The forgotten ones: Katrina

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Amidst the blizzard of congressional, bureaucratic, and administrative reports on Hurricane Katrina, the only thing left out is what was left out from the very first day and every single day thereafter— the people.

It has been six months after the nation’s worst natural (and political) disaster and still, things are as unstable, as unsure, as chaotic for the tens of thousands of people who were too poor to leave during the night of the catastrophe.

While politicians fight over air time and report after report is issued, the mostly Black residents of the city (especially those who dwelled in the Lower Ninth Ward) are spread across the country, fighting FEMA for housing funds, seeking jobs, trying to put their lives together.

Meanwhile, corporate and city planning agencies are writing off vast areas of the Ninth Ward, and planning for a “new” New Orleans, one that will be, shall we say, a good deal less chocolate.

Many former residents are crunched into tiny hotel rooms, some are squeezed into private homes, some are even homeless, while 100,000 trailers acquired by FEMA stand idle, empty, unused.

It is a telling measure of social and class difference, that when so many people are living in such distress, the white corporate media goes into a silly cycle because the city’s mayor told a group of Katrina survivors that New Orleans would be a “chocolate city” again.

A recent study on the future of New Orleans suggests that the “new” New Orleans will be whiter, and wealthier than the city which was struck by the winds and waters of Katrina.
The study, headed by John R. Logan, entitled “The Impact of Katrina: Race and Class in
Storm-Damaged Neighborhoods” (www.s4.brown.edu/Katrina/report.pdf), shows how 80 percent of Black New Orleanians may never return. Indeed, nearly 50 percent of white working-class residents may not return either.

Logan, a sociology professor at Brown Univer sity, reports that local and state political and business leaders are looking to make sure that New Orleans has a new constituency—one whiter and wealthier than those who came before.

Remember the high and lofty promises that were spit into microphones when Katrina was still news? Words, blather, promises. There’s another reason why monies promised have never really reached the Crescent City—war. The Iraq War is like a fiscal vacuum cleaner, sucking up every buck not nailed down.

Hurricane Katrina has also spawned another, little-discussed problem: the profound toxicity that abounds in the region, where lead, arsenic, crude oil, benzene, and dozens of other substances have leached into the earth, into brick, and into the tropical air.

One is reminded of the 9/11 attacks, when city and federal officials assured residents that the wafting white dust wasn’t a health danger to those breathing in Manhattan. Now, years later, we know that these were lies designed to give false peace to people in peril.

Katrina, although on the back burners of most news agencies, lives in the minds of millions as the worst of America when it involves Blacks in distress.

Recently, an African activist living in Paris told how, when questioned about the recent riots in France, he turned the tables. As Brima Conteh explained:

“We had a couple of African Americans
who wanted to come over to see us during the riots, and the first question we asked them was, ‘We want to know what you’re doing about Katrina.’

“Even in France, people say, look the U.S. this and that—the U.S. is seen on a different level despite the racism. But people started asking questions, if you have these big Black American stars, what the hell is happening over there?” [From: Tram Nguyen, “Lessons From France: African Activist Brima Conteh Talks About the Roots and Reverberations of the Unrest in Paris,” *Colorlines* Magazine (Spring 2006), p. 9]

The images of Katrina have not faded. They echo around the earth, bouncing off satellites, teaching, telling, revealing. In the very beginning the images told us that this nation, the richest since Rome, didn’t really give a damn about Black poor people. It has been half a year, and that message resonates today just as clearly as it did yesterday.