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BWB - KATRINA 2007 - Ethnic Cleansing, Gentrification & Charter Schools Are Tools Of Bush's Ruling Class Aimed At Achieving ELITIST PRIVATIZATION Of Entire City Of New Orleans (I) - RI10
BWB -
KATRINA 2007
- Ethnic Cleansing,
Gentrification &
Charter Schools Are
Tools Of Bush’s
Ruling Class Aimed
At Achieving
ELITIST
PRIVATIZATION Of
Entire City Of New
Orleans (I) - RI10
August 17, 2007
EXCERPTS ONLY
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08172007/transcript4.html
To read the entire text, go to the website!
New Orleans Hit By Another "Hurricane of Racism, Greed
and Corruption" - Community Activist Malik Rahim
Thursday, August 30th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/145210
On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Democracy Now! broadcasts live from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. We take a look at the state of New Orleans two years after the storm with two local activists: Malik Rahim, cofounder of the Common Ground Collective and Alice Craft-Kerney of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic. [includes rush transcript]
At 9:38 a.m. local time on Wednesday a moment of silence was held across New Orleans to mark the moment the levees were breached two years ago.
Hurricane Katrina flooded about 80 percent of New Orleans, killed over 1,600 people and displaced another 1.5 million people from the Gulf Coast.
In a moment we will be joined with Malik Rahim, cofounder of the Common Ground Collective and Alice Craft-Kerney of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic. But first I want to turn back two years ago to rebroadcast part of Malik's first interview on Democracy Now just days after Katrina hit New Orleans.
* Malik Rahim interviewed on Democracy Now, 9/5/07
A week later Malik appeared again on Democracy Now and gave us a tour of the Algiers neighborhood. As our video cameras followed him, Malik showed us how corpses still remained in the street.
* Malik Rahim interviewed on Democracy Now, 9/12/07
Malik Rahim joins us again today as we broadcast from the lower ninth ward in New Orleans. He is a longtime community activist in New Orleans and cofounder of the Common Ground Collective. We are also joined by Alice Craft-Kerney of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic.
* Malik Rahim, New Orleans community activist and cofounder of the Common Ground Collective.
* Alice Craft-Kerney, executive director of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic. Her home was devastated by the flooding of the Lower Ninth Ward. She is a former nurse with Charity Hospital in New Orleans but lost her job when Charity Hospital closed as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...
AMY GOODMAN: I’m here in the Lower Ninth Ward. Behind me is the Industrial Canal levee that broke two years ago between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. At 9:38 a.m. local time on Wednesday, a moment of silence was held across New Orleans to mark the moment the levees were breached two years ago.
Hurricane Katrina flooded about 80% of New Orleans and killed well over 1,600 people, displacing another one-and-a-half million people from the Gulf Coast. Only two-thirds of the region’s population has returned home.
Few areas in New Orleans were as hard hit by Hurricane Katrina as the Lower Ninth Ward, where we’re broadcasting from today. This predominantly African American working-class neighborhood remains largely in ruins two years later.
In a moment, we’ll be joined by Malik Rahim, cofounder of the Common Ground Collective, and Alice Craft-Kerney of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic, but first I want to go back two years ago to rebroadcast a part of Malik’s first interview on Democracy Now! just days after Katrina hit New Orleans.
MALIK RAHIM: I would have commandeered everything, Greyhound buses, Amtrak trains, school buses, public service buses, and had them all filled with people, getting them out of harm's way. That was the very first thing I would have done. And then, second, I would ask for volunteers, volunteers of people that live in the community, that know the community, that didn't need a map to find out where such-and-such a street exists, and had them to come back in here. I would have had my police force to commandeer every boat that was available, because everybody knew the flooding was going to happen, you know, to make sure that people would have been getting out. I wouldn't have left it on a faith-based community. I would have made sure that everybody would have had a means that wanted to leave or they had the means to leave.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Malik Rahim speaking days after Hurricane Katrina. A week later, Malik was again on Democracy Now!, as he was giving us a tour of the Algiers neighborhood. As our video cameras followed him, Malik showed us how corpses still remained in the street.
