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Destroying Homes for the Holidays in New Orleans
By Carl Dix
On December 12,
government authorities began the planned demolition of
four public housing developments in New Orleans.
Bulldozers began rolling in the BW Cooper development.
But this outrageous and heartless destruction of housing
has been met with protest and resistance.
In September 2005, people around the world watched in
horror at how the U.S. government abandoned tens of
thousands of Black people in the flood waters after
Katrina, subjected them to the most inhumane conditions,
then callously evacuated them. Now, two years later, on
December 14, headlines and photographs about New Orleans
hit the national and international news again: The U.S.
government heartlessly RAZING low-income housing people
AND people RESISTING, going up against the bulldozers,
determined to stop this crime. This had a big impact—the
eyes of the world turned toward New Orleans once again.
And as we go to press, a state court has halted the
demolitions at three of the four developments, saying
that the city council never voted to authorize the
demolitions.
The city council could vote right away to put all of the
demolitions back on track. And the court decision leaves
one development, BW Cooper, facing demolition because it
was slated for demolition before Hurricane Katrina.
If the authorities get away with their plans, four of
the five remaining major public housing developments in
the city will be demolished. More than 4,600 units will
be reduced to rubble and replaced by “mixed income
housing” which will have less than 800 affordable units.
These demolitions will destroy the neighborhoods that
thousands of people called home. Many of the people who
used to live in the sections of Cooper that are being
demolished have been forced to move in with relatives or
friends. Others have been forced to live on the streets.
Now their homes are being destroyed.
It’s also clear that most of the people who used to live
in public housing will be unable to afford to live in
the new developments built to replace those being
demolished. New Orleans has already been through this
with the destruction of the St. Thomas development
before Katrina. Fifteen hundred affordable units were
lost in that demolition and only 150 affordable units
were built in the River Gardens development that
replaced St. Thomas.
The destruction of public housing is happening in cities
across the country, and it’s an outrage. But it’s even
MORE outrageous that this is going down in New Orleans.
It was criminal enough what this system did to people
right after Hurricane Katrina. But the system’s criminal
and massive abuse has continued up to the present day.
Black communities like the 9th Ward remain especially
neglected. Two hundred thousand people who used to live
here remain exiled across the country since Katrina. One
hundred fifty thousand of these people are Black.
Destroying public housing will mean many people will
never be able to return. On top of this, thousands of
New Orleans residents living in FEMA emergency trailers
here and in cities across the country will be evicted
over the next six months. Where are they going to find
housing? What about the large and growing homeless
population in New Orleans? Officials say 12,000 people
live on the streets in New Orleans, double the official
count before Katrina. Many people say there are
thousands more homeless here. These demolitions will
only make that number grow.
Resistance Builds
These demolitions must be brought to a halt. They are
part of a plan to rebuild a New Orleans that is smaller
and whiter with much of its Black population driven out
of the city. They are part of a nationwide drive to
destroy public housing and part of the Bush regime’s
program for Black people—poverty, prisons and
punishment. New Orleans itself has become a national and
international symbol—people point to what happened after
Hurricane Katrina as a blatant and concentrated example
of the living legacy of slavery and how the U.S.
capitalist system continues to oppress Black people. And
whether or not people fight back and resist these
outrageous demolitions holds special significance to
people around the world. This underscores the larger
importance of and stakes in this struggle. And the
rulers of the U.S. also know the national and
international impact of what happens in New Orleans and
must put this in their calculations over what to do.
The authorities are very determined to go ahead with
these evictions. Residents and former residents of
public housing have been threatened with being kicked
out of public housing forever or losing their housing
vouchers if they speak out against the demolitions.
Alphonso Jackson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), warned city officials that HUD will
revoke $137 million in federal assistance and that 900
former public housing residents living in different
parts of the country will be stripped of their housing
vouchers if the demolitions are halted.
