WaPo: "Race and Class Frame Debate on Rebuilding New Orleans District"

[Nothing Without Hope]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/02/AR2005100201320.html
washingtonpost.com

9th Ward: History, Yes, but a Future?

Race and Class Frame Debate on Rebuilding New Orleans District
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 3, 2005; A01

http://media.washingtonpost.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-dyn/content/photo/2005/10/02/PH2005100201546.jpg

CAPTION: Steven and Jacqueline Robinson react to the sight of their home in New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward. Some are saying that the storied but flood-prone area should not be rebuilt. Photo Credit: By Michel Ducille -- The Washington Post Photo

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 2 -- No one here wants to say it aloud, but one day soon the bulldozers will come, shoving away big hunks of a neighborhood known for its poverty and its artists, its bad luck and its bounce-back resilience.

It is likely to be the largest demolition of a community in modern U.S. history -- destruction begun by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and finished by heavy machinery. On Saturday, firefighters put red tags on hundreds of homes deemed "unsafe," the first step in a wrenching debate over whether the Lower Ninth Ward should be rebuilt or whether, as some suggest, it should revert to its natural state: swamp.

A neighborhood tucked into a deep depression between two canals, railroad tracks and the Mississippi River, New Orleans's Lower Ninth has spent more of the past five weeks underwater than dry. Entire houses knocked off foundations. Barbershops and corner groceries flattened. Cars tossed inside living rooms. What remains is coated in muck -- a crusty layer of canal water, sewage and dirt. Mold is rapidly devouring interiors.

The question now is whether the Lower Ninth Ward, which was devastated 40 years ago by Hurricane Betsy, should be resuscitated again. The debate, as fervent as any facing post-hurricane New Orleans, will test this city's mettle and is sure to expose tensions over race, poverty and political power. The people willing to let the Lower Ninth fade away hew to a pragmatist's bottom line; the ones who want it to stay talk of culture and tradition.

(snip)

There remain many questions about why the Bush Administration cut funding so drastically that the vitally important levees were allowed to deteriorate to the point where the 9th Ward was flooded. It did not have to happen. And along with these questions are, inevitably, more about whether this situation was deliberate, a kind of "economic cleansing" that damaged or destroyed homes and happened to kill hundreds and displace thousands. Hard not to wonder when you read about how the wealthier people in that area and other GOPs expect rebuilding to exclude many of the poor. For example:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1817149
Thread title: HUD chief foresees a 'whiter' Big Easy ("never again...majority black")

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4921765
Thread title: LA Repub is trying to get DC GOP behind plan to keep poor Dems out of NOLA

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4696680
Thread title: Rich Whites Plot to Prevent Blacks from Returning to NO

And then there was Richard Baker, a 10-term Repub Rep from Baton Rouge. A Wash Post reporter overheard him gleefully telling lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
Thread title: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1768731

Clearly, the GOP welcome removing Dem voters who are poor from Louisiana in general and from New Orleans in particular. No wonder the plans to demolish the homes of the poor in the 9th Ward must be viewed with suspicion. Who is to say which homes really are structurally unsound and which are being labeled as such for political or economic reasons? There is no legal recourse under the laws that hold sway in New Orleans under FEMA, and FEMA has been notorious about not allowing eyewitness reporting of what they choose to do.

Throughout all of this, from even before the time that Katrina hit the Gulf Coast - for it was inevitable and the protective levees had been critically weakened by Bush Administration policies - the biggest losers have been the vulnerable poor.

[AnnInLa]

1. I hope you don't mind, but

I reposted your entire post in the Louisiana forum. The links are important, and I hope all visitors to that forum read all of the included material. Thanks!

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. YVW. Glad to help. The links would not work in the copied and pasted

version, but fortunately I still had time left for editing the post and so could copy the original text with the full URLs and HTML formatting commands. I've posted it in your LA Forum thread, which is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=155x2696
This way readers there could see the photo of the sorrowful couple and the URLs of the links will work.

I am concerned that no one is reading this in General Discussion. Of course it's primarily a Louisiana problem, but it's really a problem for ALL of us and it needs to be discussed instead of lost in silence. These people's homes are being destroyed and they have no recourse, no where to turn if they believe their home is actually structurally sound.