MALIK RAHIM: Now, his body been here for almost two weeks. Two weeks tomorrow, all right, that this man's body been laying here. And there's no reason for it. Look where we at. I mean, it's not flooded. There's no reason for them to be -- left that body right here like this. I mean, that’s just totally disrespect. You know? And, I mean, two weeks. Every day, we ask them about coming and pick it up. And they refuse to come and pick it up. And you could see, it's literally decomposing right here, right out in the sun. Every day we sit up and we ask them about it, because, I mean, this is close as you could get to tropical climate in America. And they won't do anything with it.
AMY GOODMAN: Malik, do you know who this person is?
MALIK RAHIM: No. But regardless of who it is, I wouldn't care if it's Saddam Hussein or bin Laden; nobody deserves to be left here. And the kids pass by here, and they’re seeing it. I mean, the elderly, this is what’s frightening a lot of people into leaving. We don't know if he's a victim of vigilantes or what. But that's all we know is that his body had been allowed to remain out here for over two weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Malik Rahim joins us again today, as we broadcast from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. He’s a longtime community activist in New Orleans and cofounder of the Common Ground Collective. We’re also joined by Alice Craft-Kerney of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic. And we welcome you both to Democracy Now!, though it’s odd to welcome you both to your own neighborhood as we come in from New York.
But, Malik, let's begin with you. Set the scene for us. I mean, outside the view of our camera, of our microphones right here, when we were down here two years ago, there were a lot of destroyed houses. Right now it’s mainly nature taking over. We don't even see the foundations of the houses.
MALIK RAHIM: No. Most of the houses that wasn't destroyed during Katrina was demolished under our city’s Good Neighbors Program. So what you have is -- is just a series of empty lots. And it's a testimony of the lack of recovery. This is a testimony of a lack of, truly, support by our federal, state and local government for the upliftment of this community. You find other areas of the Lower Ninth Ward that have a large population of whites, the Holy Cross area, and it’s doing well. But over here you only have -- I know of only one house that has been totally rebuilt. So maybe about --
AMY GOODMAN: Who determines what gets built, what doesn't?
MALIK RAHIM: Funds. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. You know, they make the -- Hamilton -- those are the ones who make the determination. If you don't have the money or if you don't have the strength to rebuild, then you are just in a dismal situation.
AMY GOODMAN: What is this Road Home fund?
MALIK RAHIM: You know what? When you find out, Amy, you ask me. Only thing I could say is it’s funding for those who are well connected, you know, because those who don't have the connections, they haven’t seen nothing but promises from Road Home.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what happened two years ago here just behind us. There is the levee.
MALIK RAHIM: Well, three blocks -- well, the levees broke, I believe it was because of the fact of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, which is just about two miles away from here, and when it pushed that storm surge through that canal, it came through and it broke the levee here at Industrial Canal. And a barge came through, and that barge traveled about three-and-a-half blocks, just crushing houses.
You know, this is an area that had the highest death toll in the entire city. Somewhere between 300 to 500 people lost their lives right here. A good friend of mine now, he lost his mother and his granddaughter, you know, the morning of the 29th. So you have many people here that have really suffered that pain.
And there wasn't no trauma counselors here. You know, you had people that, after going through this, after witnessing and experiencing the worst disaster to hit America, they have yet to have any type of counseling, and then they have yet to have any type of support in rebuilding their lives.
So you see the area where the people was hardest hit two years ago by a hurricane, now two years later they are still being the hardest hit by another hurricane, but this hurricane is called racism, greed and corruption.
AMY GOODMAN: Where are the people who had homes here who didn't die?
MALIK RAHIM: They are displaced all over. We have a mailing list of roughly around 700 of the residents in this area, and they’re all over America. I mean, they all over America. We have some as far as Seattle, Washington, Miami. We have met some in New York, you know, from this area that’s now living in New Jersey, at least in New Jersey. You know, but they are displaced all over America.
AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about recovery efforts, I want to play a clip of what President Bush told the country on September 15, 2005, when he visited New Orleans.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: And tonight, I also offer this pledge of the American people: throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans. And this great city will rise again.
