HomeThe Concern of All

Bulletin of the Office for Diversity American Library Association ISSN 1554-494X

MAY - JUNE 2006
SPECIAL ANNUAL 2006 ISSUE

FROM THE FIELD

The Concern of All
Finding Common Ground in New Orleans
Gwendolyn Prellwitz

Sometimes at midnight, in the great silence of the sleeping town, the doctor turned on the radio before going to bed for the few hours’ sleep he allowed himself.  And from the ends of the earth, across thousands of miles of land and sea, kindly, well-meaning speakers tried to voice their fellow-feeling, and indeed did so, but at the same time proved the utter incapacity of every man truly to share in the suffering that he cannot see. “Oran! Oran!” In vain the call rang over the oceans, in vain Rieux listened hopefully; always the tide of eloquence began to flow, bringing home still more the unbridgeable gulf… “Oran, we’re with you!” they called emotionally.  But not, the doctor told himself, to love or to die together – “and that’s the only way.  They’re too remote.” (Camus, 131)

Albert Camus’ La Peste explores the collective response to catastrophe through the story of a large city, Oran, isolated by an outbreak of bubonic plague.  The novel details the efforts of various central characters to alleviate and end human suffering in the face of ongoing tragedy.  One such character, Tarrou, volunteers to organize crews of sanitary workers to assist the overburdened doctors and government employees managing the situation.  In response to Tarrou’s efforts, the narrator remarks:

Doubtless today many of our fellow citizens are apt to yield to the temptation of exaggerating the services they rendered.  But this is narrator is inclined to think that by attributing overimportance to praise-worthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worse side of human nature.  For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule.  The narrator does not share that view. 
 Those who enrolled in the “sanitary squads,” … had no such great merit in doing as they did, since they knew it was the only thing to do, and the unthinkable thing would then have been not to have brought themselves to do it. Since plague became in this way some men’s duty, it revealed itself as what it really was; that is, the concern of all.
 But we do not congratulate a schoolmaster on teaching that two and two make four, though we may perhaps, congratulate him on having chosen his laudable vocation.  Let us then say it was praiseworthy that Tarrou and so many others should have elected to prove that two and two make four rather than the contrary; but let us add that this good will of theirs was one that is shared by the schoolmaster and by all who have the same feelings as the schoolmaster, and be it said to the credit of mankind, they are more numerous than one would think. (Camus, 124)

I’ve been reading these words as I prepare for Annual.  And, as I sat down to write about what it means for the profession, for the Association, for our Office and for myself as an individual coming to this conference in this city, I struggled with relating New Orleans to a town besieged by plague but I could not skirt the resonance and the relevance of these words.

The conditions in New Orleans, washed into light by wind and flood but existent long before hurricanes hit, reveal a plight in this city—one shared by many other cities—that is catastrophic.

I have always considered librarianship a laudable profession, a profession that knows that two and two equals four.  Even though I thought this before we made the decision to keep conference in New Orleans and before an encouraging number of individuals registered; the very act of bridging the gap between ourselves and this city, our willingness to see firsthand both the suffering and the perseverance of its residents, pays homage to the best side of human nature.  

But I also agree with Camus’ narrator that we do a discredit to ourselves by thinking such behavior is an exception.  For this reason I know that as we meet, work, and volunteer in New Orleans, we will be anything but mere sightseers.  When we see that nearly 40% of the community in New Orleans Parish earns under $20,000 per year and that the literacy rate is roughly 39%, we will understand the long-standing injustices faced by the residents of the lower income, African American communities. When we see the over 275,000 housing units that were destroyed and the slowness of efforts to clean up, repair and open livable housing, we will know that the only thing to do is to ensure that both the immediate needs of the community are being met and that long-term strategies to stabilize the community are initiated (“Common Ground”).

Moreover, as information professionals, after we leave we will know how better to banish ignorance and provide understanding, to reach out to all that share the same feeling, and to make sure that the inequalities and injustices—which lay a foundation shaky enough for disaster to turn swiftly and fatally into catastrophe—are the concern of all.

Works Cited

Camus, Albert.  The Plague. New York: Random House, 1948.

“Common Ground Collective”. 30 January 2006. Common Ground Collective. 12 May 2006. <http://www.commongroundrelief.org/mission_and_vision>

Gwendolyn Prellwitz is Program Officer, ALA Office for Diversity.

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