Organization:  People's Institute for Survival and Beyond Date Published:  09/06/2005

The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, one of the nation's foremost anti-racist training organizations, today called for a full investigation by the United Nations of the federal response to the Katrina catastrophe in Mississippi and Louisiana, and especially in the city of New Orleans.

"This calamity demonstrates how racism manifests itself in every institution in this country," said Ronald Chisom, executive director of the People's Institute, a 25-year old, multiracial organization headquartered in New Orleans. "With the national and international coverage of hurricane Katrina, the world has seen the real face of racism in America. Only an international body will be able to hold accountable the political leaders who had the knowledge but did not act, who had the power, but did not use that power to preserve the lives and human dignity of all people."

Rooted in the culture of New Orleans, The People's Institute is intimately familiar with the history of racism in New Orleans and the south. Although it is a national organization with a national and international network of anti-racist organizers and trainers, The People's Institute feels acutely the impact of Katrina, having lost its offices and the homes of many of its staff.

"We need the United Nations to oversee an international Public Works campaign similar to the post-tsunami rebuilding efforts in South Asia and the Pacific," said Kimberley Richards, Core Trainer with The People's Institute and a citizen of Mississippi. "We must prevent this tragedy from becoming a 'cash cow' to benefit those who have historically profited from war and crisis. We must build with a vision of social justice and economic equity, so that poor people do not end up simply with "services" but without economic power. Only an international body can guarantee that."

Founded in 1980, The People's Institute has provided "Undoing Racism™" workshops and consultations to over 120,000 people of every race, religion, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds throughout the United States as well as internationally in South America, Puerto Rico, Cuba, South Africa, and Japan. The organization is committed to assisting community organizers, leaders and organizations deepen their understanding of the systemic, economic and social impact of racism on their lives, their family, and their communities.

"Let's not turn off our TV sets and shrug off the deadly results we have witnessed as someone else's responsibility," urged Ronald Chisom. "Instead of papering over our inequities and pushing poor Black people back into the neighborhoods where other Americans don't have to see them again, we can rebuild a truly equitable New Orleans - a truly humane America."

The People's Institute believes that to accomplish these goals, the people of the United States must examine the roots of our racism, analyze our multigenerational national bias against people of color and its corollary bias in favor of people because they are white. We must critique the effects of decades of neglect suffered by poor people across the country, then transform our institutions, our policies, and our culture.

First, we must let the people flooded out by Katrina come back and be paid a living wage to rebuild their own communities!

Ronald Chisom can be reached at 504-782-6525; Dr. Kimberley Richards can be reached at 504-722-3213. For more information about The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, visit our website at www.pisab.org.

Organization:  Malcolm X Grassroots Movement Date Published:  09/13/2005

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), a national New Afrikan (Black) human rights organization, calls on every sector of the Black community, including civil rights organizations, human rights activists, workers organizations, religious communities and civic and cultural groups to UNITE in solidarity with Our Sisters and Brothers who have survived Hurricane Katrina.

Poor Black people didn't "choose to stay behind," they were intentionally left behind. They were left behind way before Hurricane Katrina hit the shores of the Gulf Coast. The same Black people suffering today as a result of Hurricane Katrina, are the same Black people who were disproportionately suffering from poverty, police terrorism, inadequate healthcare, insufferable housing, hunger and a pathetic education system long before the Hurricane occurred.

This is a critical time in the history of New Afrikan (Black) people. We have been presented with an opportunity to rebuild a self~determining community, out of what has been a broken existence since our arrival at the shores of this land. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is committed to rebuilding a self-detennining Black nation, one community at a time. We must prepare ourselves, and our communities for the "natural" disasters, infrastructure breakdowns, and acts of "terrorism" as well as war that are occurring with more frequency because of the insatiable drive of United States imperialism.

We seek your solidarity and request your support to meet the immediate needs of our people - to help save, protect and preserve life, while strategically planning for long tenn self determination. We must connect and organize businesses, organizations and institutions into an economic and social network to create the social fabric that supports self-sustaining communities.

To meet the immediate needs of our people devastated by Hurricane Katrina we are making the following demands upon the United States Government and the Governments of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and all states upon which Survivors have been relocated. We are asking everyone who supports these demands to add your name to the petition and spread it far and wide to other organizations in and out of our communities to strengthen the mobilization of our people and hold the United States government accountable.