AMY GOODMAN: That was President Bush. He was speaking -- I believe it was Jackson Square, where there was a candlelight vigil last night. The generators were put on for the first time. He was flooded, bathed in light for that speech. And then the generators were turned off, and they didn't see electricity for a long time. Malik?
MALIK RAHIM: Well, you know, anything that he said about Jackson Square -- at Jackson Square, he was speaking to all the residents in that area. You know, and he has helped them. You know, they are recovered. The French Quarter is doing well. The New Orleans Saints is doing well. You know, the Garden District is doing well.
I’m talking about the Ninth Ward. I’m talking about this area, the Lower Ninth Ward. I’m talking about New Orleans East, where he wouldn't even put a blue tarp on the roofs of these houses, where they put blue tarps on -- a sea of blue tarps on every other community. Here, nobody received anything. And two years later, nobody is receiving anything.
AMY GOODMAN: Alice Craft-Kerney, you founded the health clinic that’s here in the Lower Ninth Ward. You also lost your home.
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Yes, I did.
AMY GOODMAN: Where did you live?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: My home was in eastern New Orleans. And I received five-and-a-half feet of water in my home.
AMY GOODMAN: Where were you that day?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Actually, I was here in the Lower Ninth Ward in my brother's home. He has a three-story historic home in the Holy Cross area.
AMY GOODMAN: Is his home OK?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Well, he has decided to rebuild, and he has completed that reconstruction, and he and his wife are living in their home now.
AMY GOODMAN: And your home destroyed?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: My home, through the efforts of friends, brothers and sisters who saw my plight, they came down and they started working on my home. And it’s about 80% complete, enough for me to move into.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you able to get Road Home funds?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Not as of yet. I’m waiting to see what will happen. But you have to understand, Road Home appeared to be a program that was set up to fail. And many of the folks, who did receive the Road Home money, really, that was not their intended target. The folks who were supposed to receive the money were supposed to be people who were flooded. Our state started giving money to people who had wind damage, and that was not the true intention. So those folks received money over folks who were actually flooded. So there’s a problem there.
AMY GOODMAN: I saw Cynthia McKinney yesterday, the former congresswoman from Georgia. She was up protesting at Kennebunkport and then drove her way down here to be here for the second anniversary. And I asked her what she thought of President Bush coming here, and she said, “Did he bring money?” She said that’s all that counted.
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: The clinic, tell us about it
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Well, my friend Patricia Berryhill, who’s been with me the entire time, she and I decided, once we started the clinic -- now, I must tell you that Common Ground Relief -- this is a project of Common Ground Relief, the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic, because Michelle Shin, who was an organizer down here in the Lower Ninth Ward, along with Leaders Creating Change Through Contribution, were able to come up with a plan for us to assist us to get this clinic up and running. Once we got the idea of a clinic, we needed people to run it who had medical experience, and then they turned to residents, and that was myself and Patricia Berryhill. This clinic was formed because there was a need. There was no primary healthcare here in the Lower Ninth Ward.
AMY GOODMAN: You're a nurse.
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Yes, I’m a registered nurse. And my friend Patricia Berryhill is a registered nurse who’s Master’s-prepared with over thirty-two years experience. And we have dealt with this population before, because we were both working at the Medical Center of Louisiana, Charity Hospital, and she was at the other campus, University.
AMY GOODMAN: Charity is closed.
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: And Charity is closed.
AMY GOODMAN: Isn't Charity where they had a ceremony yesterday, setting up a mausoleum for a hundred identified remains?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: That's correct. But Charity was the safety-net provider for the medically indigent patients in the community, and with that being destroyed, with that infrastructure being destroyed, we knew that many people were going to be caught -- the uninsured were going to be caught without any type of medical care. We saw people really just dying on both sides of the street, just because they didn't have access to medical care. And we decided we weren't going to wait. We saw people dying at Convention Center Boulevard, the Superdome, just waiting for the bus, and we decided we weren't going to wait for the healthcare bus. So we determined we were going to open this clinic.
