Race & Class Frame Debate on Rebuilding New Orleans District

[AnnInLa]

The following was posted on GD this morning, and I thought it was worth posting here. Don't know if the links below are clickable, but just type them into your browser window....they are worth looking at, especially the one about "LA Repub trying to get GOP behind plan to keep poor Dems out of N.O." The original post was by the DUer Nothing Without Hope.




Nothing Without Hope (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-03-05 06:07 AM
Original message
WaPo: "Race and Class Frame Debate on Rebuilding New Orleans District"


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
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



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.ph...
Thread title: HUD chief foresees a 'whiter' Big Easy ("never again...majority black")

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
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.ph...
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.ph...

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.

"Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results." — Margaret Atwood

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. Here is the fully formatted original GD post with working links and photo:

{The original was posted in General Discussion, where it is languishing. Here's the link:}
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4955557)

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.