused by the hurricane as a positive: a way to start a new life. According to Roach, the death of a leader is the most important role in the continuation of a community:

“‘It seems that the most powerful natural symbol for the continuity of any community, large or small, simple or complex, is, by a strange and dynamic paradox, to be found in the death of its leader, and in the representation of that striking event.’” (Roach 3)

This quote alludes to the idea of the dirge and second line, as well as death and renewal. In the stance of hurricanes, the hurricane coming in and destroying a community will in turn bring the community together as a unit. This is prevalent when you look at the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, and the way the people of New Orleans banded together after the disaster. 

When watching the film, “When the Levees Broke,” you can feel the pain coming through the screen. The people being interviewed in the documentary have lost everything in their lives, and all they have left is each other. The disaster that was Hurricane Katrina, brought death to over a thousand people, as well as bringing death to homes and communities; however, it brought the people left with nothing closer together as a community. There is nothing that can truly replace the damages caused by Katrina, or the lives lost, but the rebirth of the community in New Orleans stands alone. As Roach says: “Death, as it is culturally constructed by surrogacy, cannot be understood as a moment, a point in time: it is a process.” (Roach 4) Death is a process in the same way a hurricane being able to destroy everything in its path is a process. 

In, “When the Levees Broke,” the interviewees often criticize the government in regard to how they handled Hurricane Katrina. The article: “What Went Wrong in New Orleans? An Examination of the Welfare Dependency Explanation”, continues this same argument, saying that: “The main argument is that the incomplete pre-storm evacuation of New Orleans, which exposed thousands of residents to catastrophic flooding was largely a function of a culture of dependency.” (Brezina 5) When Katrina happened, the government could have seized the opportunity to do right by the people of New Orleans; especially since they had done them the disservice of not being prepared for the flooding in the first place. Instead, they left them with nothing but waiting lists and each other. (“When the Levees Broke”) They paraded on the news the tragedy that struck New Orleans, but never whole-heartedly tried to help them. I believe Roach puts it perfectly when he says:

“That is why performances in general and funerals, in particular, are so rich in revealing contradictions: because they make publically visible through symbolic action both the tangible existence of social boundaries and, at the same time, the contingency of those boundaries on fictions of identity, their shoddy construction out of inchoate otherness, and, consequently, their anxiety-inducing instability.” (Roach 4)

The government could have seized the opportunity for rebirth when Katrina struck, instead, they chose to watch the people struggle, waste away, and live homelessly. All these people had was each other, so they chose rebirth on their own accord. They took the violence shed upon them and turned it into a community effort to rebuild, without relying on the government to rebuild for them (even though the government definitely should have done this and not put them on mile-long wait lists). (“When the Levees Broke”) The hurricane caused the ‘death’ of their community, but it also caused the rebirth of their community. The violence that Katrina unleashed allowed the community to adapt together, and the violence that the government allowed to happen let the community realize they only had each other. Roach says:

“…first, that violence is never senseless but always meaningful, because violence in human culture always serves, one way or the other, to make a point; second, that all violence is excessive because to be fully demonstrative, to make its point, it must spend things–material objects, blood, environments–in acts of Batallian ‘unproductive expenditure’…and third, that all violence is performative, for the simple reason that it must have an audience–even if that audience is only the victim, even if that audience is only God.” (Roach 5) 

Violence is the act of intentionally causing harm; harm, in and of itself, is not beneficial or advantageous to an enterprise of any kind. Violence and the energy generated in order to execute those efforts are, understandably, perceivable as counterproductive and wasteful. Within Cities of the Dead, Joseph Roach provides us with the notion, “. . . violence is the performance of waste” (Roach 41). He supplies corroborations further supporting his idea, to paraphrase: violence is always meaningful because it is done for a certain purpose, all violence is excessive because it involves the act of spending in some capacity, and all violence is performative because there is always an audience. Roach’s development of this concept is beneficial for the class purposes of Hurricane Stories because it acts an illuminating agent, helping to clarify the course concepts that are being explored and providing the necessary scaffolding that allows for comprehension to transpire. Being aware of this conviction and having it in mind while interacting with the course materials permits us to explore the themes we encounter in greater depth and further investigate the meanings and significances of them. It prompts thinking and understanding that help to organize our thoughts surrounding the material and aid in the cultivation of analysis.