And the clinic was opened by people giving their time, their talent. And what happened was we had folks from all over the country who came to renovate the building, and we had supplies, medical supplies and equipment that was sent down to us, contributions from folks like yourself, as well as some foundations, that got us started. And so, that's how the clinic actually started and opened.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you need now?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: Right now we need money for operating funds. We’re dealing with a scarcity of healthcare professionals, because, just like my family left the region, many of the healthcare providers left the region.
AMY GOODMAN: Did I see a figure, something like 90% of doctors gone?
ALICE CLARK-KERNEY: I’m not going to say 90%, but there was a large number that actually left, never to come back again. And we're not just talking about doctors, we’re talking about nurses, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, pharmacists, anybody in the healthcare field. All of these folks are gone, and many of them are not going to return. So that leaves us here with a few healthcare professionals, and they can basically name their salary. So we're competing against hospitals with wonderful fringe benefit packages, sign-on bonuses. And it’s very difficult at this point. So we need funds so that we can actually attract good people to the clinic.
AMY GOODMAN: Malik Rahim, as we wrap up this segment, we’re sitting in front of Common Ground Relief, and there are all different signs. One says, “Tourist, shame on you. Drive by without stopping, paying to see my pain. 1,600-plus died here.” And another says, “Wish list: men's clothing, food items, cleaning supplies, baby supplies.” How do you keep going here?
MALIK RAHIM: Basically off the generosity of grassroots people.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the city?
MALIK RAHIM: Two years later, we have served 170,000 people in direct services, and we have yet to even be visited by any elected official. So we don't receive no federal, state or local support.
AMY GOODMAN: I spoke to Mayor Ray Nagin yesterday. He had dinner with President Bush the night before. I asked him what his demands were, and he said it wasn't a time for demands.
MALIK RAHIM: Well, you know, if your home is rebuilt, if you’re living well, if you're full, then maybe it wasn't the time. But if you’re hungry, if you’re homeless, if you have been traditionally disenfranchised, then the time has always been there, you know.
AMY GOODMAN: You travel not only around the country, around the world now. What is the message that you are spreading?
MALIK RAHIM: Well, the one that I’m spreading most is the fact that we had vigilantes in this city that have killed young African American males, I mean, with complete immunity. One equated killing young males as -- equated it with pheasant season, shooting pheasants in South Dakota. And nothing is done. That person whose body that I showed you in Algiers who was killed by vigilantes, his body wasn’t identified. He is one of those hundred.
These are the things that we are spreading, the injustice that exists here, that Jefferson Parish refused to open up its border to African Americans, that there's two forms of America: there’s America that’s for the white and the rich, and then there's another America for the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised. And that has to change.
So what we’re trying to promote now is that we have to come together, that New Orleans is a testing ground for this nation, that if we fail this test on bringing democracy and justice to New Orleans, then this country is doomed.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. Malik Rahim is founder of Common Ground Relief. We’re sitting in front of Common Ground Relief and, behind that, the levee that was breached two years ago. Alice Craft-Kerney is executive director of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic, her home also devastated in East New Orleans. I want to thank you both for being with us. We'll be back with People's Hurricane Relief Fund.
"The Red Cross Has Basically Stolen Money from Victims
in New Orleans" - People's Hurricane Relief Fund Blasts
Katrina Aid Program
Thursday, August 30th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/145217
A five-day International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita opened last night in New Orleans. The tribunal is bringing together hurricane survivors, international delegations, expert witnesses, a team of human rights and civil rights prosecutors, and a panel of US-based and international judges. [includes rush transcript]
One survivor of the hurricane, Viola Washington said, "We are calling for an International Tribunal to bring charges of racial discrimination, forced eviction of pubic housing residents, violations of the right to life and health, and the denial of the right to return."
We speak with two activists from the People's Hurricane Relief Fund - one of the main sponsors of the tribunal:
* Kali Akuno, executive director of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund.
* Malcolm Suber, national organizing coordinator for Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from today from New Orleans, specifically from the Lower Ninth Ward. Behind me, the Industrial Canal levee that breached two years ago today.
A five-day International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita opened last night here in New Orleans. The tribunal is bringing together hurricane survivors, international delegations, expert witnesses, a team of human rights and civil rights prosecutors, and a panel of US-based and international judges.
