I remember running on top of the massive levee planted with trees and benches and walkways and delighting in the Mississippi, the EM-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-EYE—dark and sated, ugly. Here was the quintessential river on one side, New Orleans on the other. It was a magical couple of hours jogging through the city like that, from our little condo in the high grounded, quaint end of the French Quarter to the monstrous convention center, on past Magazine and to the Garden District. Before I left the city, I stood on the levee again and watched a cruise ship and paddleboat maneuver that vast canal, and I saw nothing through the particulate air—an iron bridge, trees, a bland river.

We always knew the inequity had just slipped under the skin. Any young student in any 101 sociology class learns that. But we accepted the silence anyway. Like, when the president takes responsibility for the slow response to the disaster we say that even if he didn’t mean it at least he a) made the gesture or b) did the smart thing. We don’t yet see the real consequences of meaningless gestures or outright lies. These might be, as in the case of the promises made after 9/11, unrealized, and it will also go unnoticed by most of us. But this, this racial inequity thing, we are well practiced in our dissociation. We say, Well, the lynchings and tortures have dropped off and we’ve got people sharing buses and drinking fountains and other public places, mostly. At least people have made the effort and we’ve got the right laws in place. We give this comfort to ourselves so that we don’t have to think about it anymore, or muster the energy to organize action. We go on with our individual lives, fighting individual battles for personal sustenance. Then, here it is: the roof blew off and exposed the diseased structure. Look how long we let it go.