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Protesters Pepper Sprayed, Tasered,
Arrested
New Orleans Resisting Demolition
By Carl Dix
On Thursday,
December 20, the New Orleans City Council was scheduled
to vote on whether to demolish public housing in New
Orleans. The city's plan is to destroy more than 4,600
units of low-cost housing. This is happening in a city
where homelessness is growing. A city where tens of
thousands have not been able to return since Katrina. A
city where people are being evicted from FEMA trailers,
where homeless encampments are being forcibly removed.
And this plan has been met with resistance by people
determined to be heard and determined to stop the
demolitions.
Even before the
City Council voted, the system delivered its answer in
brutality:
The police attacked
people and arrested them inside the City Council
meeting. BILLY CLUBS, PEPPER SPRAY, AND TASERS were also
used outside against people protesting the demolitions.
A protester who was
at the City Council meeting told Revolution:
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We were denied our human
rights. HANO [Housing Authority of New
Orleans] brought a lot of people in there,
in favor of demolition. All of those people
were able to get their people seated fairly
quickly without any problems. And we was
asking why weren't you letting more of our
people in and also the people opposed to
demolition, they were screening the guys. As
we made the request, because we saw a number
of seats available, maybe even 20 seats
available for people to come in, but they
had them close off the access to council
chambers. . . .
We got up in protest,
screaming, 'Let the people in! Let the
people in!' And the officers decided to
silence us, so one of the officers grabbed
me, put his hands on me. I told him don't
put his hands on me, and the crowd was still
chanting, 'Let the people in!' because they
was illegally starting the process. Then
another officer passed me up, so I started
chanting again 'Let the people in.' So
another officer took it upon himself to use
physical enforcement to silence me.
A number of police
officers then jumped me, physically hitting
me, striking me. Knocked me on the ground,
then one SWAT team officer tasered me. So
while I was being tasered, another officer
asked me to put my hands behind my back, but
I was paralyzed from the taser, by the
volts. I was tasered again. So when I have
two tasers in me I was tasered again. So I
was tasered three times after being beaten
and attacked by the police officers. They
handcuffed me and dragged me out of the
room. I was put in a paddy wagon and brought
to jail."
New Orleans City
Council Shuts Down Public Housing
Debate |
Then the city
council took their vote: seven votes to ZERO in favor of
demolishing four large public housing developments. A
graphic display of bourgeois democracy in action.
Outrage On Top
of All the Other Outrages
The night before
the vote, TV news already announced that most of the
city council was going to vote for demolition. It was
also announced that cops would be out in large numbers
to enforce order during the meeting. The Message: forget
about protesting this blatant injustice, the
powers-that-be have already decided to go ahead and
demolish more than 4,600 units of public housing—homes
that could be fixed up for people who desperately need a
place to live. The city's plan is to destroy more than
4,600 units and replace them with "mixed income housing"
which will have less than 800 affordable units.
On the day of the
meeting, HUD and the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO)
packed the council chambers with supporters of
demolition. Several hundred people also came to the
council meeting to voice their opposition to the
demolitions. But the police closed and chained the gates
to the City Council chambers before the meeting began.
They claimed there was no more room—even though there
were dozens of empty seats and lots of standing room.
More than 100
people demonstrated outside, chanting "Stop the
Demolitions." New Orleans residents who had been exiled
after Katrina came from places like Houston and New York
to oppose the demolitions, and they were enraged at
being locked out of the council. Inside the chambers,
people refused to let the meeting begin, demanding those
locked out be allowed in. Cops grabbed several young men
by their dreads. Mothers and grandmothers from the
projects joined youth and others to condemn this
repression while it was going on and throughout the
session. To enforce "order," the cops beat, tased and
arrested people.
The crowd outside
became enraged at the sight of people being dragged out
in handcuffs. People surged against the chained gate
forcing it to pop open. When some tried to get into the
chambers the cops arrested several people,
indiscriminately shot pepper spray into the crowd and
started tasing people. Three women were tased, one of
them in the back, sending her into convulsions. At least
15 people were arrested.
It was AFTER all
this—after opponents of the demolition had been beaten,
tased and arrested—that the City Council went through
the formality of hearing public comment for and against
demolition. And then voted unanimously to demolish the
homes and communities of thousands of poor Black
families.
Were any of the
council members bothered by any of this repression? Not
a bit. The Los Angeles Times reported: "City Council
members—some sipping water, others leafing through file
folders —looked on impassively as a man was tasered,
handcuffed and dragged from the council chambers."
Since Katrina,
outrage after outrage has been perpetrated against the
people of New Orleans. Tens of thousands left to die as
Katrina's flood waters surged. People denied evacuation
or rescue and food and water. People vilified and dissed
as looters and thugs for taking what they needed to
survive.