One survivor of the hurricane, Viola Washington, said, "We are calling for an international tribunal to bring charges of racial discrimination, forced eviction of pubic housing residents, violations of the right to life and health, and the denial of the right to return."
We’re joined right now by two people from here in New Orleans, founders of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, one of the main sponsors of the tribunal. Kali Akuno is executive director of People's Hurricane Relief Fund, and Malcom Suber is the group's national organizing coordinator.
Before we talk about the tribunal, I wanted to go to something that happened earlier in the day yesterday. It was outside the Convention Center. A number of people gathered. Remember, the Convention Center, that was the place Michael Brown said -- they didn't realize the difference between the Superdome and the Convention Center, that people were also in the Convention Center without water, without food, without help. But a number of people spoke, and among them was Malcolm of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund. You gave a fiery speech, Malcolm, and you particularly focused on the Red Cross. Why?
MALCOLM SUBER: Well, we believe that the Red Cross has basically stolen money from the victims here in New Orleans. They collected, by their own accounting, $2.1 billion. They claim that they spent $1.9 billion, and they had $200 million left. But we have never had any public accounting of the funds actually spent, and this last $200 million, they have decided to establish a Means to Recovery program, which works through a case management system. And basically the only people who knew about the program were their partners, the other nonprofits, and they would give the money to selective survivors. And we just don't believe that that's a very fair and democratic way. We don't think that the donors who gave the money to the Red Cross intended that the money be set aside and decided by the Red Cross what to do with the money.
And so, we have just been challenging their veracity on this whole program, and witness to that is every time we've confronted them they’ve changed the figures. When we first started this campaign, they said they had $80 million left. A week later, they said they had $40 million left. And then the national president came down here, and he said they had $171 million left. So you don’t know what the story really is, so they haven't gotten their story together.
And, of course, they've been attacking the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, saying that we are spreading lies and stuff against them. But we confronted them directly, and we took our -- their application to the local news media. And they were forced to admit that the program existed, because when people first called about the program, the Red Cross would say, “What are you talking about? We’ve never heard of a Means to Recovery program.” So we want to know why such secrecy, and why did you decide that it was up to you, the Red Cross, to decide what to do?
The other important factor is they got $50 million from Kuwait, and instead of giving that money to people, they built new office buildings in New York City.
AMY GOODMAN: $50 million from -- did you say Kuwait?
MALCOLM SUBER: Kuwait, yes. That was part of the international aid given to the Red Cross on behalf of disaster victims, and they decided to take the money and build new office buildings. And we think that’s thievery.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about the people's tribunal and what you’re doing with this, Kali.
KALI AKUNO: Well, today will be the first day of testimony, and we’re going to have two days of testimony, one day of deliberation and one day of going through a site tour throughout the city of New Orleans.
AMY GOODMAN: Who is deliberating?
KALI AKUNO: Deliberating today, we have -- it’s broken down into several different areas, Amy, to really try to cover the expansion of all the different things that took place. So we’re starting off with the issue of police brutality and prisoners' rights, really highlighting the torture and abuse that took place and the abandonment which took place and the different human rights violations that that brings up. We’re also going to be dealing with some of the summary killings and executions, which took place, you know, shortly after the flood. That’s what begins this off.
And then, later on this afternoon, we’re going to be looking at the whole historical development and neglect around the levees, particularly, you know, this levee here with the barge that broke, and highlighting the systematic nature of how the government knew that its design was faulty, it had depleted the funds systematically since Hurricane Betsy. They knew categorically it would not withstand a Category One or Two hurricane, and yet they just left it in a total state of disrepair. And they have to be held accountable for that. Those are the things we’re going to focus on.
And then from there, really breaking down in a systematic way, later on this afternoon, of how women's rights have been violated through this particular process. And one of the things I think everyone so vividly remembers about the experience of what people saw -- CNN and all the news cameras -- was the number of just black women, single black women who were just kind of left stranded by the city not having or the government not having a systematic evacuation plan, not having buses, not having public transportation, not giving effective evacuation orders.
