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Black People Pushed Out
of New Orleans
by Andrew Pollack / March 2006 issue of Socialist Action
newspaper
In
mid-February a Republican-led House of Representatives committee lashed out
at Bush and homeland security chief Michael Chertoff for their response to
Hurricane Katrina, calling it “a national failure” and declaring that “all
the little pigs built houses of straw.”
Video
footage recently released by the Associated Press shows that Bush did not
ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug.
29. He then dismissed the warnings by federal officials of an impending
disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf area, assuring them, “We are fully
prepared.” Yet those in government
who have criticized the Bush administration had little different to offer.
Even
today, thousands are being evicted from their hotel rooms, rebuilding is
crawling along, and it is becoming increasingly clear that both parties are
determined to prevent most evacuees from ever coming back.
On
Feb. 7, storm evacuees in 4500 rooms paid for by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) were evicted, 20,000 more rooms were emptied on
the 12th, and 8000 more were to be emptied March 1. Several hotels in New
Orleans brought in armed security squads
to
intimidate evictees.
Some
evacuees were given $1800 for rent and told to find their own housing—a
pitiful sum with New Orleans’ skyrocketing rents and few vacancies. Many
will end up sleeping in shelters, in their cars, or in the street—some in
New Orleans and others, including those
who
had returned, in cities hundreds of miles away.
But
this supposedly was all for the evacuees’ good: FEMA told the press it was
“time for families to find a more permanent situation,” and said the
judge's ruling allowing evictions recognized “we're doing the right thing
for these people”. to get them out of hotels and into some decent
housing.'' Of course, “these people” don’t agree.
The
judge himself said, “I'm not sure if I'm serving justice but at least I
know I'm following the law." Meanwhile,
tens of thousands of house trailers rented by FEMA sit empty in holding
areas. In Louisiana, 60 percent of 90,000 trailer requests have not been
met. (In Mississippi, 35,000 of
about 40,000 requests have been met, due to the greater clout of the
state’s
Republican
elected officials.) In protest at this delay, members of the St. Bernard
Parish Council (near New Orleans) took three trailers and gave them to residents.
The
day of the evictions, Chertoff was yukking it up at with state emergency
officials, according to the Associated Press. “Looking for a strategy to
prevent disasters like Hurricane Katrina? Try regulating the weather,”
joked Chertoff. “It seems the problem we have in this country is, we either
have too much moisture or too little moisture, depending on whether
you're
on the coast or in the interior. If we could average it out, we could
prevent some of the disasters we've been faced with.”
If
the problems of evacuees were a joke to Chertoff, they didn’t exist in the
mind of his boss. In mid-January, Bush returned to New Orleans and declared,
“New Orleans is reminding me of the city I used to visit. … It's a heck of
a place to bring your family. There's a little bounce in people's step.”
A
tour of the city’s devastation, which Bush avoided, would have shown that most
of the tens of millions of tons of debris have not been cleared; the
majority of residents have not returned; many neighborhoods are still
uninhabitable—without water, and working street or traffic lights, or
electricity.
Unemployment
is at around 25 percent; levees as vulnerable as ever; and most fire
stations and public transport are out of commission. FEMA can’t even keep track
of the diaspora population, with its estimates varying by hundreds of
thousands since the storm.
Most
schools, businesses, and hospitals remain closed. Cases of stress-related deaths and post-traumatic stress
disorder are soaring. Local governments and schools have laid off thousands
of workers and face bankruptcy for lack of taxes.
The
few schools reopened are mostly charter schools, and when public schools
reopen there will be new work rules stripping teachers of their collective
power. The bosses clearly hope to
use this crisis to smash public-sector unions.
After
months of being prevented, often at gunpoint, from seeing their homes to
assess the damage, homeowners are finding it next to impossible to get rebuilding
loans. Most public housing remains vacant, despite suffering little damage.
Returning renters are finding their furniture on the street and strangers
in their apartments.
All
the above is disproportionately suffered by majority-Black neighborhoods.
The effect of these conditions is a vicious circle in which factors preventing
return are used as an excuse to keep evacuees out so that a leaner, meaner,
more profitable city can be rebuilt.
Gentrification plans
In
December the Urban Land Institute proposed the city’s size be cut in half,
and that redevelopment be postponed for hard-hit areas until they proved
they could be rebuilt. Most of the targeted areas are Black even though
some white areas were equally damaged or are as susceptible to future
storms.
The
basics of the plan were adopted by the Bring Back New Orleans Commission,
appointed by Mayor Ray Nagin and headed by real estate magnate Joe
Canizaro, a major Bush donor and ULI leader. The City Council’s unanimous
rejection of the plan was ignored.
