“Ethnic cleansing” in New Orleans

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_938.shtml

Jun 26, 2006, 00:48


"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." --Richard Baker (R-La), September 09, 2005.

New Orleans, the city where Hurricane Katrina struck in September 2005, is barely covered in the media these days. The failure to report on New Orleans is a deliberate omission as the city and its people continue to suffer. Hurricane Katrina is the precursor to “clean” the city of its African-American population, and create a resort for affluent Americans and tourists. The aim is to gentrify New Orleans and deny its black poor population their right of return to their city.

The “reconstruction” of New Orleans has become a euphemism for the destruction of the city’s cultural and historic heritage. Major developers and real estate agents are taking advantage of the city's redevelopment at the expense of New Orleans' low-income population. In the current political milieu, economic redevelopment seem to be guided by an extremely narrow vision capable of responding only to big business and tourism.

The Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is planning to demolish New Orleans’ largest public housing developments and replace them with unaffordable housing units disguised as a “mixed income housing” program (Hope VI). The Hope VI program is designed to decentralise poverty according to a neoliberal agenda.

The secretary of HUD, Alphonso Jackson, has announced that more than 5,300 public housing units -- built for low-income people -- were to be demolished and replaced by units for people with a wider range of incomes. It would be the largest project in the city’s history, and would include the sprawling St. Bernard, C. J. Peete, B. W. Cooper and Lafitte housing developments, along with most of the city's public housing. The units have been closed or fenced off to residents since Hurricane Katrina to allow them to deteriorate. The decision was taken despite the shortage of housing to accommodate the over 200,000 still displaced New Orleans residents. Many of those remaining are living in abandoned housing, without electricity and water. It is possible that more than 3,500 families will have no place to return to if HUD goes with its decision to demolish the public housing units.

The Hope VI program allows only about 10 percent of the original population who used to live in public housing to come back. Public schools and healthcare services will be reduced or removed to discourage people from returning. Even if they return, there will be no public housing, no public healthcare and not enough public schools for them and their children.

But Home OWNERS in the 9th ward. Hey folks, sorru, but imminent domain says yall couldn't afford to rebuild anyway. So we'll just sell your property out from under you without recompense and redevelop it. Ah, just smell the New American Century! Carpetbaggin ain't dead yet.

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"New Orleans has had thousands of volunteers come to the city to do whatever they can and yet the city has crime because "residents" don't have anything to do so they kill each other."

FUCKING UTTER BULLSHIT BOSSHOG!!!

"If sitting on your ass and shooting a gun is a job then New Orleans has zero unemployment."

If you feel that way about us, then just STAY THE FUCK OUT OF NEW ORLEANS BOSSHOG!!!

:hi: I am upset too! I am also very hurt! If you people who have a problem helping the poor black people and the elderly of New Orleans would realize, there but for the grace of God, go you and I! BOSSHOG!!!, Nice name!

If you have a good job with our great salery and our great health plan and pention, think for one minute you can't be replaced with someone from India,you are badly mistaken.:eyes: It can all, be taken away! Just ask a Airline pilot or a Steelworker from the 70s or an Accountant. How many middle class professionals lost their pentions?They are Americans and we should be taking care of our own. It's like a third world country there. Say hello to another little piece of Mexico. I hope you are happy! :rant:

:hug:

:pals:
Can't hurt anyway.

You care and that's very very good.

Nice reichwing sentiment there.

Thanks for illustrating that racism and classism are alive and well on DU.

:wow:

Some of them have set up a tent city across from St. Bernard Project!

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/7755.php

The Survivor's Village will be constructed by residents of public housing and their supporters, across from the St. Bernard Housing Development, in the 3800 block of St. Bernard Ave.

The Survivor's Village will contain a Tent City to demonstrate the need for affordable housing, a need that HUD and HANO have failed to address. The Village will contain a community center, which will serve as a meeting and organizing location for residents of public housing and section 8, citizens of New Orleans, and community activists from all over the world.

The United Front for Affordable Housing calls on local, state and federal officials to abide by international law, and honor the right of return of Internally Displaced Persons, citizens of New Orleans, citizens of public housing. The United Nations' Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Principle 6, states that "Every human being shall have the right to be protected against being arbitrarily displaced from his or her home or place of habitual residence."

The Village will come down when all the people have housing!

One thing is for sure: there's a lot more grassroots activism going on in N.O. since the storm than there ever was in my day, about 15 years ago. Oddly enough, it was in that somnolent political environment that I myself became radicalized...

My own preference, had I been offered the job of rebuilding czar (if only!), would be to use the Federal dollars to restore some of the thousands of still uninhabitable houses and doubles all over the city, and resettle the former public housing residents there, rather than in the large housing projects. That way we get people resettled, reclaim some struggling neighborhoods, and avoid the problems (crime, drugs, etc.) that can occur in dense environments such as the projects.

As for these "Hope VI" programs, the example has already been set, and it isn't pretty: St.Thomas/River Garden. All it did was displace public housing residents in favor of gentrifying yuppies. There are plenty of other places for yuppies to go (office building conversions in the CBD, for one), so clearly somebody thinks that displacing the poor is a good idea. :grr:

But this thread makes me sad.

:puke:

Thank God the Republicans are here to save us from that den of evil and faggotry. I'm moving to a place populated by people different from myself with their own traditions and values dating back hundreds of years. HOW DARE THEY NOT ACCOMODATE ME!

Bleach it White

I see New Orleans and I want to bleach it white
No colors anymore I want them to turn white
I see the girls walk by dressed like freaks and ho's
I have to turn my head until my stiffy goes
I see a line of bars and they're all painted gay
With flowers and my love both never to swing that way
I see trannies turn their tricks, looking for some play
Like a new born crack baby it just happens evry day
I look inside myself and see my heart is white
I see New Orleans and I have bleached it white
Fags and nigs will fade away and not have to face the facts
Its easy facin up when your whole world is white

No more will my green support diversity
I could foresee this great thing come to my city
If I work hard enough to get the bleaching done
This city will be lilly white before my Jesus comes

I see New Orleans and I want to bleach it white
No colors anymore I want them to turn white
I see the girls walk by dressed like freaks and ho's
I have to turn my head until my stiffy goes
haaaaa-lleeeeee-leaaaaaauuuuu-iiii-yaaaa
I wanna see it bleached, bleach it white
White as pride, white as the Right
I wanna see the niggers blotted out from the town
I wanna see it bleached, bleached, bleached, bleach it white
Yeah!

It is so depressing how that city is not how it used to be because of Katrina. One lady that was interviewed said she was in and out of depression because she couldn't find a job and also she would see death everywhere. :-(