And then there is the "economic cleansing"...

I have to leave for a number of hours and I'm afraid that this post will simply disappear without being seen.

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. kick - this deserves more attention n/t

[NorthernSpy]

5. here's some more info and a possible resource...

Using a natural disaster as an excuse for expelling a population is a recognized abuse of human rights. The United States was represented on the UN Commission on Human Rights when the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were adopted without objection. We have upheld the application of these principles when other countries faced mass displacement. Now it's time for us to put our money where our mouths have been all these years!

Another poster here on DU pointed out this article. It discusses the Guiding Principles and the human rights aspects of the situation on the Gulf coast.


Also, I've learned that Francis Deng is the person to talk to about situations involving internal displacement. Deng is the UN Secretary-General's representative for the internally-displaced:

Francis Deng
Director of the Center for Displacement Studies; Research Professor of International Law, Politics and Society

Areas of Expertise:
Horn of Africa; anthropology; conflict resolution and negotiation; human rights; refugee and immigration policy; United Nations

Background and Education:
Serves as representative of the U.N. Secretary-General on internally displaced persons, co-director of the Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement and director of the SAIS Center for Displacement Studies; nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace; served as the ambassador of Sudan to Canada, the Scandinavian countries and the United States as well as Sudan’s minister of state for Foreign Affairs; fluent in Arabic and Dinka; J.S.D., Yale University

He's on the faculty at Johns Hopkins.

Definitely someone we should keep in mind as we decide what course of action to take.

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. This is important information. Dr. Deng's email address is on his web

page. All I can think to do is to email him asking if he is involved in protecting the displaced people of the hurrricane area and include a link to the article and this thread. If we at DU are going to do anything, we need to have some guidance and as you say, he does seem to be a good choice of a person to give it.

Any other ideas? Do you want to email him or should I? I do not have any legal credentials or knowledge of what is happening in New Orleans except from what I read in articles like the ones I've linked to in this thread.

Again, thank you for this information about Dr. Deng. Having it seems a quantum leap toward being able to DO something.

[NorthernSpy]

9. looks like we're making progress...

Anyone who wants to write to Dr. Deng (and anyone else who might be helpful) -- that would be great! The more of us who share our concerns -- and the more widely we share those concerns -- the better. I've contacted one group that works on issues of displacement, but I haven't heard back from them yet. Guess it might be time to go pester them again...

Also, it might be a good idea for us to start amassing all the relevant information that might be useful in making a convincing case for international scrutiny -- an info packet, of sorts. We could provide documentation of the false news and slanders that harmed the displaced; government failure to aid the flood victims; the refusal to invest resources in keeping the levees in good repair (and other instances of failure to protect); news reports of attempts to prevent the survivors from returning home; and basically anything else that would help Dr. Deng and others to understand the human rights situation on the Gulf Coast.

Guess we're brainstorming now. Everybody who has ideas or suggestions, by all means let's hear 'em!

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. Good idea. We need to put together a report on the monstrous acts of

the Administration before and after Katrina & Rita. There sure isn't any shortage of horrifying information on their "negligence" and deliberate blockage of aid or even witnesses.

[Dancing_Dave]

6. Is anyone sending LEGAL aid to NOLA?

Someone needs to stand up for the rights of those being driven out of their neighborhoods!

[Bridget Burke]

8. Here's another viewpoint from the Houston Chronicle....

NEW ORLEANS - On the corner of Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue, in a section of the Garden District spared by flooding but chewed by wind, a banner stretches across the facade of a battered red building.

"Do not condemn," pleads the banner, hanging above a sidewalk littered with brick and stucco from the building's collapsed third floor.

Fearing an aggressive approach to storm cleanup, Stephen Sonnier hung the sign to protect the beloved building that houses his flower and antique shop. His banner only underscores the determination of preservationists to save as many of New Orleans' homes and businesses as possible.

www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3380752

(May require free registration. Or use Bugmenot.)

Architects & preservationists want to save as many old structures as possible. And they want to build new ones that do not violate the spirit of the old. They are concerned about neighborhoods beyond the Garden District, too.