Nothing Stops Mardi Gras

From ZNet:

Adding to the emptiness, Calliope and Magnolia, two public housing developments in the neighborhood that were mostly undamaged, remain deliberately empty; most residents have not been permitted to return.

In fact, this week our at-large city council representative, Oliver Thomas, declared publicly that many of the residents should not be allowed to return. Reinforcing the stereotype that people are poor because they don’t want to work, Thomas stated, "There's just been a lot of pampering, and at some point you have to say, 'No, no, no, no, no,” and added, "we don't need soap opera watchers right now."

At the same meeting, Nadine Jarmon, the appointed chief of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) declared Thomas’ position reflected their policy, adding if “they don't express a willingness to work, or they don't have a training background, or they weren't working before Katrina, then (we’re) making a decision to pass over those people.” These statements were made while, six months after the hurricane, thousands of undamaged units sit empty, thousands more homeless New Orleanians face eviction from FEMA hotels on March 1, and tens of thousands of renters that lived in damaged homes have no where to move to, and no governmental officials seem to care if they come back. In the midst of this crisis, Thomas, two other council members, and the chief of HANO blamed the victims. What about single parents and caretakers? What about the elderly, injured or disabled? Don’t they deserve housing, even if they don’t have training or an extensive job history? Why are only public housing tenants asked if they intend to work?

At a recent demonstration organized by New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team (NO-HEAT), former residents of the St Bernard Housing Development, many of them visiting for the day from their exile in Houston, expressed their desire to return to their homes. One resident proclaimed that he was going to move back into his home as a form of civil disobedience. While his action is inspiring, the idea that it requires civil disobedience to move back into your own undamaged home is profoundly disturbing. Is this what we’ve come to?

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While Mardi Gras goes on, for which I am truly happy, it is becoming increasingly clear that New Orleans' African-American population is getting royally dicked. It's very easy to dismiss this thought as being alarmist, paranoid, or conspiracy-minded, because most people don't really know what's actually going on in there. Indeed, even if you're in the Big Easy, odds are that you're in the parts of town that weren't terribly damaged, and simply don't see the inaction in the rest of the city. Rebuilding after Katrina is a wildly complex operation, and, obviously, those with power and money are working the system for their own benefit: some of those people simply don't care about New Orleans' black people; some actively want them out. But make no mistake about it, the Big Easy's African-American community, the city's cultural life blood, are being driven out. Permanently. If things don't change right now, that's the city's future, lily white and Disney bland. Makes me sick.

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