Those are the things we’re really going to highlight, and then ask critical questions, you know, that we’re looking for a response to, some of which we know the answer, some of which the answers have not necessarily been sufficiently provided. But, you know, we’re going to cover different things, like Blanco giving shoot to kill orders. Under whose authority? Why was that order given?
AMY GOODMAN: What to you mean, “shoot to kill”?
KALI AKUNO: When she was -- I think it was September 3rd -- or, excuse me, September 2nd, she gave orders that -- for the National Guard and other folks, that they were trained, they just came back from Iraq, they knew how to use their weapons, and if they caught anybody so-called looting, that they had the right to shoot to kill. You know, and there was no question around what if people don't have water, people don't have food. The government is not providing this. How are people otherwise supposed to fend for themselves? And it didn't really address that question, you know, just kind of left it open. And so, under what authority does she have to issue an order like that? And then, why was it necessary to bring in so many different contractors, the mercenary forces that came in. Under whose authority were they under? What rules were they operating by? And we've heard a number of different reports and accounts.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean companies like Blackwater.
KALI AKUNO: Like Blackwater, who are still here operating. Blackhawk and a number of different security companies, what were they doing here? That needs to be fully exposed. We know, in what had come out to date through some of the deliberations, that they didn't get their contracts approved, right? Many of these companies, they were just kind of operating without proper licensing. So for the different acts that they committed, similar to Iraq, who were they accountable to? Right? This all really needs to be exposed and brought out. And, you know, with all the different information and the crimes that are being alleged and are going to be demonstrated and proved throughout this process, you know, what we’re demanding is justice and reparations.
AMY GOODMAN: So you’re having this tribunal over a number of days. Will city officials be there?
KALI AKUNO: They have been invited. State officials have been invited from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. And Bush and the heads of FEMA have been invited.
AMY GOODMAN: This all comes out of the First Survivors Assembly.
KALI AKUNO: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: What was that?
KALI AKUNO: The First Survivors Assembly was the first major national gathering of survivors after they had been displaced. It was in December 2005 in Jackson, Mississippi. And it was basically a democratic forum where all those who were displaced could come together and organize themselves and make some comprehensive demands in the program to carry their actions forward. So the tribunal is just one of the programmatic things that came out of that assembly. And we’re having the Second Survivors Assembly here in New Orleans in December, December 8 and 9.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Malcolm, about the issue of homelessness and the issue of the destruction of housing?
MALCOLM SUBER: Yes. Because of the great destruction of the flood, 140,000 units of housing were destroyed. The other problem, of course, is that there has not been an aggressive program on the part of state or local government to repair homes or get money to the victims so that they can repair their homes, nor has there been any real effort to provide temporary housing, to construct dormitories and what have you for people to live.
As a consequence, the number of homeless in the city has grown from 6,000 before the storm to 12,000 now. And one of the characteristics of the new homeless are those -- these were people in the city who had homes before the storm. And, of course, coupled with the fact that rents have doubled and tripled, poor working-class black folk in this city can't afford to pay the rents that they are charging today.
And so, because of that crisis, we have been organizing the homeless, and they now have an encampment at Duncan Plaza, right across from City Hall, actually putting the question of homelessness in the face of the politicians and saying to them that we must make a pledge to outlaw homelessness in the new New Orleans.
And the way that we have to do that, of course, is we have to ask the city to take control of all these abandoned buildings, all these abandoned homes, get a reconstruction program going, where you’re hiring homeless folks, youth, to bring them back home and get the them to work rebuilding the city. And not only will they be rebuilding it, but they will be investing in the city, which they know and love, but they will be making a contribution to its redevelopment.
AMY GOODMAN: I asked Mayor Nagin yesterday about public housing and why most of the public housing has not been reopened, although a lot is in good shape, like Lafitte housing.
MALCOLM SUBER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your response to that?
MALCOLM SUBER: That’s part of the gentrification and ethnic cleansing policy, which was being pursued prior to. As you know, two of the developments are right downtown, Lafitte and Iberville. The developers have always had their eye on that as an extension of the French Quarter, essentially from the French Quarter straight back to the lake.
AMY GOODMAN: Iberville is the birthplace of jazz.