A concept that Roach’s notion is obvious in helping us explore is performance, the word is quite literally in his statement. Performance can have various interpretations by different people, it can include probably an infinite number of definitions based on the diverse considerations of what people deem to be qualifying of one. Violence being the performance of waste helps to deepen the understanding of performance itself because it leads to thinking about how violence is a performance and what constitutes a performance as well as the significance. There is intention behind violence and there is intention behind performance. People perform or put on a performance with a predetermined objective in mind. Performing is for a purpose, it is a way to express the message you want to convey in a manner of your choice. Not everyone will perceive a performance the same way and people will have different opinions on performances and how they influence. Within the documentary, When the Leeves Broke directed by Spike Lee, there are multiple scenes of celebrations and parades that take place in New Orleans. Parades are like a performance of celebration, their goal is to commemorate the event or day. As Professor McCoy discussed in class and the class notes, “. . . in Lee’s churn of New Orleans past and present, there are clips of people wearing blackface. They are part of the Zulu Krewe on the Carnival floats. These are Black people wearing blackface in order to send up white supremacy through mocking performance and thus to publicly take the public stage (i.e,. the streets) away from white supremacy. It’s important to acknowledge that not everyone agrees with what from the Zulu Krewe’s point of view is a good-faith performance” (McCoy, 2/13/2023).   The intent of this performance for the Zulu Krewe is empowering and a way for them to celebrate themselves and reclaim their history. Other people do not view the performance in the same regard, performances have the ability to mean different things to different people. Some performances can be viewed as a performance of violence; violence and performance are connected because you can both use performance in a way to be violent and your performance can have violent impacts. There are so many ways to put on a performance, laughing loudly to get someone to notice you could even be viewed as a performance. You’re putting on a show for a purpose. It is possible to convey almost anything through a performance, it acts as delivery tool for meaning. There is an always an audience to a performance, whether it be a giant theater or your mother. There will always be some type of reception to your actions. Violence requires performance because there is no way to express violence without it being experienced.

The theme of expenditure is also able to be furthered explored and given a deeper meaning with Roach’s idea in mind. Expenditure is the act of spending, when considering this almost anything can be spent in some form or another. Performing violence can involve any number of things to be spent depending on the type of violence that is taking place. Beating someone up spends energy, buying objects like guns or knives spends money, planning out an intent to hurt someone spends time. The actual act of performing the violence, as Roach states, is excessive; it requires something to spent. Excessive means unnecessary, to be viewed as wasteful. There is no real need for it, and there is no real need for violence. By instigating violence and putting on that performance, which as already discussed all violence is, you are wasting whatever resources are involved in that performance. It is not ethical to waste for the purposes of seeking to incite violence; it is not productive or contributable to a positive goal. Thinking of expenditure in terms of Roach helps to conceptualize what it means to spend something and consider the effects of those actions. In class, we watched the “Urban Garden” Steve Prince residency video. Within this we witnessed students work with artist Steve Prince to create a work of art that represented America as a garden, confronting the problems within society through drawing to promote thought and change. This community project was an act of expenditure, but for a constructive and positively impactful purpose. Students and himself spent the time to draw and come up with their creations and the messages they wanted to spend, someone bought the resources and materials necessary for the project to occur, and I’m sure a lot more was spent in the duration of setting up the entire experience. This demonstrates a useful and valuable expenditure. By exploring expenditure in terms of considering that wasteful expenditure occurs when violence is performed, understanding that there can be different forms with different intentions and outcomes also results from that exploration and allows for the appreciation of expenditure in a positive context. The community project displays how time, money, resources, etc., can be the opposite of waste. Having intentions to cause violence and then putting effort toward that is expending in a wasteful way, Roach helps to provide the tools to understanding this and the broader context of what expenditure can mean through his views.

