>> Notes From Inside New Orleans
>>
>> by Jordan Flaherty
>>
>> Friday, September 2, 2005
>>
>> I just left New Orleans a couple hours ago. I traveled from the
>> apartment I was staying in by boat to a
>> helicopter to a refugee camp. If anyone wants to examine the
>> attitude of federal and state officials
>> towards the victims of hurricane Katrina, I advise you to visit one
>> of the refugee camps.
>>
>> In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway,
>> thousands of people (at least 90%
>> black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal
>> barricades, under an unforgiving
>> sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus
>> would come through, it
>> would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of
>> the barricades, and people
>> would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus
>> was going. Once inside (we
>> were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them -
>> Baton Rouge, Houston,
>> Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations. I was told that if you boarded
>> a bus bound for Arkansas (for
>> example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge
>> would not be allowed to get
>> out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge. You had no choice
>> but to go to the shelter in
>> Arkansas. If you had people willing to come to New Orleans to pick
>> you up, they could not come
>> within 17 miles of the camp.
>>
>> I traveled throughout the camp and spoke to Red Cross workers,
>> Salvation Army workers, National
>> Guard, and state police, and although they were friendly, no one
>> could give me any details on when
>> buses would arrive, how many, where they would go to, or any other
>> information. I spoke to the
>> several teams of journalists nearby, and asked if any of them had
>> been able to get any information
>> from any federal or state officials on any of these questions, and
>> all of them, from Australian tv to local
>> Fox affiliates complained of an unorganized, non-communicative, mess.
>> One cameraman told me "as
>> someone who's been here in this camp for two days, the only
>> information I can give you is this: get
>> out by nightfall. You don't want to be here at night."
>>
>> There was also no visible attempt by any of those running the camp to
>> set up any sort of transparent
>> and consistent system, for instance a line to get on buses, a way to
>> register contact information or find
>> family members, special needs services for children and infirm, phone
>> services, treatment for
>> possible disease exposure, nor even a single trash can.
>>
>> To understand the dimensions of this tragedy, its important to look
>> at New Orleans itself.
>>
>> For those who have not lived in New Orleans, you have missed a
>> incredible, glorious, vital, city. A
>> place with a culture and energy unlike anywhere else in the world. A
>> 70% African-American city
>> where resistance to white supremacy has supported a generous,
>> subversive and unique culture of
>> vivid beauty. From jazz, blues and hiphop, to secondlines, Mardi
>> Gras Indians, Parades, Beads, Jazz
>> Funerals, and red beans and rice on Monday nights, New Orleans is a
>> place of art and music and
>> dance and sexuality and liberation unlike anywhere else in the world.
>>
>> It is a city of kindness and hospitality, where walking down the
>> block can take two hours because you
>> stop and talk to someone on every porch, and where a community pulls
>> together when someone is in
>> need. It is a city of extended families and social networks filling
>> the gaps left by city, state and federal
>> governments that have abdicated their responsibility for the public
>> welfare. It is a city where someone
>> you walk past on the street not only asks how you are, they wait for
>> an answer.
>>
>> It is also a city of exploitation and segregation and fear. The city
>> of New Orleans has a population of
>> just over 500,000 and was expecting 300 murders this year, most of
>> them centered on just a few,
>> overwhelmingly black, neighborhoods. Police have been quoted as
>> saying that they don't need to
>> search out the perpetrators, because usually a few days after a
>> shooting, the attacker is shot in
>> revenge.
>>
>> There is an atmosphere of intense hostility and distrust between much
>> of Black New Orleans and the
>> N.O. Police Department. In recent months, officers have been accused
>> of everything from drug
>> running to corruption to theft. In separate incidents, two New
>> Orleans police officers were recently
>> charged with rape (while in uniform), and there have been several
>> high profile police killings of
>> unarmed youth, including the murder of Jenard Thomas, which has
>> inspired ongoing weekly protests
>> for several months.
>>
>> The city has a 40% illiteracy rate, and over 50% of black ninth
>> graders will not graduate in four years.
>> Louisiana spends on average $4,724 per child's education and ranks
>> 48th in the country for lowest
>> teacher salaries. The equivalent of more than two classrooms of young
>> people drop out of Louisiana
>> schools every day and about 50,000 students are absent from school on
>> any given day. Far too
>> many young black men from New Orleans end up enslaved in Angola
>> Prison, a former slave
>> plantation where inmates still do manual farm labor, and over 90% of
>> inmates eventually die in the
>> prison. It is a city where industry has left, and most remaining
>> jobs are are low-paying, transient,
>> insecure jobs in the service economy.