The
Commission did much of its work at closed meetings held without even some
of its own members, including the head of the City Council. Those in the
know included Canizaro, shipyard magnate Don Bollinger, and Dan Packer,
head of local utility Entergy Louisiana.
Canizaro
and friends found open forums unhelpful as they “discourage[d] an honest
debate over the tough issues of race and class that lie ahead” and became “gripe
sessions.”
A
New York Times story on the Commission headlined “All Parts of New Orleans
Included in Rebuilding Plan,” admitted that neighborhoods that do not “attract
a critical mass of residents … will probably not survive.” Half of a
neighborhood’s residents have to come back for it to be ruled “viable,” and
in the meantime there would be a moratorium on rebuilding.
By
August all homes will be destroyed in “unworthy” neighborhoods even if
individual homes are structurally sound. And the plan counts on a Catch-22 to
ensure most targeted areas end up in developers’ hands: the current lack of
services, jobs, and aids mean many Black neighborhoods won’t have the time
or resources to prove their “viability.”
The
unelected Nagin Commission proposed an unelected board to run the city’s
economy, modeled after similar boards which took over New York in the 1970s
and others currently doling out money to corporations there for post-9/11
rebuilding (even if it’s happening far away from the “ground-zero” World
Trade Center site). This board will arrange for bond issues, which will
enrich wealthy bondholders, and the revenue from which will go to
developers and other corporations.
Amidst
the booing and shouting in open meetings to discuss the plan, a commonly
heard phrase was “over my dead body.” Coming in for special buse besides Canizaro
was Entergy’s Packer, who took offense at complaints that few Black
neighborhoods had power restored (the low power recovery rate resembles
that in Iraq). "I'm not going to sit here and take that,"
he
snapped.
But
Entergy LA will come out OK: its far-from-bankrupt parent company gave it
$200 million and is shuffling assets between states to avoid Louisiana
taxes—and it has threatened to double rates if it doesn’t get more federal
aid.
Urban
League President and former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial described the
proposal as a "massive red-lining plan wrapped around a giant land
grab." The Associated Press called it “the biggest, most brutal urban-renewal
project Black America has ever seen.”
This is happening in the city with the highest rate of home-ownership
among Blacks and the deepest roots of any Black community in the U.S.
Today’s
gentrification has bipartisan roots. In the 1990s, Clinton touted the
“redevelopment” of the city’s St. Thomas neighborhood, as residents were evicted
in favor of upscale housing and stores, and a Wal-Mart. Behind this plan
was none other than the ULI, and one of its beneficiaries, to the tune of
tens of millions, was a developer named Joseph Canizaro.
During
the storm most Black residents were forced out of town—while most whites
stayed nearby. Local activist Malik Rahim called at the time for nearby housing
to facilitate return and for access to rebuilding jobs (which author Mike
Davis points out was the case after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when
victims housed in nearby tent cities were hired at union scale for
reconstruction).
On
the other hand, Louisiana Republican Rep. Richard Baker gloated that God,
through Katrina, had “finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans.” A
French Quarter landowner said, “The hurricane drove poor people and
criminals out and we hope they don’t come back. The party’s finally over
for these people and now they’re going to have to find someplace else to live.”
Others
used the Commission’s “objective’ critieria to oppose the right of all to
return, including Nagin Commission members Alden McDonald, CEO of the
city's largest Black-owned bank, and Carl Weisbrod, head of real estate for
Manhattan’s Trinity Church, one of New York’s biggest landlords.
Sean
Reilly, a member of the state’s Louisiana Recovery Authority, said,
"Someone has to be tough and tell the truth. Every neighborhood will
not be able to come back." Similarly, Michael Liffmann of Louisiana State
University said, "There are parts of New Orleans not fit for human habitation.
They never were and never will be.” But he admitted: “These are as much
social
calls as they are scientific ones.” And you know who makes those calls
under capitalism!
Said
The New York Times, “The nation cannot rebuild everywhere in New Orleans,
nor should it. … The fact that generations have lived on the same plots of
land cannot define the rebuilding process. Some of the blocks farthest
below sea level should be turned into parks to allow better drainage.”
Yet
in January Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco visited the Netherlands “to learn
how the Dutch created the huge flood-control system that protects a land
much farther below sea level” (21 feet for the Dutch versus three to five
feet in Louisiana).
And
what about low-lying Wall Street? New York City issued post-Katrina warnings
on what to do in a hurricane, citing the city’s near misses. But while Wall
Street is a moral swamp, no one suggests literally returning it to the
swamps.