Memory, as well, can be considered through the lens of Roach’s ideas on violence. Remembering moments, people, interactions can be small or large, seemingly important or unimportant. However, there are reasons why, even if unknown, that we remember. There are so many aspects that can be related memory, you could spend years of life figuring out and investigating all the different ways memory can act. Roach explains that memory and performance are connected, “Like performance, memory operates as both quotation and invention, an improvisation on borrowed themes, with claims on the future as well as the past” (Roach 33). Memory always surrounds us, people are constantly thinking about things that have happened, what they’ve said and how they acted, what other people have said and how they’ve acted. In your memory things may not always be clear, they might be blurry or hard to depict. Your memories influence you as a person and therefore your actions and how you perceive things. In this respect, it is clear to see how memory can be related to performance. Most likely you will remember when you preformed violence and most likely you will remember when violence was performed on you. It takes root in you, stays with you. The victims of Katrina will never forget the treatment they endured and the response to their tragedy. In When the Levees Broke, we see the victims as well as the administration that was involved, we hear both sides. A completely life altering and shattering event takes place, and it seems that the government that is supposed to support and care for them had barely any consideration for what they had experienced. The actual event of Katrina was traumatizing, severely detrimental, and absolutely unforgettable coupled with the aftermath response and in addition that influential figures like the former First Lady were sayings things like they were better off demonstrates how actions are so significant and can’t be forgotten and how performing violence will be remembered.

Almost any aspect of life can be connected to another in some sort of way or thought process. Roach’s concept on violence gives insight on how our actions matter and forces us to come to deeper conclusions and revelations about how and why actions are done, what that can mean, and how those actions have affects. Light is shed on our questionings and topics from his notion because, at least from my interpretation, what it basically boils down to is that what we do matters and should be thought out. It makes you consider the effects of anything on everything which can force a more considered perspective on relatively any concept.

In Joseph Roach’s Echoes in the Bone, he introduces the idea that “violence is the performance of waste.” There are many examples of this, both in the book and in real life. People can be seen as waste by others. This view of seeing others as waste allows people to commit violence against others without remorse. Throughout the history of human society, this idea of some people being beneath others because of race, gender, sexual orientation, social status, etc. allowed for unspeakable acts carried out by people onto other people and treated as normal or acceptable. The hoarding of resources can be seen as violence to people these resources are being withheld from. Roach also raises the idea that “all violence is a performance because it must have an audience.” Throughout this course, we’ve learned about hurricane Katrina and not just the devastating effects it had on the residents of New Orleans, but also the response of the United States government, or lack there of. The United States government’s utterly mediocre response to Hurricane Katrina and the damage it did to the city of New Orleans and its residents is an act of violence in itself, witnessed not only by the citizens of the United States but by many others around the world.

Violence can be seen as waste in that when violence is done to a person or thing, that person or thing becomes waste because damage has been done. The wasting of resources can also be seen as violence. When rich people waste tons of money on ridiculous things no one needs while others could have used that same amount of money on basic needs that they don’t otherwise have access to, that can be seen as violence. On the other hand, the rich may see poorer people as disposable or waste. This way of thinking has contributed to catastrophes across the globe. In one specific instance, this way of thinking of poorer people or people that are different as disposable or as waste had devastating effects on the victims of Katrina as the government and politicians watched as over a thousand people perished and refused to do anything about it because they saw New Orleans and it’s residents as waste.