Resistance has begun to grow. A hundred people packed
into a city hall office to demand that the demolitions
be halted on Monday, December 10. On December 12, 50
people formed a human wall to block a bulldozer from
entering BW Cooper, the first development they began to
take down. The bulldozer was moved in overnight. The
next day people who had occupied one of the buildings
unfurled a banner protesting the demolition as the
bulldozer demolished another building. After a several
hour stand off, the protesters were arrested by cops and
charged with trespassing.
Earlier that day, more than 100 people marched to the
New Orleans HUD office to demand a stop to the
demolitions. And other protest actions were held at two
other developments slated for demolition. This
resistance has been mounted by public housing residents,
dozens of volunteers who came to New Orleans to help
stop the demolitions, and a growing array of supporters.
Many people in New Orleans have been electrified by this
resistance. They see that the demolitions are bad for
poor people and especially for Black people. Some say
they feel this is aimed at driving Black people out of
New Orleans. People remember how after Katrina, ten-term
Congressman from Baton Rouge Richard Baker said, “We
finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We
couldn’t do it. But God did.”
At the same time, many people have sharp questions. Some
say the projects were breeding grounds for poverty and
crime and that it’s better to get rid of them and build
something new. Others raise that losing public housing’s
low rent and utility bills would motivate people to get
jobs and better themselves.
These views echo what the authorities say to justify
getting rid of public housing, and they mistake cause
for effect. Many public housing residents work, but at
low paying, dead end jobs. Many others can’t find
work. The capitalist system is responsible for this.
It sucked the jobs out of Black and other oppressed
neighborhoods in New Orleans and across the country. It
offers millions of Black youth with futures of low
paying dead-end jobs, if they can find any jobs. It has
criminalized many of these youth and warehouses hundreds
of thousands of them in prisons. Getting rid of public
housing isn’t going to ease this situation. In fact, it
will only intensify it.
And beyond the immediate repercussions of the
destruction of public housing in New Orleans, there is
the larger impact and significance of whether or not
there is resistance to such an assault on poor people in
New Orleans.
All this underscores the need to fight these
demolitions, not go along with them. And it underscores
the need to build this fight as part of getting ready
for revolution. The poverty and crime that people want
to escape is caused by capitalism. It’ll take nothing
short of revolution to deal with this and the
exploitation and oppression that capitalism enforces on
the world.
Building public housing doesn’t fit into the plans to
profitably rebuild New Orleans. And a basic absurdity of
free market capitalism is on display with the
destruction of public housing here. There are thousands
of people in this city with no jobs who could be trained
and put to work. There are thousands of people in this
city living on the street who need homes. There are
people from all over the country and world who could be
mobilized to volunteer their skills and abilities to
help rebuild this city. But this SYSTEM, where profit
determines what is and isn’t done, STANDS IN THE WAY of
bringing all these different factors together to provide
decent housing.
A revolutionary society, one where power was in the
hands of the people, could deal with the need for
affordable housing completely different than this setup.
People who needed work could be unleashed to build the
housing so many needed. In the face of a natural
disaster like Katrina, a revolutionary society wouldn’t
leave people to die and then seize on it as an
opportunity to drive the masses out of town and not
allow them to come back like this system did. The
enthusiasm and energy of the people could be tapped into
and unleashed to rebuild, not suppressed and subjected
to repression like what has happened right after and
since Katrina. This won’t be easy, but it will be
possible under socialism, where the masses of people are
fully mobilized to struggle out, figure out and work
together to transform society and emancipate the people.
The holiday demolition of public housing is an outrage
on top of all the other outrages this system has already
perpetrated on the people of New Orleans. People are
fighting for the right to return to the city, to rebuild
their homes and their lives—and there is a critical need
for affordable housing in New Orleans. People need to
fight to see to it that none of it is destroyed.
