Katrina's Hidden Race War

CHECK THIS OUT!!!!!!!!!

The Nation has a new investigative report out that is frightening. It states that white vigilante justice tore through New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina... but no official investigation has ever examined the crimes.  Apparently, in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, White vigilantes hunted down Black men who entered Algiers Point and even tried to expel their Black neighbors. Yet, even with evidence, Louisiana's broken law enforcement agencies have refused to investigate these crimes!  

Seriously. In the two weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the media created a climate of fear with trumped-up stories of Black lawlessness. Meanwhile, an armed group of White vigilantes took over the Algiers Point neighborhood in New Orleans and mercilessly hunted down Black people. "It was great!" said one vigilante. "It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it."  As one African American victim tried to escape the vigilantes, he heard them yell, "Get him! Get that nigger!"  The man managed to get away.  Two other black victims were told by their assailants that they would be allowed to live on the condition that they told other Black folks not to come to Algiers Point. 

Here is the main article.

Here is an editorial on the subject.

Here is the tragic story of the murder of Henry Glover, 31.

Here is the Democracy Now! segment on this topic.

In the following video, reporter A.C. Thompson talks with innocent victims and ruthless vigilantes about his expose on shootings of black New Orleans residents fleeing the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and police misconduct after the storm:


Here is the reaction to this story by Congressman John Conyers.

This is an incredibly important, depressing and tragic story that should make anyone interested in justice angry. This needs further and formal investigation. To DEMAND JUSTICE, please go here and sign the online petition.

And, most importantly, SPREAD THE WORD.

Lest We Forget... Katrina Three Years Later

Please take some time away from the presidential election to reflect on the memory, meaning and ongoing tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, three years later. here are a few resources:

Magnum Photo reminds us what happened three years ago with a powerful photo essay.

Over at DailyKos, Bill in Portland Maine has put together "the Hurricane Katrina Hall of Shame." Well worth this walk down memory lane.

American Public Radio's "Speaking of Faith" put together a great audio story, with lots of resources, on poverty after Katrina.

Bill Quigley explores the "pain index" in New Orleans three years later.

Larry Blumenfeld writes about music, culture and recovery in New Orleans.

Kai Wright, in "Katrina, the Ultimate Party Crasher," reminds us how far we have yet to go in bringing back one of our nation's most beloved cities.

Lizzy Ratner explores the way New Orleans has redrawn the color line after Katrina.

Deepa Fernandes writes that three years on, homelessness looms for many of Katrina's victims.

Fernandes also writes about FEMA's toxic trailers.

Stuart Klawans reviews the new Katrina documentary, "Trouble the Water," a film which prompted N.O. mayor Ray Nagin to walk out.

Black Agenda Report suggests we are in "the age of Katrina," not the age of Obama.

Here is a will.i.am-style Obama video using New Orleans great, Alain Toussaint's, classic, "Yes We Can Can":

Lower Ninth Fights Back

This is a good article from The Nation on the current state of things in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.

From the article:

The word "will" comes up constantly in the Lower Ninth Ward now; We Will Rebuild is spray-painted onto empty houses; "it will happen," one organizer told me. Will itself may achieve the ambitious objective of bringing this destroyed neighborhood back to life, and for many New Orleanians a ferocious determination seems the only alternative to being overwhelmed and becalmed. But the fate of the neighborhood is still up in the air, from the question of whether enough people can and will make it back to the nagging questions of how viable a city and an ecology they will be part of. The majority of houses in this isolated neighborhood are still empty, though about a tenth of the residents are back, some already living in rehabilitated houses, some camped in stark white FEMA trailers outside, some living elsewhere while getting their houses ready. If you measured the Lower Ninth Ward by will, solidarity and dedication, from both residents and far-flung volunteers and nonprofits, it would be among the best neighborhoods in the United States. If you measured it by infrastructure and probabilities, it looks pretty grim. There are more devastated neighborhoods in New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish, let alone Mississippi and the Delta, but the Lower Ninth got hit hard by Katrina. Its uncertain fate has come to be an indicator for the future of New Orleans and the fate of its African-American majority.

For the full story, click here:
Rebecca Solnit, "The Lower Ninth Battles Back"

Katrina's Children

Recently, Spike Lee and Soledad O'Brien gave a group of kids in New Orelans cameras and asked them to record aspects of their lives, post-Katrina. The resulting stories illustrate the heartbreak and tragedy of this ongoing disaster, but also the beautiful persistence of life and love.

To check out the article and watch some of the kids' stories, go here:
Katrina's Children

Blueprint for Gulf Renewal

In July and August 2007, the Institute for Southern Studies surveyed 40 community leaders across the Gulf Coast about the state of rebuilding and what their message is to the nation in terms of an action agenda. The result was recently released as "Blueprint for Gulf Renewal: The Katrina Crisis and a Community Agenda for Action." This is an important study that deserves some attention. The following list of the five point action agenda reflects the ground-level insights of these leaders about the most critical barriers to recovery. While by no means exhaustive, together they represent a blueprint for a vibrant and just renewal of the Gulf Coast:

1. Launch a bold six-month agenda for Gulf Coast recovery
2. Bring people home
3. Create good jobs to rebuild the Gulf
4. Protect the Coast and its people
5. Overhaul disaster spending and oversight

For the sake of brevity, I have not listed the details under each action point, so it might seem simplistic the way I have it here. It isn't. Please check out the full report, which includes details about the five point action agenda, may be obtained at:

Blueprint for Gulf Renewal: The Katrina Crisis and a Community Agenda for Action

Support the "Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007"

Please watch this (3min 30sec)...

