Notes from Inside New Orleans

I'm reprinting Jordan Flaherty's article "From Inside New
 Orleans" because I thinkthe mass media's scapegoating
 of the people of New Orleans this last week must
be addressed.

Scientists had warned for years of dangers that
 a hurricane would flood New Orleans but all levels of
government from the city to the federal government
ignored the warnings.

 Doctors without medicines in
New Orleans were even"looting," or breaking into stores to
 get medicines for their patients who werein danger of
dieing without them. Also, the people who were starving,
 without water,or medicine in New Orleans said people broke
 into stores to get food and water--which people needed to
 live. Yet all week certain news commentators called this
"looting."
Julia


Notes From Inside New Orleans
>by Jordan Flaherty
>Friday, September 2, 2005
>http://www.leftturn.org/
>
>I just left New Orleans a couple hours ago.  I traveled
 from theapartment I was staying in by boat to a
>helicopter to a refugee camp.  If anyone wants to
 examine the attitudeof federal and state officials
>towards the victims of hurricane Katrina, I advise
 you to visit one ofthe 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 metalbarricades, under an unforgiving
sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard ove
 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
 (wewere 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 youup, 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.
>
>-----------------------------------------------
>
>Below are some small, grassroots and New Orleans-based resources,
>organizations and institutions
>that will need your support in the coming months.
>
>Social Justice:
>www.jjpl.org
>www.iftheycanlearn.org
>www.nolaps.org
>www.thepeoplesinstitute.org/
>www.criticalresistance.org/index.php?name=crno_home
>
>Cultural Resources:
>www.backstreetculturalmuseum.com
>www.ashecac.org/
>http://198.66.50.128/gallery/
>www.nolahumanrights.org
>http://www.freewebs.com/ironrail/
>http://www.girlgangproductions.com/
>
>Current Info and Resources:
>http://neworleans.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html