Whatever twists and turns this struggle goes through, a
real fight to stop these demolitions is what’s needed
and possible. It’s not a done deal—that the authorities
can destroy these developments and the people can’t do
anything about it. Already the power of the people’s
resistance has caused them to back off temporarily. Now
this resistance must get stronger, and it must draw
support from all over the country. There are no
“outsiders” in the fight for justice—New Orleans is
everyone’s battle. And if that’s done, it will create
new ground to advance the struggle to defend public
housing in New Orleans and around the country. And it
would raise people’s consciousness and help politically
prepare them for revolution.
Revolution is calling on its readers to send messages of
support to the people in New Orleans, which we will
forward.
Send us your comments.
Office of
Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, P.O. Box
941 Knickerbocker Station, New York NY 10002-0900, (866)
841-9139 x2670* *
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Demolition protests
ignore some realities—"This is immoral
and must be stopped!" activist Don Everard,
director of Hope House near the former St.
Thomas development, shouted on Wednesday as
he blocked a bulldozer at Cooper. "It's a
hate crime against poor people." Such outcry
has found, at least for now, several allies.
On Friday, an Orleans Parish judge approved
an agreement under which the Cooper
demolition can continue, but the others will
not be razed unless the City Council grants
permits for the work. The council is
expected to consider the demolitions at its
regular meeting on Thursday. In a letter to
President Bush on Friday, the two top
Democrats on Capitol Hill called for a
60-day moratorium on the demolitions --
citing a shortage of affordable housing
across the region.
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid argued that
the "premature push" by the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development to tear down the B.W. Cooper, C.J.
Peete, Lafitte and St. Bernard complexes will hinder the
return of residents to the storm-ravaged
region. |
Yet HUD
officials, who have repeatedly said the agency will not
support concentrating poor families in deteriorating
buildings, say no one is homeless due to a lack of
available public housing. And HUD Secretary Alphonso
Jackson warned that thwarting the demolition plans will
cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in new
housing and render thousands of families ineligible for
vouchers to pay 100 percent of their rent because they
were moved out of complexes slated for demolition.—by
Coleman Warner, Michelle Krupa and Gwen Filosa.
NOLA News
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While New Orleans
faces its worst housing crisis in over 100 years, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
insists on carrying out a plan to bulldoze 4,500 units
of affordable public housing, much of which could be
made available to residents.
If HUD is allowed
to proceed, it will eliminate the majority of affordable
public housing in the city1, shutting out thousands of
low-income Katrina survivors who have been fighting for
over two years to return home. It would be a shameful
slap in the face.
Presidential
candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards, and the
leaders of both houses of Congress--Congresswoman Nancy
Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid--have called on President
Bush to issue a moratorium to stop the demolition. But
HUD hasn't budged, even with HUD Secretary Alphonso
Jackson and his staff under federal investigation for
corruption in their handling of the contracting for the
redevelopment plan.
It's time for
everyday folks to take a stand. As early as Thursday,
the New Orleans City Council will vote on whether to
permit HUD to carry out its demolitions. You can let
them know that you expect them to reject any plan that
uses federal dollars to gentrify New Orleans. And you
can add your voice to the public demand that Bush hold
HUD accountable and block any action until problems with
the plan are addressed and the investigation of Alphonso
Jackson is complete. It takes only a moment:
http://www.colorofchange.org/hudhousing/?id=2017-171620
New Orleans Housing Crisis
With New Orleans in
the middle of a serious housing emergency, it just
doesn't make sense to destroy housing that's in good
condition.2 Rents have gone up 45% since Katrina, the
city has already lost 9,000 units of affordable housing,
and half of the families that want to return home make
less than $20,000 a year. In the last two years, New
Orleans' homeless population has more than
doubled--12,000 New Orleanians have no place to live.3
Many of the units
HUD plans to destroy are in very well-constructed
buildings that were barely damaged by Katrina, and would
require a minimum of renovation to provide quality
housing, even if only temporarily.4 Rather than
addressing the pressing, immediate need for affordable
housing, HUD's plan threatens to make the problem worse.
