5 years later, note our common humanity

It's been five years since Hurricane Katrina turned the streets of my beloved hometown of New Orleans into an array of devastating rivers. I was there a week after the hurricane killed hundreds, destroyed homes and historic buildings and eroded everyone's confidence in government.

It's as if life has been divided into two parts, pre-Katrina and after-Katrina, because nothing has been the same since. Hurricane Katrina was an equal-opportunity destroyer. She didn't care if you were white or black, lived in a lakefront mansion or in public housing in the lower ninth ward. She cared only if you were in her way.

Since I was a little girl, I've worried about my family being scattered and unreachable, and, even worse than that, of disappearing altogether.

Within hours of Katrina reaching landfall, my worst childhood fear came true. I didn't know where anyone was. I didn't know if they had survived, had fled or were trapped in their attics awaiting rescue. Within hours, my family was strewn over eight states and 14 cities, but I didn't know that until days later. It was a miracle, midwifed by the rescue workers or strangers on the scene helping folks escape the floodwaters, that they survived. They remain my heroes. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.

This past weekend marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It will always be a solemn occasion. I marked it this year by doing renovations. My family is now in clean, green, mold-free houses in the city of jazz. Their future is hopeful, even if it lacks the trappings of history. We move forward without the pictures of our childhood, or the stuffed animals lovingly saved for nostalgic value. We move forward unencumbered by physical reminders of the past yet forever shaped by it.

We move forward knowing it was two white guys on a green boat from Shreveport who managed to save my Dad, Lionel, and a sister and her family. So don't tell me Katrina was about race. It wasn't. Katrina hit at the end of the month. Anyone who's lived paycheck to paycheck knows that the end of the month is the hardest. In all this discussion of Wall Street versus Main Street, we've forgotten a whole class of people: those who live on the back roads near the train track or dead-end streets that rarely get their trash picked up. On that day, everyone who stayed behind or simply could not afford to leave had to deal with the truth: They were at the mercy of others.

The government, at all levels, failed in many ways, one of which was evacuating the people who couldn't evacuate themselves. But it wasn't about race - it was about poverty. Poor people of all backgrounds and colors suffered.

In the wake of Katrina, people tried to draw battle lines and make false distinctions. If Katrina did anything good, it was to remind us of our common humanity. We are all at the mercy of Mother Nature. Black, white, rich and poor, we all exist because Mother Nature hasn't decided to wipe us out yet.

On the fifth-year anniversary of Katrina, my mind turns to Pakistan and the tragedy that is unfolding there. According to CNN.com, "Over three weeks, Pakistan's floods have affected more than 17 million people, leaving some 4 million homeless. An estimated 6 million people are in need of emergency shelter, of which just over 1 million have received tents or plastic tarps."

It's difficult to wrap your mind around those numbers, and even more difficult to wrap your heart around them. How can tragedies like this happen? Why? What can we do? What are we supposed to learn from this?

I don't have many answers beyond "donate money to a worthy cause," but I have one: Remember our common humanity. We spend so much time focused on the trivial, superficial divisions that separate us - like race, class, gender and religion - that we forget we are first and foremost, human beings.

In disaster, all that is unimportant falls away. We forget the pictures and stuffed animals, and we remember the family. We forget cars and houses and gadgets, and remember humanity. Disaster gives us priorities. It is the one gift she gives as she takes everything else away.

There is one thing you can do for New Orleans. Don't mourn for us: Celebrate with us. Come back, hungry, thirsty and ready to dance. Celebrate our resilience. The spirit of New Orleans can get beaten and battered, but it cannot be broken. Come back and tap your foot to the jazz beat that floats on the air and be grateful.

Like the world champion New Orleans Saints, The people of the Gulf coast, the region itself will always be indomitable.

© 2010, United Feature Syndicate