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement also stands in solidarity with other oppressed peoples affected by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast region, including the undocumented, the Mexican and Latino communities, the Vietnamese and Asian communities, and the Native American communities. We maintain that the demands articulated herein also be unequivocally be applied to aU of these oppressed peoples.

Immediate Demands:

• That the martial law applied to New Orleans and various regions of the Gulf Coast be lifted immediately.
• That the curfews in New Orleans, Biloxi and other cities and regions in the Gulf Coast be suspended immediately.
• The immediate removal of all foreign and domestic mercenary and white vigilante forces currently terrorizing Black and other oppressed communities in the Gulf Coast states, including Texas.
• The suspension of aU of the relief and reconstruction contracts unfairly awarded to the cronies of the Bush government like Halliburton and its various subsidiaries.
• Immunity for all survivors charged andlor convicted for crimes of theft, property destruction, and assault.
• Information on the whereabouts and status of all of survivors including incarcerated persons, immigrants, persons relocated and deceased persons.
• Community Control over the relief process, including direct oversight over the relief operations of FEMA and the Red Cross.
• The honoring of all insurance claims resulting from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Fundamental Demands:

1. The Right of Return.
The Black survivors from the Gulf Coast regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama possess the fundamental human right to their homelands, as well as the right to reestablish their lives and rebuild their communities as they see fit.

2. The Right to Organize.
The Black survivors in the Gulf Coast region possess the inalienable right to organize themselves and to control the decision-making processes that effect their welfare and livelihoods.
The Black survivors have the right to form governing councils, labor unions, commercial and community cooperatives, and other institutions that serve the political material interests of New Afrikan (Black) people.

3. The Right to an Income.
The Black survivors have a right to an income provided by Federal and State governments to ensure their overall well being and that of their families and communities.

4. The Right to Living Wages.
Black survivors have the right to be compensated at living scale wages for their labor in the relief and reconstruction processes in the Gulf Coast States.
Black survivors have the right to be provided a living wage in the states upon which they have been relocated.

5. The Right of Access.
Black survivors have the right to control the reconstruction funds and contracting processes of the Federal and state governments.
Black survivors have the permanent right to access all of the lands of the affected Gulf Coast region.

6. The Right to Education and Health Care.
Black survivors have the inalienable right to free quality education and health care including counseling and psychological therapy.

7. The Right of Self-Determination.
Black survivors have the fundamental right to determine the long-term redevelopment of the Gulf Coast region.

Author:  Trymaine D. Lee, Times Picayune Date Published:  09/18/2005

Amid the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, one woman stayed with a simple goal: to take care of those who need it the most. Momma D soldiers on in flood-tom Treme. She gives survivors strength to rebuild.

By Trymaine D. Lee
Staff writer for the Times Picayune

Diane "Momma D" Frenchcoat rises early each morning and pushes a cart of food and supplies through the sludge-spoiled streets of Treme and the 7th Ward.

She delivers food and hope for the hungry. She serves the delusional and dejected, the junkies and the flood survivors who have remained in the city despite its mass evacuation. Each day, she pushes her cart up and down Esplanade Avenue and Dorgenois, Aubry and North Tonti streets, calling to those too ill or too old or too stubborn to leave the neighborhoods that· they've loved for so long.

"You need something to eat?" Frenchcoat yelled to a skinny, shirtless man perched in a second-floor window of a home on Esplanade near Treme Street, earlier this week. "You hungry? You want some food?"

The man peered down from his post to the mud-crusted block below and responded with silence.
"You need some food, baby?" Frenchcoat hollered again.

The man stood there for a moment then vanished into the darkness. "So many of them are scared to come out of their homes. But they're hungry, I know they are. So, I just come by every day and let them get used to my voice and hope they come out."

She marches on each day, up and down Treme and St. Philip and St. Ann streets calling out to the frail and the frightened, to those who shutter their windows at the sounds of the military machines grinding on their blocks or hovering above their humbled homes.

Her cart is usually packed with baby formula, deodorant, canned soup and sandwiches. Some of it has been "liberated" from local groceries, she said, where it would have gone to waste in the wake of the hurricane and flood. Some had been given to her by out-of-state soldiers sympathetic to her cause.

"I can't think of a better gift in the face of this tragedy than Momma D," said Lt. Ken Noack, 24, of the 82nd Airborne out of Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. "She's just the sweetest woman."

