Second Line Rescue: Improvised Responses to Katrina and Rita

"Don’t Get Stuck on Stupid": General Honoré as Culture Hero

62 A major concern expressed by people in the first few days after Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast was the perceived lack of competent leadership, the absence of someone in control. On the third day, Lieutenant General Russel Honoré arrived in New Orleans and took command of the federal military operations. His authoritative style in commanding his troops, his compassion toward the evacuees, and his refreshingly sharp directness of speech with the media soon raised him to the status of folk or culture hero. The context and the characteristics of General Honoré made this elevation inevitable. In “Some Varieties of Heroes in America,” Roger Abrahams defined a hero as “a man whose deeds epitomize the masculine attributes most highly valued within a society” (341–42). Whether or not folklorists support the idea of a normative model of heroic action in our culture, the “folk” recognize a hero when they see one functioning like what they believe a hero should be. General Honoré clearly met the perhaps unarticulated but not unknown cultural standards for heroic action. A hero in this context was a person whose deeds epitomize the attributes of MARCIA GAUDET “Don’t Get Stuck on Stupid” General Honoré as Culture Hero When a kingdom or homeland is threatened, the people pray for a savior or hero to appear to lead them. —Lord Raglan “Don’t Get Stuck on Stupid”: General Honoré as Culture Hero 63 leadership most highly valued within that culture as well as those attributes most desperately needed in the wake of the hurricanes—someone to take command, someone to lead, someone to give at least the appearance of being in control. In The Great Deluge, Tulane University historian Douglas Brinkley describes the devastation and hopelessness in New Orleans in the first few days after Katrina. He says, “a glimmer of hope appeared on Thursday in the form of Lieutenant General Russel Honoré . . . He gave the impression of a man not overwhelmed by the magnitude of the job at hand” (524), and “He had the kind of cool strength for which New Orleans had been longing for days” (525). General Honoré, commander of Joint Task Force-Katrina, was the perfect hero for post-Katrina New Orleans. He came to New Orleans as a three-star general in the United States Army in charge of all active-duty military personnel sent to the area, but he was part of the Louisiana cultural vernacular as well. Honoré’s response illustrates the kind of practical, effective actions that emerged from the people—finding solutions to solve immediate problems of survival in spite of potential violations of boundaries or protocol. People in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast perceived him as the native son, returning to his threatened homeland to lead his people out of chaos and devastation. The concepts of hero, folk hero, and culture hero differ not only among cultures, but within cultures as well. While the local people conceptualized as heroic what General Honoré was doing, they probably did not specify his actions as that of a “culture hero” or a “folk hero.” But, they had no doubt that he was a hero. Neither did the members of the media. Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor calls him “the Rudy Giuliani of the Gulf Coast,” comparing his performance with that of the mayor of New York City after the 9/11 terrorists attacks. A Survey USA poll of 1,200 Americans voted General Honoré “the most effective leader of the relief operation.” In USA Today, Donna Leinwand wrote: “Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, a Louisiana native, has become the symbol of New Orleans’ emergence from chaos to reconstruction.” The Washington Post described him as “The Category 5 General.” Jeff Duncan of the New Orleans TimesPicayune described Honoré as “Hurricane Katrina’s reluctant superstar.” Kyra Phillips of CNN hailed him as “large and in charge.” While General Honoré’s deeds were certainly important, it seems clear that more is involved in the elevation of someone to hero status than a series of actions (see, for example, Roger Abrahams and John Roberts). The question is—what is it that people saw in this particular situation 64 Marcia Gaudet and this particular person that so quickly made General Honoré, without question, a hero? Russel Honoré was born in Lakeland, Louisiana, in Pointe Coupee Parish , shortly after a hurricane in...