MALCOLM SUBER: Right. And so, you know, this is just part of that whole gentrification program and the changing of the demographics of the city. The local white ruling class wants to maintain its -- to regain its political control, and so they have used this storm and the flooding as a convenient excuse to get rid of black folk, especially poor black people. And basically their mentality is you can only come back to this plantation if you've got a job; if you don't have a job, we don't want to provide any social services.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute. But this whole issue of the right of return, how are you framing it?
KALI AKUNO: It's an unequivocal human right, and it entails -- it has to entail a comprehensive program for both reconstruction, returning folks home with jobs, justice and equity. I mean those are the basic parts of it.
AMY GOODMAN: About, what, 60% of people have returned home?
KALI AKUNO: I would say that that number is actually inaccurate. I mean, I think it’s still closer to between 45% and 50%. I think if you look around the region, you may find that number of people living in Slidell, people living in Baton Rouge. But I still think, you know, realistically, when the sun goes down, there’s still only half the population of New Orleans in town.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. Is there contact information for -- well, today in New Orleans, the tribunal is at People’s -- at the Pan-American building.
KALI AKUNO: It’s at the Pan-American Conference Center, which is on Poydras and Camp Streets in downtown New Orleans. If you want to get in contact with us, you can call us at (504) 301-0215, or you can visit our website, which is www.peopleshurricane.org.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Kali Akuno and Malcolm Suber, thanks so much. People's Hurricane Relief Fund. We’re broadcasting from here in New Orleans in the Lower Ninth Ward. When we come back, we'll speak with the former head of the New Orleans Teachers Union. After the hurricane, all of the teachers in New Orleans were fired.
The Privatization of Education: How New Orleans Went
from a Public School System to a Charter-School City
Thursday, August 30th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/145226
While many in New Orleans have waited two years for recovery, the restructuring of its schools seemed to happen overnight. Not long after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans two years ago, the Louisiana legislature cleared the way for the state to assume control of 107 out of 128 schools in the Orleans district. The state began immediately converting its newly-acquired schools to charter schools. We speak with Nat LaCour of the American Federation of Teachers. [includes rush transcript]
While many in New Orleans have waited two years for recovery, the restructuring of its schools seemed to happen overnight.
Not long after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans two years ago, the Louisiana legislature cleared the way for the state to assume control of 107 out of 128 schools in the Orleans district. Immediately, the state began converting many of its newly acquired schools to charter schools - publicly funded schools run by for-profit or nonprofit groups that operate by a "charter" or contract. One result is that the number of unionized teachers dropped from about 4700 to 500.
* Nat LaCour, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers. He is the former president of the United Teachers of New Orleans.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: We’re here in the Lower Ninth Ward, just outside the Industrial Canal levee that was breached two years ago. The hurricane hit 2005, August 29, and what happened, the devastation, people talk about a natural disaster and an unnatural disaster.
While many in New Orleans have waited two years for recovery, the restructuring of its schools seems to happen overnight. Not long after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, the Louisiana legislature cleared the way for the state to assume control of 107 out of 128 schools in the Orleans District. Immediately, the state began converting many of its newly acquired schools to charter schools: publicly funded schools run by for-profit or nonprofit groups that operate by a "charter," or contract. One result is that the number of unionized teachers dropped from about 4,700 to 500.
Nat LaCour is the secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers. He’s the former president of the United Teachers of New Orleans. He joins us now here in New Orleans, came for the anniversary observances yesterday, is flying back to Washington today. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Nat LaCour.
NAT LaCOUR: Thank you for inviting me.
AMY GOODMAN: How is it for you to be here in the Lower Ninth Ward?
NAT LaCOUR: It’s really depressing. Obviously, we are dissatisfied with the rate of progress in rebuilding the city. And, of course, the Lower Ninth Ward was the hardest hit.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the situation with the teachers. I don't think most people in this country understand the hurricane that swept through the schools after the natural hurricane.