Noack and his men piled out of a military vehicle Wednesday onto Dorgenois Street, bearing bags of ice.

"With this city being so sad right now, to see her so willing to help brings smiles to our faces,H he said, "the only ones we've had in two weeks."

Noack said Momma D has helped them find dozens of people in need of help. who otherwise might never gotten attention.

Frenchcoat said she has too much work ahead of her to leave the city. And she said she won't be forced out either. Not by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, not by New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass and not by any other official pressing people to leave their homes.

"This is me. This is my home," she said, pointing to the brown gravel beneath her feet Wednesday. "This is me to the bone. Why would I leave now?," she said. "Why would I leave my people when so many of them are still here, suffering."

Her graying dreadlocks flowed down the nape of her neck, spilling over her sturdy, sloping shoulders as she spoke of a city she hopes will be reborn from the loins of her people.

Momma D has a loyal following of community activists working to help stabilize Treme from the grass-roots up. They've stayed behind to help their people, their neighbors and themselves.

They call themselves the Soul Patrol, a loosely organized group led by Momma D. The Soul Patrol was on the front lines battling the floods and the hunger following Hurricane Katrina.
In the midst of the crisis, Soul Patrol members said they were about 30 strong. As time went on, the numbers dwindled. Tragedy gripped a few, some losing family members, others physically and mentally worn down.

"I ain't going nowhere," said Soul Patrol member Earl Barthe, 45. "I'm the son of a bricklayer. I'm ready to cut some sheetrock, lay some block, anything to rebuild the city."

Members of the Soul Patrol said they "liberated" nearby McDonogh Elementary 42, where they evacuated hundreds of area residents during the flooding. The fire department then shipped the residents to the Superdome and Interstate 10, said Manuel Mercadel, 48.

"We had facilities there, dry land and a roof for those people," Mercadel said. Mercadel said Frenchcoat has been an inspiration to th~ entire movement. She's been like a big sister who always has your back and treats everyone as an equal, he said. .

"She has a love affair with this city," said Jerome Smith, 64, a fellow activist and friend who said he's known Momma D since the early 1960s. "A love affair that she's had for a very long time."
Last week, Smith went looking for Frenchcoat to coax her out of New Orleans to a shelter in Texas. Smith said he had wanted to use her clout to organize the now evacuated young men from the community and prepare them to re-enter the city as a productive work force.

Smith called on Compass to help him find Frenchcoat. Compass, who did not support the idea of residents remaining in the city for any reason, extended the police resources to get Momma D.
Smith and a convoy rolled down Esplanade, where the sight of a short woman in dreadlocks and bright yellow waders brought a smile to Smith's face. The two activists met in the middle of the road, embraced and exchanged notes. The pair huddled and whispered.

Momma D had a plan.

"Rescue. Return. Restore," she said, each word seeming to freeze from her lips and hang before falling into the other.

"Can you here what I'm saying, baby? Listen to those words again," she said, leaning closer.
"Rescue, return, restore. We want the young, able-bodied men who are still here to stay to help those in need. And the ones that have been evacuated. We want them to come home and help clean up and rebuild this city. How can the city demand that we evacuate our homes but then have thousands of people from across this country volunteering to do the things that we can do ourselves?"

[This article first appeared in the Times Picayune
Sunday, September 18, 2005 Metro Section]

---

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005
Subject: needs for momma d and soul patrol
From: catherinejonesriseup.net

MOMMA D & SOUL PATROL: NEEDS LIST

Momma D is a long-time New Orleans resident living at 1733 N. Dorgenois in New Orleans. She stayed in New Orleans for the duration of the hurricane and its aftermath. There is no electricity or running water in her neighborhood. So far she is helping 50 families, more arriving each day.

See her story in the Times-Picayune [above].

Soul Patrol is an organization of community members working to assist and protect their neighborhood. Supplies needed:

• Generators
• Charcoal
• Mosquito repellent
• Cell phones with car chargers
• Plastic cups, forks, knives/spoons
• Boxes of soymilk that do not need refrigeration
• Cleaning supplies
• Juice
• Propane grills
• Non-perishable food
• Water
• Flashlights lanterns
• Tents
• First Aid supplies

Soul Patrol needs:

• Big t-shirts (large, x large, 2 x, 3 x) that say "Soul Patrol" that are black, red and green (12 of each size)
• Crocheted hats that are black, red and green (can be found in beauty shops- 50 needed)

Momma D says there is a need for a free clinic in her neighborhood. She is willing to donate a room in her house for this purpose. She also is asking for volunteers to come down to help clean.

