Grievances In New Orleans: A Blank Canvas For Activists To Paint Upon

With the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina having come and gone there has been several notable media insertions put forth to give us all a booster shot of the propaganda that the content creators sought to reaffirm in the minds of America and Americans.  In these bits there have been more indictments cast upon the nation and certain political targets than they have presented proof that New Orleans and the general area have learned that they are surrounded by powerful bodies of water seeking to drown everyone who lives in this artificially dry piece of earth where only the water control devices made by man keep this place from reverting back to its natural state.  The consequences of failing to respect the threat that surrounds them are abundant.

In these stories the theme is consistent:  The local people continue to struggle to be treated as "equal human beings".   The national and corporate interests who are their enemies


Tell Me More:  Black And Hispanic Laborers In New Orleans
In a recent report on the NPR show "Tell Me More" we learned that Black and Hispanic unskilled workers are being pitted each other.  Despite the fact that New Orleans is a majority Black city and dominated by one party - the villain described in the story were corporate interests and the actions of the Bush Administration that still smack these two groups.   We learned that the solution is for Black and Brown to form a LABOR MONOPOLY.  By these two groups colluding together they can obtain better wages for everyone.  The problem is that they story never mentions that it is the external federal government that will be the supplier of this money AND the money sent into the area after having been generated from external areas that are more productive is being exchanged because of the national social contract that the nation has with the people locally.  

Just to clarify the point - higher individual pay for the union of workers that spans the racial divide as they rebuild their own city the city.  The source of this money coming from an external force who are obliged to pay because they are asked to prove that they value these people equally per the common bound that they have nationally. 

Does this sound like an enduring agreement to you?

Several claims were made in this interview that deserve further scrutiny.

1. The Davis-Bacon Act was suspended by Bush to allow for sub-minimum wages to be paid thus crowding out Black Americans in favor of Hispanic immigrants who would work for these wages.  THE FACTS - According to the Wikipedia entry on Davis-Bacon - Bush suspended the act on September 7, 2010 just days after the flooding and then restored it on October 26, 2005.   How much skulduggery could be accomplished in 7 weeks?  Is Bush incompetent or a brilliant enemy of Black and Brown?  You must decide.  I should add that the NAACP and other civil rights organizations were officially opposed to Davis-Bacon since its inception up until the early 1970's.  They used the law as an example of "Structural Racism".  The law was passed to protect the jobs and wages of White union workers in the North from Blacks who were migrating from the South and who would work for lower wages.  It appears that now that Blacks are a part of the establishment - the priorities have changed.
2. Federal Contractors were using illegal aliens and paying them below the minimum wage.  With the claims of the Davis-Bacon act cast aside this next charge remains specious.  If there is one entity where "living wage" and "minimum wage"  mandates would be attached to contracts it would be the Federal government. 

There are so many other articles to be found on the Internet that leverage the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina as the vector by which to advance notions of "social justice" and to bash conservatives.  A rare few of them care to make note of the fact that New Orleans remains a city who's politics and policies are dominated by one party rule.  This party, however, always seems to escape the damnation for the conditions there but instead is promoted as the vehicle by which justice will be rendered in the place.

Spike Lee Revisits New Orleans

Spike Lee's documentary "If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise" followed the same meme. New Orleans is being oppressed by corporations and Republicans.
Mr Lee did not let the opportunity in which the state of Mississippi and its large Black population having received an equal amount of funding as Louisiana did despite greater damage in LA be cast as a triumph for its Republican Governor Hailey Barber. If you thought that MS receiving these funds from a White House that it was aligned with political was to be cast in a good light - silly you.

Instead Governor Barber took these funds and spent it on commercial infrastructure such as sea ports (where people work). All the while a local library sat gutted. This showed that "Bush & Barber Don't Care About No Black People - or poor White".

Having walked the grounds of the Lower 9th Ward, GPS with altimeter readings in hand I would seriously question the reasoning skills of anyone who would have rebuilt their houses there without waiting for the major upgrades to the water control levees to be completed. This as the houses stood 18' to 25' below sea level. Thus the grievances about how the houses were not rebuilt seems misplaced without a focus upon the protection from flooding.

Spike Lee had an opportunity to trumpet the school reform effort that is going on presently in New Orleans with the use of charter schools. With this new format many once failing schools are showing improvement. Of course Mr Lee is not about to allow for a "one sided" presentation of the facts when it risks making an indictment against the local establishment and its previous failures. Thus he presented several critical voices that dismissed the charter school movement as a scam to line the pockets of external people who don't know and don't care about the local people.

The critics must be comforted by the fact that at least with the old system - despite the schools failing - those who taught the kids "cared" about them.

In my view the presentation and prioritization shown by Spike Lee in part 1 of the documentary shows why the phenomenon of "looking past the failures of local Democrats in order to attack the national Republicans" rings true in New Orleans and so many other parts of the nation where Black people live in our highest concentrations. Absent the notion of "competency development" the concept of "social justice rights and entitlements" will fill the void. The indictments upon which these forces ride will be cast by those who are grieving, waiting for a federal helicopter to life them up.