HUD's flawed redevelopment plan
Whatever your views
are on public housing, HUD's redevelopment plan is
ill-conceived and irresponsible. The plan calls for
replacing New Orleans' current public housing with
mixed-income housing, which many believe is a better
model for public housing. But in making the switch, HUD
refuses to rebuild the same number of affordable public
housing units as it destroys. HUD's plan would destroy
4,600 affordable public housing units, while the new
mixed-income housing would only include 744 units of
affordable housing, and building those units will take
several years.5 The inevitable result will be thousands
of low-income residents--most of whom are Black--pushed
out of the city.
Questions have also
been raised about the motivations behind HUD's plan. The
head of HUD, Alphonso Jackson, and his staff are under
criminal investigation – by the FBI, Department of
Justice, and HUD's inspector general -- for corruption
in HUD/Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO)'s process
for handing out contracts related to the redevelopment
plan. The contract for demolishing and rebuilding the
St. Bernard housing project was given to a firm that
owes Jackson at least $250,000 (and as much as
$500,000). Scott Keller – Jackson's right hand man and
point person for dealing with New Orleans public housing
– pushed hard for that firm to receive the contract.
Investigators are also focusing on the fact that HUD/HANO
paid $485,000 to one of Jackson's golfing buddies for
work as a construction manager over an 18-month
period.6,7
No Demolition without a solution
that makes sense
At best, HUD has a
goal that many think is good (moving towards
mixed-income housing), but a deeply flawed plan that
will be disastrous to New Orleans residents who need the
most help. At worst, HUD is pushing a plan that will
help enrich its secretary and his cronies, while leaving
working-class people out in the cold and dramatically
reshaping the class makeup of New Orleans. Either way,
it would be a huge mistake to let HUD push forward with
demolitions until these issues are addressed and
resolved.
Tomorrow, the New
Orleans City Council will decide whether it's going to
allow HUD to continue down this reckless path. Council
members need to hear that people across the country
disapprove of HUD's plan. Will you join us in calling on
the city council to reject the plan, and on President
Bush to stop HUD from proceeding?
ColorofChange
Thank You and Peace—James, Van, Gabriel, Mervyn, Clarissa, and the rest of
the
ColorofChange.org
team
December 19th, 2007
References:
1. Fewer Homes for Katrina's Poorest Victims, PolicyLink,
December 2007
PolicyLink
2. Condition of the Four New
Orleans Housing Projects Slated for Demolition, Gulf
Coast Fair Housing Network
FairHousingNetwork
3. Speaker Pelosi and Reid Urge
President to Halt Demolition of Public Housing in New
Orleans, The Gavel, December 15, 2007
Speaker.gov
4. See reference 2.
5. HUD Sends New Orleans Bulldozers
and $400,000 Apartments for the Holidays, Common Dreams,
December 3, 2007
CommonDreams
6. HUD Probe Heats Up, National
Journal, December 14, 2007
NationalJournal
7. Questionable Contracts, National
Journal, December 18, 2007
NationalJournal
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The Shock Doctrine in Action in New
Orleans
By Naomi Klein
Readers of
The Shock Doctrine know that one of the most
shameless examples of disaster capitalism has been the
attempt to exploit the disastrous flooding of New
Orleans to close down that city’s public housing
projects, some of the only affordable units in the city.
Most of the buildings sustained minimal flood damage,
but they happen to occupy valuable land that make for
perfect condo developments and hotels. The final
showdown over New Orleans public housing is playing out
in dramatic fashion right now. The conflict is a classic
example of the “triple shock” formula at the core of the
doctrine.
• First came the shock of the original disaster: the
flood and the traumatic evacuation.
• Next came the “economic shock therapy”: using the
window of opportunity opened up by the first shock to
push through a rapid-fire attack on the city’s public
services and spaces, most notably it’s homes, schools
and hospitals.
• Now we see that as residents of New Orleans try to
resist these attacks, they are being met with a third
shock: the shock of the police baton and the Taser gun,
used on the bodies of protestors outside New Orleans
City Hall yesterday.
Source:
HuffingtonPost
New Orleans City Council Shuts Down
Public Housing Debate (video)
|
Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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