Author:  San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper Date Published:  09/18/2005

Malik Rahim and medics from SF to DC set up health clinic in New Orleans

Dispatches from volunteer medics in Algiers, New Orleans

Sept. 15 – Mayor Ray Nagin announced Thursday that Algiers will be the first of the communities in New Orleans to reopen to residents. While FEMA and the Red Cross will surely trumpet their efforts, the real success of Algiers belongs to those courageous community members who stayed through the storm and activist Malik Rahim who helped to catalyze the bustling Common Ground Relief effort.

Common Ground was the first on the ground relief effort of any kind in Algiers and one of the first along the Gulf Coast. The multiple success stories of Common Ground mutual aid has resulted in donations from Army personnel who wanted to see relief actually get to the community. The FEMA-Red Cross effort, bounded by razor wire, has played a poor second fiddle to the local efforts.

We anticipate an even greater need for relief support when residents begin moving back to the area. To support Common Ground, send donations to Common Ground, PO Box 3216, Gretna, LA 70054. Please pace your donations. Please no clothes or food. More information and online monetary donations are available at the new action website at www.commongroundrelief.org.

A model for getting it together

Sept. 14 – The locally-led, mutually based community relief effort in Algiers is now being called Common Ground Algiers. Currently, more than 40 volunteer medics, doctors, cooks, communications technicians, community organizers and concerned people are directly involved in the Common Ground collective effort.

Emergency services that have been created include a community garbage pick-up program; mobile kitchens to provide free hot meals to anyone in the area; a first aid clinic in a local mosque and a mobile first aid station staffed by doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians; and bicycles for volunteers and residents to transport aid around the area; and the development of a free school for children.

These efforts could serve as a community-based model for creating both emergency response and long-term infrastructure for people affected by the hurricane and who are in need of these kinds of vital services.

Cracker squads

Cracker squads are groups of white supremacists who are using the slanderous media coverage and storm chaos to terrorize communities of color in Louisiana and Mississippi. One young woman in a Mississippi town relayed to us that a cracker squad had shot Black men in the woods and threatened retaliation for those going public with the story. Similar stories have come in from Algiers, downtown New Orleans and the outlying parishes of Louisiana.

A related threat are the armed mercenaries of Blackwater and other contractors who are patrolling downtown New Orleans. Internet reports indicate they have been particularly brutal in the handling of storm survivors.

They said it: Common Ground Wellness Center

You can't start a clinic here (in the Ninth Ward). That would give people hope. My job is to make their lives as hopeless as possible so they will leave.
– New Orleans Police Department officer
berating relief workers in the Ninth Ward

The administration of this country needs to be put on trial for human rights violations and treason against the people of the Gulf Coast region, as well as negligent homicide for every person left in this region to die.
– Noah, Emergency Medical Technician-B
with the Common Ground Wellness Center

Our number one national priority right now should be to clean up New Orleans and rebuild vulnerable areas in a safe and environmentally sound way. Then, every single evacuee must be offered the opportunity and the resources to return to rebuild their neighborhoods in exactly the same way. We cannot allow evacuees to be forced into becoming refugees.
– Roger Benham,
Emergency Medical Technician-B
with the Common Ground Wellness Center

It's not so much that the government is not responding (with storm relief); they are obstructing the response. They are telling us we can't bring people the basic necessities of life because that would give them hope. It is a question of oppression vs. mutual aid. That is the revolution.
– Jesse, an organizer from D.C.
volunteering in the Common Ground Wellness Center

Report from the Bay Area Radical Health Collective

Sept. 13 - The medics on the ground report that the situation in New Orleans is surreal and extremely militarized, with armed soldiers and police everywhere. Some areas are still underwater or smoldering, and travel after dark is prohibited.

Algiers, a New Orleans neighborhood on the dry side of the Mississippi River, remains largely intact. The neighborhood has running water, and electricity was recently restored. While there is little working infrastructure in New Orleans itself, it is possible to drive to stores in surrounding parishes for medicine, food, and other supplies.

"It's not until you approach New Orleans that your realize there's been a major disaster," reports Michael Kozart, a doctor with the Bay Area Radical Health Collective. "The people who are suffering are actually cut off from the rest of the region."