While the entire city of New Orleans was under water politicians were seen vacationing. This blatant display of ignorance and apathy towards the situation in New Orleans is an example of the detriment done when others are seen as waste. Some politicians even going as far as to say that hurricane Katrina was a cleansing of the city. The waste of money and resources used in other areas that the United States government deemed more important than their own people was another example of the violence used against the people of New Orleans. The people of New Orleans have repeatedly expressed irritation at the waste of money being spent on the war in Iraq while residents of New Orleans continued to die as a result of the hurricane and the heat of the summer that followed. This waste of money was an act of violence against the people of New Orleans. This act of violence was a performance as the entire world was the audience that witnessed it. Hurricane Katrina destroyed countless lives but the poorly constructed safety measures, withholding of resources, and slow reaction of the United States government was the true cause of the catastrophe that came out of hurricane Katrina. Roach brings up the idea that the mistakes of our past follow us into the future. The poor construction of the levees was the past that followed New Orleans into the future and reeked havoc on residents living there. This poor construction of the levees ties into the idea of waste and the thought of human beings as waste. The United States government didn’t want to spend the money for the proper construction of the levees that would have protected New Orleans from category 5 hurricanes such as Katrina. They thought of the money spent as a waste and as a result left the levees unfinished and in turn left New Orleans residents unprotected.

The carelessness showcased by the United States government added to the death tole of Katrina. Without food and water the people that had survived the actual flood were dying. People were also dying because of the lack of shelter and the unrelenting heat that came after the storm. People were dying on the streets waiting for help that would never come. With houses destroyed, people were left homeless. The government promised them trailers, these trailers did come but it took way longer than it should have. By ignoring the suffering of the New Orleans residents, the government wasted the lives of well over a thousand people. Even today the effects of Katrina can be felt in New Orleans. This is another ghost of the past haunting the present. While people continue to come to New Orleans from all over the to celebrate Mardi Gras and experience the rich culture that survives there, the suffering of the residence is very much ignored by the rest of the country and the world. Many places have yet to be completely rebuild almost two decades later. While the initial catastrophe is over the effects of it and the government’s lackluster response continues to effect not only the residence of New Orleans but the rest of the country as people saw just how faulty our government truly is.

In Chapter 2 of Joseph Roach’s Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance, Roach examines how performances of all kinds are ways of keeping the memories of the dead, whether they are loved ones or strangers, alive.  The city of New Orleans, an important location in circum-Atlantic history because of its role in the slave trade and because of the cultures and communities that have risen there, is a main area of focus for Roach.  The name of the chapter, “Echoes in the Bone” is borrowed from the play An Echo in the Bone by Jamaican playwright Dennis Scott that shows how a ritual the allows spirits of the dead to enter their past homes or even the body of a living person (Roach 34), and that “…the voices of the dead may speak through the bodies of the living” (34).  Performance is so deeply rooted in New Orleans and circum-Atlantic culture that not even the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 could stop it.  This connection of performance and a natural disaster is deepened by Roach’s statement that “violence is the performance of waste” (42) and by the course concepts of memory, performance, sacrifice, and violence.

A performance is not worth the trouble if it is not seen by someone.  Roach further elaborates on his “violence is a performance of waste” statement by writing, “To that definition I offer three corollaries: first, that violence is never senseless but always meaningful, because violence in human culture always serves, one way or the other, to make a point; second, that all violence is excessive, because to be fully demonstrative, to make its point, it must spend things- material objects, blood, environments- in acts of… “unproductive expenditure”…; and third, that all violence is performative for the simple reason that it must have an audience- even if that audience is only the victim, even if that audience is only God.  A natural disaster like a hurricane or flood could be counted as a performance in this case, even though scientifically a natural disaster is not sentient no matter how many poems personify them, and they do not have the sense to perform anything meaningful or senseless.  If anything, the meaningfulness in this violent performance of a storm comes from the victims, how through their decision to stay or inability to leave they witnessed the loss of everything they knew.  Going off that, the victims were the firsthand witnesses of this event, along with others watching the broadcasts and getting updates.  The documentary When the Levies Broke directed by Spike Lee contains footage from before, during, and after the storm, as well as many interviews of people ranging from politicians, celebrities, and regular citizens all with different stories to tell.  It gave viewers a look at the destruction Hurricane Katrina caused and what led to it.  It showed what had to be spent as well and what there was an excess of.  1,392 people perished in the hurricane and its aftermath, hundreds of miles of city and neighborhoods were leveled and then flooded when several of the levies around the city broke.  Hurricane Katrina caused a colossal waste of human life and resources, all under the watching eyes of the world.