...then go here and take a look at Chris Dodd's "Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007":

Chris Dodd's "Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007"

Here is what ACORN, which has been working on the ground in New Orleans since the hurricane hit, has to say about the bill:

Two years after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, damaging a million homes in four states and destroying 300,000 residences, at least 106,000 mostly low-income families remain displaced.

Although billions of dollars have been allocated to house evacuees, little direct assistance has reached homeowners or created new rental housing.

Instead, ACORN - helped by hundreds of volunteers - has gutted 3,500 New Orleans homes without any kind of government assistance.

The Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act, S. 1668, cosponsored by Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.), would mitigate the problems faced by evacuees struggling to return and provide a variety of housing solutions necessary for the region’s renewal.

Almost three-quarters of the homes destroyed by the storm were affordable to low-income families. On the storm’s second anniversary, 65,000 families are still living in FEMA trailers and manufactured homes and 11,5000 families are continuing to receive Department of Housing and Urban Development disaster assistance, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The return of these families is vital to the Gulf Coast’s economic recovery.

The Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007, now in the Senate, would accomplish several important tasks to jump start progress. To help homeowners, the act authorizes funds to cover the Road Home shortfall, allowing homeowners to rebuild, and requires the Federal Housing Administration to use pre-hurricane credit histories so storm survivors can become homeowners again.

To help those who were renters before Katrina, the bill designates $1.7 billion in FEMA funds for rental housing, authorizes the repair and rehabilitation of public housing and supplies replacement housing vouchers. FEMA is required to transfer funds to HUD to provide rental assistance to families still in need of temporary housing, and the State of Louisiana is required to use $55 million for community development pilot programs.

Finally, the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act establishes much needed accountability so that funds are used properly, setting up monitoring and reporting requirements for FEMA, HUD and the states to prevent fraud, waste and abuse.

When Congress returns to Washington after Labor Day, the Senate should approve the Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007 to help residents finally return and begin rebuilding their lives.

Take action now to write your senators, tell them to vote for S. 1668.

To check out ACORN's full coverage of Katrina two years later click here!

...please write a letter and spread the word. This is the least we can do...

Ten Lessons from Katrina

This essay, by Bill Quigley, comes from Blackagendareport.com In the intro to the piece, Quigley writes:

The hi-speed catastrophe and no-speed recovery of New Orleans has provided us with unwanted lessons about the nature of the U.S. regime and the criminal class in power. The besieged citizens of the city have, by necessity, become thoroughly politicized, as they cling to home and hearth by their fingernails - while a great Diaspora languishes in scattered patches of the American vastness, internal exiles. Those who remain have undergone a crash course in what it really means to be a citizen of a country that respects only money. They have learned the imperatives of activism, self-reliance, and leadership-creation from the ranks.

Here is the full article:
Bill Quigley, "Two Years of Katrina: The Ten Most Important Lessons Learned"

Katrina: Two Years Later, the Tragedy Continues

Well, here we are, two years after the worst natural disaster in American history. Two years after Hurricane Katrina killed roughly 2,000 people and forced the dirty little secret of race and poverty in American society into the mainstream consciousness, at least for a few weeks. And, here, two years later, the Gulf Coast remains devastated... and poverty runs rampant across the nation. This is the shame of our society, domestically.

Over the next few days I will be posting what I think are some good materials on Katrina during this anniversary period. I hope you will take some time to check them out and I hope we might all meditate deeply on the implications of this ongoing disaster for our nation... and give some thought to what we might do to make a more compassionate and just society.

I am starting with an essay by Earl Ofari Hutchinson because it focuses on poverty, which is by no means a regional issue. It is a national epidemic, yet there remains no political will to do anything about it. For a nation so wealthy, this is pathetic... and immoral. Remember after Katrina hit, there was all this blabbering by politicians, business leaders and other "important people" about a new "War on Poverty"? Nothing ever came of it. The money that was appropriated, like much of the money that was thrown at Iraq, was wasted, or mismanaged, or "disappeared" altogether.

I live in Nebraska. Omaha is home to the third poorest black community in the nation and the poorest for black children. A full 60% of all African American children in Omaha live in poverty! That is not a typo. Sixty percent! I grew up in Cleveland, one of the poorest cities in the country. About one third of all people in that city live in poverty. And on and on and on...

In the article, Hutchinson writes,

"They all missed the real story and tragedy of Katrina: the naked face of poverty that shocked the world two years ago remains just as naked and shameful two years later. And Bush and the Democrats are to blame for it...

"The national soul searching about attacking poverty has evaporated. The nearly $100 billion that Bush says his administration has shelled out to aid the recovery effort has either been wasted on showy and ineffectual redevelopment, public works reclamation and retrenching projects, inflated construction contracts, or has flat-out been 'misappropriated' (some would say 'stolen')."

Here is the full article:
Hutchinson, "After Katrina - Poverty Is Still America's Shame"