Medics have established a clinic and relief effort - named Common Ground ­near the Masjid Bilal Mosque in Algiers and are working with long-time community activist Malik Rahim. Food Not Bombs has set up a kitchen to feed people, and activists are distributing non-medical supplies such as diapers. Those with vehicles have been driving residents to pharmacies in nearby parishes to refill their prescriptions. Communications are described as sporadic, but they've been able to get messages out via cell phone and wireless e-mail.

Days after the initial crew from MayDay-DC set up the clinic, FEMA finally arrived on the scene. Government officials are now providing medical aid, have set up a relief center near the local public hospital, and are supplying some medications - but many residents find their heavily armed presence intimidating.

"The military is running around in humvees with loudspeakers blaring instructions," Kozart says, in an apparent attempt to direct residents away from the grassroots effort. "It feels like they are competing with us for patients."

"The contrast between the ugliness of the militarized government response and the grassroots effort couldn't be more clear," he adds. "Would you rather be escorted by guys with M-16s at the official medical station, Of get help from people you know and recognize? It's a totally different paradigm of care."

At the same time, the situation is not without its surprises. One activist in Algiers reports that a renegade National Guard group procured supplies from FEMA to give to the anarchists.

The real need now is for more volunteers, especially those with medical training. There are about nine medics currently working at the clinic and doing house visits. The BARHC team plans to leave at the end of the week, and by then the MayDay-DC team will have been on the ground for nearly two weeks, so there's a need for new workers to rotate in as these teams rotate out. Incoming activists should expect to be self-sufficient in terms of tents, sleeping bags, and food (though water and food can be purchased in nearby parishes).

Everyone emphasizes the importance of approaching things in a spirit of "solidarity not charity." Community organizers and visiting activists are working together to establish a long-term, locally controlled operation. Food Not

Bombs is setting up a permanent kitchen that residents can use after they leave.

With electricity restored, activists are also working to establish a local independent media center, stressing the importance of bringing in journalists of color to cover the grassroots efforts of the local Black community as they resist government attempts to take over the city.

"This is going to be a long-term thing," says Block. "The people here may be used to living under martial law, since that's what it's always like for them, but it's really disgusting what's going on."

A crossroads of conscience

Sept. 14 - Where is the progressive left during this crisis? In particular, where are the hundreds of groups and individuals that make up the peace and justice movement?

Shocking news continues to flow out of Algiers and other communities that have endured military martial rule, corrupt police, racist "cracker squads" and ethnic cleansing. It was only yesterday that dead bodies were removed from the streets of Algiers. Just today, Food Not Bombs visited communities that have received no assistance at all.

Community activists continue to send out calls-to-action and emergency aid requests. If the progressive left doesn't understand what is happening in the aftermath of Katrina, it can only be from willfully ignoring the disturbing news coming out of the area.

There is both sadness and irony in the lack of mass relief action by the progressive arm of the left. It is sad because thousands of people have courageously faced a powerful storm and years of government negligence only to face a tide of inaction by the very same lefties that preach the end of racism and poverty.

It is ironic that a whirlwind of direct progressive action in the relief area would do more to demonstrate the values and principals of the left than any protest. What could be more embarrassing to Bush than thousands of progressives in the relief area, uniting with local communities and being visible witness to the criminal actions of the government and their corporate profiteers?

More importantly, it is precisely this sort of conscious action that challenges stereotypes and builds solidarity across historic divides. Ultimately, it is the moral and just thing to do.

Though it's been two weeks since Katrina hit this area, a federal relief effort that has been both criminal and racist continues to leave people without food, clean water, medical care or respect. The fluffy media stunts of Bush, FEMA and the military hide the truth on the ground that there are not enough medical personnel, food distribution or will to meet the immense need.

If the massive network of peace and justice organizations, individuals and activists won't meet the need of those who suffer, then who will? And meeting the need involves more than simply writing a check or giving away a box of old clothing. The failure of the government's relief infrastructure means that groups and individuals will have to fill that void by providing mutual aid hand-to-hand, face-to-face, in the relief area.

And with local community leaders making desperate pleas for actual volunteers, one wonders when this need will arrive. This is a historic crisis, and it can only be answered by historic action.