And now THIS—in a
city where there is such a crying need for low-cost
housing, the authorities are moving ahead with plans to
demolish public housing. More than 200,000 New Orleans
residents still live outside the city, 150,000 of them
Black, unable to come back, in large part, because
there's nowhere they can afford to live. Thousands are
being evicted from FEMA trailers, and more than 12,000
people, more than double the number of homeless before
Katrina, are living on the streets.
But the logic of
capitalism sees no profit in providing low-cost housing
for people. And plans to rebuild New Orleans have
clearly been aimed at making it a city less Black, less
poor, and more geared toward profitable enterprises like
tourism.
Resistance
Builds, Much More Needed
Resistance to the
demolitions had been growing in the days leading up to
the City Council meeting. At the BW Cooper development,
where demolitions began, several people occupied
apartments the day before the council vote. Two people
chained themselves to the buildings, shutting down
demolition efforts for much of the day. The authorities
responded by declaring the whole housing development a
crime scene and threatening residents with arrest if
they left their homes. One of these residents called in
to a press conference held to support the occupations
and spoke by phone on a TV newscast, letting people know
she was "being held hostage" by the police. People
involved in the occupations were given felony charges of
terrorizing and "using a simulated explosive device."
Headlines and
photographs were seen around the world—showing the
resistance of the people to this latest attack. And much
more resistance is needed to take on and beat back these
demolitions. For the authorities, the only thing left to
work out is the details of how people's homes will be
demolished. But for many people, this battle is far from
over. It has already been very important and very
significant that this outrage has not been allowed to go
down quietly, that it has been met with determined
resistance from the people. And it is an outrageous
exposure that in order to have their vote to carry
through with this plan they had to lock people out of
the meeting, beat, tase, pepper spray and arrest people.
The stakes in this
battle are very high. People across the country, and
around the world, witnessed the criminal way the system
treated people after Katrina. And people have seen how
the system has continued to mistreat and abandon the
people of New Orleans—making it impossible for most to
come back and rebuild their homes and lives. Politicians
and the media continue to vilify Black people in New
Orleans, calling them thugs and criminals and blaming
them for the desperate conditions the system has put
them in. It is right to rebel against all this! And it
is heartening and inspiring to see people resisting in
New Orleans.
New Orleans
represents something special to people. Before Katrina
it was seen as a vibrant city with a distinctive
culture. Since Katrina, it has come to symbolize a
blatant concentration of the whole history and the
continuing reality of how this system oppresses Black
people. There has been widespread sentiment among
millions of people of wanting to stand with the people
in New Orleans, to do something to help. And in spite of
government neglect and roadblocks, tens of thousands of
volunteers of many different nationalities and walks of
life have come to New Orleans to gut houses, clean up
schools, and help the rebuilding effort in other ways.
In such a situation, RESISTANCE in New Orleans resonates
with many people who could be allies in this struggle,
who feel that this resistance has RIGHT ON ITS SIDE, who
could "have the people's back."
Resistance to the
demolitions has already struck a chord with and impacted
many different kinds of people. In mid-December, dozens
of mostly youthful volunteers responded to a call to
come down to help stop the demolitions. Right after the
City Council vote, a crew of people, including some
youth from Jena, came to New Orleans to distribute
Revolution newspaper.
On December 5, Brad
Pitt was on the Larry King show talking about his
project to rebuild eco-friendly housing in the Ninth
Ward (a poor Black neighborhood devastated by floods).
He expressed real concern about the situation people are
in. Speaking about the scene at the City Council
meeting, he said: "What yesterday certainly reflects is
the frustration and the helplessness that families are
facing here. And, again, you know, it's been
two-and-a-half years now. And, again, I don't know the
details. I know there was some arguments that these
places created crime. I didn't hear the argument that
answers that for me, is that you've got to address
education, you've got to address health, you've got to
address opportunities. And until you address that, what
do you expect is going to be there? So I don't know that
the issue is just about the housing itself. But, again,
I don't know enough. What I do know is that this tells
you what an open nerve this place still is. And as
hopeful and as great spirit as the people maintain here,
you know, they need some help."
There is much need,
and great possibility, for the resistance to these
demolitions to grow broader and become more determined.
The powers-that-be are serious about rebuilding a
smaller, whiter New Orleans, with much of its Black
population driven out. In a real way, this concentrates
the killing program this system has for Black people
nationwide.
As the resistance
grows and becomes more determined, it can attract people
who hate the outrages this system continues to inflict
on the people and want to see a different and better way
for people to live. It can bring many more forward to
join the struggle, and through the course of resisting,
people can learn what they're up against and what it'll
take to win. It can win allies from amongst people from
many different backgrounds. And all this can and must be
part of building a broad revolutionary movement.
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Revolution is calling on its readers to send messages of
support to the people in New Orleans, which we will
forward.
Fight the Power, And Transform the People, For
Revolution
Steve Yip / P.O. Box 941, Knickerbocker Station / New
York, New York 10002-0900 866-841-9139 x2670,
yipzzz@gmail.com
It's time to throw off the chains of oppression, and
get with the emancipators of humanity!
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posted 24 December 2007 |