>>
>> Race has always been the undercurrent of Louisiana politics. This
>> disaster is one that was
>> constructed out of racism, neglect and incompetence. Hurricane
>> Katrina was the inevitable spark
>> igniting the gasoline of cruelty and corruption. From the
>> neighborhoods left most at risk, to the
>> treatment of the refugees to the the media portrayal of the victims,
>> this disaster is shaped by race.
>>
>> Louisiana politics is famously corrupt, but with the tragedies of
>> this week our political leaders have
>> defined a new level of incompetence. As hurricane Katrina
>> approached, our Governor urged us to
>> "Pray the hurricane down" to a level two. Trapped in a building two
>> days after the hurricane, we
>> tuned our battery-operated radio into local radio and tv stations,
>> hoping for vital news, and were told
>> that our governor had called for a day of prayer. As rumors and
>> panic began to rule, they was no
>> source of solid dependable information. Tuesday night, politicians
>> and reporters said the water level
>> would rise another 12 feet - instead it stabilized. Rumors spread
>> like wildfire, and the politicians and
>> media only made it worse.
>>
>> While the rich escaped New Orleans, those with nowhere to go and no
>> way to get there were left
>> behind. Adding salt to the wound, the local and national media have
>> spent the last week demonizing
>> those left behind. As someone that loves New Orleans and the people
>> in it, this is the part of this
>> tragedy that hurts me the most, and it hurts me deeply.
>>
>> No sane person should classify someone who takes food from
>> indefinitely closed stores in a
>> desperate, starving city as a "looter," but that's just what the
>> media did over and over again. Sheriffs
>> and politicians talked of having troops protect stores instead of
>> perform rescue operations.
>>
>> Images of New Orleans' hurricane-ravaged population were transformed
>> into black, out-of-control,
>> criminals. As if taking a stereo from a store that will clearly be
>> insured against loss is a greater crime
>> than the governmental neglect and incompetence that did billions of
>> dollars of damage and
>> destroyed a city. This media focus is a tactic, just as the eighties
>> focus on "welfare queens" and
>> "super-predators" obscured the simultaneous and much larger crimes of
>> the Savings and Loan
>> scams and mass layoffs, the hyper-exploited people of New Orleans are
>> being used as a scapegoat
>> to cover up much larger crimes.
>>
>> City, state and national politicians are the real criminals here.
>> Since at least the mid-1800s, its been
>> widely known the danger faced by flooding to New Orleans. The flood
>> of 1927, which, like this
>> week's events, was more about politics and racism than any kind of
>> natural disaster, illustrated
>> exactly the danger faced. Yet government officials have consistently
>> refused to spend the money to
>> protect this poor, overwhelmingly black, city. While FEMA and others
>> warned of the urgent impending
>> danger to New Orleans and put forward proposals for funding to
>> reinforce and protect the city, the
>> Bush administration, in every year since 2001, has cut or refused to
>> fund New Orleans flood control,
>> and ignored scientists warnings of increased hurricanes as a result
>> of global warming. And, as the
>> dangers rose with the floodlines, the lack of coordinated response
>> dramatized vividly the callous
>> disregard of our elected leaders.
>>
>> The aftermath from the 1927 flood helped shape the elections of both
>> a US President and a
>> Governor, and ushered in the southern populist politics of Huey Long.
>>
>> In the coming months, billions of dollars will likely flood into New
>> Orleans. This money can either be
>> spent to usher in a "New Deal" for the city, with public investment,
>> creation of stable union jobs, new
>> schools, cultural programs and housing restoration, or the city can
>> be "rebuilt and revitalized" to a
>> shell of its former self, with newer hotels, more casinos, and with
>> chain stores and theme parks
>> replacing the former neighborhoods, cultural centers and corner jazz
>> clubs.
>>
>> Long before Katrina, New Orleans was hit by a hurricane of poverty,
>> racism, disinvestment,
>> deindustrialization and corruption. Simply the damage from this
>> pre-Katrina hurricane will take
>> billions to repair.
>>
>> Now that the money is flowing in, and the world's eyes are focused on
>> Katrina, its vital that
>> progressive-minded people take this opportunity to fight for a
>> rebuilding with justice. New Orleans is
>> a special place, and we need to fight for its rebirth.
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------
>> Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn
>> Magazine (www.leftturn.org). He is not
>> planning on moving out of New Orleans.