A whirlwind of change as life-altering as Hurricane Katrina must blow through the peace and justice movement in a short period of time. Choosing the right road will take courage and strength. The survivors of this disaster have shown these qualities time and time again. Those of us in the peace and justice movement will dishonor them, and ourselves, by displaying anything less.

Community efforts in Algiers, New Orleans

Sept. 10 - Efforts are continuing by grassroots organizers to preserve the still inhabited community of Algiers in New Orleans. Algiers is located on the west bank of the Mississippi across from downtown New Orleans. It was not flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and remains dry. The neighborhood has running water and electricity, and utility workers are working to get the gas on.

Roger Benham, an EMT from Connecticut who has made his way to Algiers to provide medical aid, reported on the latest developments.

"It's our first full day of operating our first aid station," he said. "We're trying to help people help themselves." Benham and four other heath care volunteers, including three other licensed EMTs, arrived at midday on Friday with a van full of medical supplies. At the behest of Algiers long time community activist Malik Rahim, they set up the first aid station in the Masjid Bilal mosque on Teche Street.

Benham reported that a number of visitors to the first aid station today were looking for prescription drugs they'd run out of. "Several of them were vets who depend on the VA for their blood pressure medications," he said. "We gave out the meds we're certified to administer. We also went to visit elders in their homes nearby today. On one house call met a 101-year-old woman. She's doing fine."

Benham had abruptly ended our phone interview Friday night. He explained that was because of the rapid approach of a military unit. "That was Civil Affairs," he explained. "They're going door to door doing a census. There's also paramedics with them, and FEMA paramedics as well. They don't quite know what to make of us. They're trying to treat us as community liaisons." The Civil Affairs personnel are Army Special Forces from Fort Bragg, N.C.

"The FEMA medics were upset that we're here, that we beat them to the scene," Benham reported. "They're fire department paramedics, one from San Diego and two from Idaho.

"FEMA's supposed to be setting up a medical aid station as well," he said. "So far they've just set up razor wire. It's next to a private charity that's been distributing water and food from a warehouse here."

Benham said the electricity had gone on the day before. "Utility workers are trying to get the gas on now," he said. "Some people already have gas. The city water never went off. So some people can boil it already I but the authorities are saying to use bottled water."

Benham said the neighborhood is continuing to be patrolled by the Army's First Cavalry. "The general vibe of the military is OK. Most of the soldiers I talked to are just back from Iraq. They wanted to know how we got (invited) in the mosque. We're using the masalluh (sanctuary), and they committed a no-no by coming in with their weapons. They realized they made a mistake though."

Benham reported that a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship anchored in the Mississippi River near downtown New Orleans was visible from Algiers.

At this point Benham informed me that FEMA was likely listening in on our call. "They called another of the EMTs I'm with," he said. "They asked him specific questions about a phone conversation he'd had here." Benham then said he had to pause because a loud Sea Stallion military helicopter was flying over.

When our interview resumed, Benham told me that he'd asked a soldier about how people who needed meds but don't have money to buy them could get help. "People who have money and can get a ride can go to drugstores that are operating now in some nearby towns," Benham explained.

"But if you don't have money, the soldier said that you'd be taken to the airport and issued the needed meds. Then though you'll be put on a plane and evacuated from the city. If you have family in a major city they'll take you there. If you don't they'll fly you wherever the plane is going.

"What we need here is an MD who can write prescriptions so people can get meds we're not registered to use."

Benham said he'd seen some Danish journalists in Algiers today, but other than that no media presence since his arrival Friday. "The Danish journalists had been around New Orleans before they came here," he reported. "But this was the only part they'd seen that was still inhabited."

Benham also said that Malik Rahim has organized more people to come to Algiers to provide relief supplies and other support.

Excerpts from dispatches written by Liz Highleyman, Naomi Archer, Michael Steinberg and other writers and posted to www.infoshop.org, www.realreports.blogspot.com, and sf.indymedia.org were compiled for this report.

Organization:  INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence Author:  Jordan Flaherty Date Published:  09/20/2005

Shelter And Safety

Last New Year's Eve, a Black Georgia Southern University student named Levon Jones was killed by bouncers in the Bourbon Street club Razzoo's. The outrage led to near daily protests outside the club, threats of a Black tourist boycott of New Orleans, and a city commission to explore the issue of racism in the French Quarter. Despite widely-publicized advance warning, a 'secret shopper' audit of the Quarter found rampant discrimination in French Quarter businesses, including different dress codes, admission prices, and drink prices, all based on whether the patron was black or white.