NAT LaCOUR: Well, that is correct. It’s not Katrina that did the damage. It’s many of the elected officials in this state and in this local community, that on the heels of the storm they terminated almost all of the school employees -- and so, it wasn't just teachers -- teachers, paraprofessionals, cooks, bus drivers, principals. They fired 7,500 people. Now, the tragedy of --
AMY GOODMAN: They fired everyone?
NAT LaCOUR: Yes. The tragedy of that is that many of these individuals had been impacted by the storm, lost their property, only to discover that there were people who were conspiring to take their jobs. And when you took their job, you also took their insurance. Even for the people, who were retired and was participating in the local healthcare plan, the premiums went up so much -- they tripled -- that many people had to drop their insurance, even if they were staying here. So you had a really bad situation, not well thought out, but people attempting to seize the opportunity to create charter schools and to take control of the school system.
Now, that was bad for the adults, but the second tragedy here is when you have young people, school-aged children, particularly elementary students, who experience a tragedy in their life -- certainly Katrina was one -- what all of the professionals will say to you is that the first thing that you need to do is to get those children back in a normal setting as much as possible. That would mean returning these kids, opening the schools, so that they could be with their schoolmates and the teachers and the staff that they have come to know.
Instead, the schools were closed, for the people who wanted to come back or for the people that were here, in order to accommodate this experiment with -- I would call it control. Many of the schools that opened as charter schools have selected admission policies, which means they get to determine which students will attend and which students will not. And so, what you have here, if the population is not careful, you set up an elitist-type school system, and we need to avoid that.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, yesterday at the tribunal, there were these T-shirts that said, “Don't believe the hype: The recovery is not ‘slow’. This is an experiment in privatization of an entire city”.
NAT LaCOUR: Yes. I agree with that, but I think it’s a serious mistake. The things that they have done under the guise of attempting to improve the schools, they could have done that working with the traditional public schools, but they chose not to.
AMY GOODMAN: So you have the “recovery schools”, named so even before Hurricane Katrina. These are the big public schools. One of the schools, the John McDonough School, something like thirty-five security, twenty-three teachers, eighty-six kids expelled, eighty-four kids graduate, I think that was the statistics in The Nation piece on this. One of the students saying, “When I come to school, I feel like I’m going to visit someone in prison”.
NAT LaCOUR: Well, I only know what I’ve read and heard. Obviously, I talk to the teachers in the union here, and so I know a little bit about John Mac, but nothing firsthand.
Let me simply say this: I don't think there's anybody in New Orleans who would say that they were satisfied with the school system prior to Katrina, because there’s an effort to say that there are people here who want to the status quo. That is not true. What we want are efforts on the part of school officials and elected officials to improve the schools. And we maintain that a lot of the attention and the focus that has been given should have been given to reopening the schools. You had a reduced student population, so you could have kept your teachers, reduced class size, which is one of the major factors in getting students to do better. But they chose not to do that. And we just think that it’s a real danger.
Now, things may work out. Our union is still around. When you said 500, we didn't have 500, because everybody lost their job. And as of yesterday we had 1,200 members, because people understand that there’s a need to join and a manner in which they can collectively impact decision-making. And that is what is needed. We've had a union in this city since 1937. We were one of the first communities in the Deep South to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. It is not the union contract of the teachers that were the problem; it’s a lack of resources. And that continues to be the situation. And it doesn't matter whether the schools are run by the state or the local school board, if you don't put in sufficient resources, if you don't give the teachers the wherewithal that they need to provide quality education, then you are not going to do a good job of reaching all of your students, but particularly your disadvantaged students. And so, we’re interested in all students, not some students.
When they opened the schools here in midsummer, the schools -- charter schools -- they took their best schools and made them charter schools. And so, obviously these schools opened. There were places for the kids who were doing well to get back to a rather normal setting. The other parents and kids have had to fish, go around and find places. Kids have been turned down I’m sure that they will do a better job, but all of the so-called problems that we are experiencing now was not necessary. Our union is committed to work with school officials and the elected people to rebuild this school system to make it better. It can be done, but we have to work together as a team, not one group of people attempting to just force upon the community what they think is right or the best way.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. We've been speaking with Nat LaCour. He is the secretary-treasurer of American Federation of Teachers. He is former president of Union of Teachers here in New Orleans.
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