For
centuries, buildings have been constructed in flood plains—and technology
allowed them to remain there safely despite rising waters. In some parts of
the world, including coastal areas and wetlands in the United States, it is
common to place houses on stilts. In
areas of the Netherlands that may be subject to flooding, houses are being
designed to be able to float on top of the water—like houseboats.
Certainly, similar solutions could be devised for New Orleans, if need be.
The
Black community as a whole has the right to decide whether their neighborhoods
are rebuilt on the original sites, or relocated to nearby areas that are less
ecologically sensitive. But before they make the decision, they must be
given full information about the dangers of remaining in the original area,
as well as the alternatives.
Furthermore,
whether or not they decide to move, they must be given full say in
determining the outcome of rebuilding efforts, so that the new
neighborhoods contain well-built, comfortable houses and all the other
facilities (schools, shops, recreation centers, public transit, industries,
etc.) that are necessary to restore and enhance community life.
Mayor Nagin’s role
Said
The Wall Street Journal, “[Mayor Ray] Nagin has emerged as the leading
advocate … for Bush's post-Katrina agenda, helped along by a private dinner
aboard an aircraft carrier.” Nagin came out for the White House’s
"Gulf Opportunity Zones" (i.e., business tax breaks)—all the while
saying that he would "build a levee system around the White
House" if legislation didn't get moving.
This
helps us understand Nagin's "chocolate city" remarks—and the reaction
to them. He declared on Martin Luther King Day that New Orleans would once again
be a “chocolate [i.e. majority-Black] city.” The media accused him of being
racist, but they surely knew he was just covering his behind with
constituents outraged at his support for the developers. He soon
apologized,
saying, "everybody's welcome."
Not
surprisingly, his other message that day—that God was upset with Black
people for their alleged vices—was ignored, and no apology demanded. Parallel to the Nagin Commission’s
efforts were those of the same Congressman Baker who had gloated about God’s
ethnic cleansing efforts. He crafted a bill to further God’s handiwork
through a corporation to buy
property
from desperate homeowners and sell it to developers, and to give tens of
billions to banks with “troubled” mortgages. Baker made clear he wanted to prevent
banks from ending up “with billions of dollars worth of worthless property
on their books.”
Even
the 60 percent of their equity that homeowners would get would be on prices
already discounted by decades of redlining. Neither Baker nor Nagin have anything
to offer renters in their plans.
Bush
said that even Baker’s bill was unneeded: why set up a government agency to
aid developers when the market can do it? This provoked a mighty whine from
Democrats, who had praised the bill to the skies. (The New York Times took
the opportunity once again to say
that
Black people should never have been living in low-lying areas, so they
shouldn’t expect to move back.)
While
complaining Mississippi was getting five times more aid per capita, Louisiana
politicians made sure their corporate friends got cut in. The Los Angeles Times
reported that lobbyists crafted the Louisiana Katrina Reconstruction Act of
Senators Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, and David Vitter, a Republican. The
bill included billions for lobbyists’ clients, including Entergy and canal
and highway construction firms. This was despite the fact that the Federal
Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act bars aid to for-profit companies.
The lobbying firms are, of course, bipartisan campaign donors.
With
the forced exodus of Black workers, bosses brought in Latino workers for
demolition and
reconstruction
tasks, many of them undocumented and all super-exploited. Many are housed
in homeless shelters or trailers, or even sleep in the street.
There
is no enforcement of health standards, no safety gear and many—perhaps
most—are not paid for weeks at a time, if ever. Also making out like a
bandit is Caterpillar, whose bulldozers are now used for house demolition
from Palestine to Louisiana.
Nagin
demagogically played the race card, saying, “How do I ensure that New
Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?”—although his developer friends
are the ones profiting from their exploitation.
Democrats
have railed at Bush’s supposed incompetence in handling the storm and its
aftermath just as they have over his Iraq efforts, but in both places their
strategic goals mesh. When evacuees came to DC in early February to
protest, Democrats said they planned
to
hold Bush “accountable.” “This is a scandal,” said Nancy Pelosi, and Barney
Frank decried “ethnic cleansing by inaction.” But they could have been talking
about their own inaction.
Labor
Party leader Adolph Reed pointed out that “Democratic liberals for the last
25 years have aided and abetted the right in shrinking and privatizing public
functions. ... The Democrats ... will cast as a problem of inadequate management
what is fundamentally the product of a combined commitment to vicious, reactionary
ideologies and plunder.”