"The French Quarter is not a place for Black people," one community organizer told me pre~hurricane. "You don't see Black folks working in the front of house in French Quarter restaurants or hotels, and you don't see them as customers."

Just north of the French Quarter, a few blocks from Razzoo's, is the historic Treme neighborhood. Settled in the early 1800s, it’s known as the oldest free African American community in the US. Residents fear for the post-reconstruction stability of communities like Treme. "There's nothing some developers would like more than a ring of white neighborhoods around the French Quarter," said one Treme resident recently. The widespread fear among organizers is that the exclusionary, "tourists only" atmosphere of the French Quarter will be multiplied and expanded across the city, and that many residents simply wont be able to return home.

Chui Clark is a longtime community organizer from New Orleans, and was one of the leaders of the protests against Razzoo's. He now stays in Baton Rouge's River Street shelter. "This is a lily-white operation," he reports. "You have white FEMA and Red Cross workers watching us like we're some kind of amusement." Despite repeated assurances of housing placements from Red Cross and government officials, the population of the Baton Rouge shelters does not appear to be decreasing, according to Clark. "You have new arrivals all the time. Folks who were staying with families for a week or two are getting kicked out and they got no where else to go."

I went to the River Road shelter as part of a project initiated by Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children to help displaced New Orleans residents reconnect with loved ones who are lost in the labyrinth of Louisiana's corrections system.

Everyone I met was desperately trying to find a sister or brother or child or other family member lost in the system. Many people who were picked up for minor infractions in the days before the hurricane ended up being shipped to the infamous Angola Prison, a former slave plantation where it's estimated over 90% of the inmates currently incarcerated will die within its walls. Most of the family members I spoke with just wanted to get a message to their loved ones, "Tell him that we've been looking for him, that we made it out of New Orleans, and that we love him," said a former East New Orleans resident named Angela.

While Barbara Bush speaks of how fortunate the shelter residents are, in the real world New Orleans evacuees have been feeling anything but sheltered. One woman I spoke with in the River Street shelter said that she's barely slept since she arrived in the shelter system. "I sleep with one eye open," she told me. "Its not safe in there."

According to Christina Kucera, a feminist organizer from New Orleans, "issues of safety and shelter are intricately tied to gender. This has hit women particularly hard. Its the collapse of community. We've lost neighbors and systems within our communities that helped keep us safe."
Where once everyone in a neighborhood knew each other, now residents from each block are spread across several states. Communities and relationships that came together over decades were dispersed in hours.

Kucera lists the problems she's heard, "there have been reports of rapes and assaults before evacuation and in the shelters. And that's just the beginning. There are continuing safety and healthcare needs. There are women who were planning on having children who now no longer have the stability to raise a child and want an abortion, but they have no money, and nowhere to go to get one. Six of the thirteen rape crisis centers in Louisiana were closed by the hurricane."

One longtime community organizer from the New Orleans chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence has written, "We.. have to have some form of community accountability for the sexual and physical violence women and children endured. I'm not interested in developing an action plan to rebuild or organize a people's agenda in New Orleans without a gender analysis and a demand for community accountability."

We are already unsettled, and now Hurricane Rita threatens a new wave of evacuations. Astrodome residents are being out on buses and planes. While communities continue to be dispersed, some New Orleanians are staying and building. Diane "Momma D" Frenchcoat never evacuated out of her Treme home on North Dorgenois Street, and has been helping feed and support 50 families, coordinating a relief and rebuilding effort consisting of, at its peak, 30 volunteers known as the Soul Patrol.

"I ain't going nowhere," one Soul Patrol member told the New Orleans Times Picayune newspaper in a September 18 article about Momma D. "I'm the son of a bricklayer. I'm ready to cut some sheetrock, lay some block, anything to rebuild the city."

Asked about her plan, Momma D had these words, "Rescue. Return. Restore. Can you hear what I'm saying, baby? Listen to those words again. Rescue, return, restore. We want the young, able-bodied men who are still here to stay to help those in need. And the ones that have been evacuated, we want them to come home and help clean up and rebuild this city. How can the city demand that we evacuate our homes but then have thousands of people from across this country volunteering to do the things that we can do ourselves?"