The course concepts of memory, performance, sacrifice, and violence all come together to form an effigy.  Roach defines an effigy as “a noun meaning a sculpted or pictured likeness.  More particularly it can suggest a crudely fabricated image of a person, commonly one that is destroyed in his or her stead, as in hanging or burning in effigy” (36).  An effigy is often created to destroy through violence, sometimes in front of witnesses as a performance of anger or protest.  The creator of an effigy makes it to remember the person it is of, either after they have passed or to remember the feelings they have associated with that person, and the likeness is sacrificed by the creator to make a statement or to be cathartic.  Roach notes that “Effigy’s similarity to performance should be clear enough: it fills by means of surrogation a vacancy created by absence of an original,” (36) meaning that an effigy takes the role of what it is meant to represent.  I remember in the last part of When the Levies Broke when a group of people were doing a funeral procession for Hurricane Katrina, some men were carrying a coffin that was labeled “Katrina.”  They sang and danced their way down the street while others watched or joined in.  This act was made to represent Hurricane Katrina being dead and about to be buried, no longer a physical threat but still something that lingers in memory.  It feels symbolic to lay Katrina to rest in a way that so many people were after the destruction, at one point in the documentary Spike Lee interviewed a woman whose daughter drowned in the flood waters and was allowed at the funeral.  There was still a procession with singing, but it was very solemn.  Roach elaborates on the connection between effigies and death, writing, “No doubt that is why effigies figure so frequently in the performance of death through mortuary rituals—and why the ambivalence associated with the dead must enter into any discussion of the relationship between memory, performance, and substitution” (36).  A performance is not wasted if it has an audience, but things created through death are waste products of violence.

There are even times when people are treated as waste after an act of violence.  The aforementioned victims of Hurricane Katrina are an obvious example, with people being found in wrecked houses or floating in water alongside other waste, but the living can be seen as waste too.  Many hurricane survivors and victims were scorned for not choosing to leave when the evacuation order came, even though they did not have the means to leave on their own and depended on others for help.  All throughout When the Levies Broke there were claims that the people of New Orleans were forgotten by FEMA and the United States government, as well as statements that the flood waters washed away filth from the city, the filth being people.  Katrina victims were being framed as criminals, looters, and lazy for not waiting for help and for not helping themselves even though they had no means to.  The victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina were unwillingly made into performers and the people standing by were the audience.  People were treated as statistics, not as a living person that died but as something to be cleared away with the rest of the wreckage.  When a person is treated as waste, it is time to reevaluate the systems that led them to be considered as waste.

Possibly the most recognizable performances that New Orleans puts on is Mardi Gras, a vibrant celebration before the church season of Lent begins.  Street maskers are popular performers there, such as the New Orleans Baby Dolls and Zulu Krewe.  However, an article from 2017 states that 46 tons of Mardi Gras beads were found in a drain after the celebration.  This performance led to 46 tons of waste that took an immense toll on the environment and water systems of the city, an act of violence that was not intended to be so that produced waste.  A hurricane does not intend to perform violence, it is simply formed one day, moves several miles over land and sea, and then dissipates.  While it unintentionally performs violence that results in waste, it is people that can do it intentionally.  Roach’s belief that violence is the performance of waste rings true in the course concepts of performance, memory, violence, and sacrifice and in the actions of humans that we have studied in class.