Reed
also criticized movement groups who “tail along behind and seem incapable
of pushing beyond the limits” of the Democrats' Republican-Lite ideology, and
said “neither wing of the labor movement ... has come near probing at the
roots of the catastrophe in New Orleans in the last two decades of
bipartisan neoliberal policy.”
Grassroots resistance
On
Jan. 5, activists from Community Labor United and its offshoot, the Peoples
Hurricane Relief Fund, held a press conference to announce a lawsuit
against threatened home demolitions, then rushed to the mostly Black Lower
9th Ward upon hearing that bulldozers were already in action. A settlement
of the suit was reached after the city claimed they would give homeowners
more notice (until then notices were tacked on doors on houses from which
most residents had been barred).
CLU,
PHRF, and allied groups have held a People’s Assembly in Louisiana and
meetings in other cities for evacuees to try to keep them organized and
involved in deciding their own fate. They are working to stop evictions and
foreclosures, and are demanding emergency housing and the reopening of
public housing. They are also
demanding protection of evacuees’ voting
rights,
including access to the same kind of satellite voting centers set up for
Iraqis in the U.S. to vote in Iraqi elections. Needless to say, the city’s
rulers are hoping to profit not just in dollars but also at the polls from
keeping the city smaller, richer, and whiter.
A
new arm of the CLU, its Economic Justice Working Group, focuses on workers’
rights. Given the pitting of Black and Latino workers against each other, they're
looking to emulate the efforts of such groups as Black Workers for Justice,
which has been working for years to forge alliances with Latino and Asian workers
streaming into the South’s poultry, meatpacking, and fish-processing
industries. The EJWG has distributed Spanish-language flyers on workers’ rights,
health-clinic information, and other needs.
The
EJWG has also discussed how to support transit workers in their contract
struggle, in which bosses have demanded concessions for “recovery
purposes,” and have discussed new organizing in the hotel/service-sector
industry (a task that can piggyback on UNITE-HERE’s recently launched
nationwide campaign around hotel contracts expiring this year). The group noted the difficulties they
face, as “most people we need to be organizing around ... are in the
Diaspora”
or come back briefly and find they can’t afford to stay.
Katrina and Iraq
In
mid-January, former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite said he thought the U.S. “should
get out [of Iraq] now,” and tell the world that the personnel and money was
needed to rebuild from the hurricane. That’s been the argument of antiwar groups
ever since the hurricane. In
December, U.S. Labor Against War issued a major statement linking Iraq and
Katrina, and noted that the meager funds spent on reconstruction were
coming at the expense of social programs.
The
statement drew the parallels between lack of rebuilding and corporate
bonanzas in Iraq and the Gulf, and called instead for massive public works
in both areas, and for workers to be involved in decisions about their
future.
This
link is a theme for an action on the fourth anniversary of the war in
March, when a variety of veterans’ and military families’ groups, along
with Katrina survivor organizations, are organizing a 135-mile, five-day march
from Mobile to New Orleans around the demand: “From the Persian Gulf to the
Gulf Coast - Bring Them Home Now!”
The
response to Katrina shows once again the capitalist system’s ability to
profit from even the most catastrophic events. Rather than being the product
of the individual malevolence of Nagin, Bush, or any other individuals,
their response is rooted in the system’s drive for profit.
Thus
we see the same exact behavior in countries struck by the 2004 tsunami,
where victims are being kept from their homes by gun-toting thugs working
for developers. The UN reported on Feb. 1 that in India, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, the Maldives, and Indonesia, governments "have stood by or
been complicit as land has been grabbed and coastal communities pushed
aside
in
favor of commercial interests."
There’s
certainly no lack of money available for a genuine reconstruction of the
kind we outlined in our pamphlet on Katrina (see ad on this page). In
addition to the trillions wasted on war, there are huge sums closer to
home. In early February, for instance, Gov. Blanco threatened to block oil
and gas leases worth hundreds of millions in royalties to the federal
Treasury
unless the state received its "fair share."
This
is on top of the hundreds of millions that it was recently revealed the oil
and gas companies were already cheating the Feds out of, and the report by ExxonMobil
of its annual profits, the biggest ever for any U.S. company. With
increasingly dire and frequent warnings from scientists about global
warming and the catastrophes it will cause, we can expect this
scenario
to be played out over and over again.
Revolutionaries
have always warned that the world had “socialism or barbarism” as its
options, and pointed to economic crises and wars as leading to the latter unless
we achieved the former. Now we can add environmental catastrophes to the
list, and must educate and organize ourselves to fight against our bosses’
efforts to put the price of those catastrophes
on
our backs, and against the system that gives them the power to do so.
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