Community organizers like Momma D in Treme and Malik Rahim, who has a similar network in the Algiers neighborhood, are the forces for relief and rebuilding that need our help. The biggest disaster was not a hurricane, but the dispersal of communities, and that's the disaster that needs to be addressed first.

Yesterday a friend told me through tears, "I just want to go back as if this never happened. I want to go back to my friends and my neighbors and my community." Its our community that has brought us security. People I know in New Orleans don't feel safer when they see Blackwater mercenaries on their block, but they do feel security from knowing their neighbors are watching out for them. And that's why the police and national guard and security companies on our streets haven't brought us the security we've been looking for, and why discussions of razing neighborhoods makes us feel cold.

When we say we want our city back, we don't mean the structures and the institutions, and we don't mean 'law and order,' we mean our community, the people we love.

And that's the city we want to fight for.

---

Jordan Flaherty is an organizer with the Service Employees International Union and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. This is his sixth article from New Orleans. To see the other articles, go to www.leftturn.org. You can contact Jordan at NewOrleansleftturn.org

 

Organization:  People's Institute for Survival and Beyond Author:  People's Institute for Survival and Beyond Date Published:  09/29/2005

A Grassroots Effort to Join Families and Share Resources

The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond

The People's Institute co-founder, antiracist organizer Jim Dunn, used to say that grassroots organizers rely on networks because a net that works can sometimes be the only thing that makes a difference. Hurricane Katrina has shown us that we are more interdependent than we may have thought. The Partner with a Katrina Family Network is an effort to strengthen ties between families directly impacted by the hurricane and those indirectly impacted, in order to build human networks, share resources, and facilitate a healthy, just interdependence of communities across the country.

What Does it Mean to be a Partner with a Family Surviving Katrina?

• You are willing to commit to a period of partnership with your partner family, during which you stay in regular contact, and work together with them to assess needs and provide solutions;
• You are willing to connect with your family, friends, neighbors, and/or co­workers in order to build support for your partner family;
• You are willing to give financial and other kinds of support;
• You are willing to follow the lead of your partner family, in the spirit of self-determination, self-sufficiency, and interdependency.

What Does it Mean to be a Family Surviving Katrina in Partnership with a Family Wanting to give Support?

• You are willing to be in communication with the family that wants to redistribute its resources;
• You are willing to be forthcoming with your needs, with no shame or greed;
• You are willing to direct this partnership in the way that works for your family, addressing difficulties should they arise, and helping your partner family be as useful as they can;
• You are willing to receive the support provided and use it to assist you to become interdependent and self-sufficient.

How to Become a Partner to a Katrina Family: 8 Steps

• Build Your Partnership Team. This may consist of your family, your extended family, a group of friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc. The members of your team agree to work together to offer assistance to the Katrina family. Commit to a period of partnership. We recommend six months to a year.
• Identify a Liaison. Choose one person who will be the prime liaison with the displaced family, the partner team, and the Network organizers.
• Become Partners with a Katrina Family. Contact the Network in order to be matched with a Katrina family. In some cases it will be possible to identify a family in your region~ in others you will be networked with someone in a different part of the country.
• Family Contact and Needs Assessment. Upon receiving your family name, contact the family immediately. Remember that they have been displaced since the end of August/early September, and are anxious to get settled as quickly as possible. Find a time when they can tell you at length about their situation. Do the needs assessment together. Remember to tell them a little bit about your family and the other members of your team, and the amount of time you have committed to staying in contact and assisting with their resettlement.

Here is a general guide to the kinds of information that will be useful.

• Family. Who is in their family? Get names, ages, health statuses, etc. Some may be very close to extended kin, who mayor may not be with them. Find out who is in their circle of concern. Who else do they know in their area?
• Shelter. How settled are they? Are they in need of immediate relocation? What are their options so far?
• Employment. Are they looking for work? What kind? Do they need job contacts, clothing, equipment, supplies, or materials?
• Auto. Do they have a car? Need a car?
• Furniture. Are they in need of furniture? Do they have transportation to pick up furniture? What about other household items: linens, kitchen appliances, cookware, etc. Make a priority list.
• Clothing. Do they need more clothing? Sizes, styles, colors? Take climate into account. What are they willing to take donated, and what do they want to buy new?
• School. Are the children already registered for school? How is it going? Do they need school supplies?
• Children's Items. Children's toys, books, games.
• Health. Do they have any pressing health concerns? Health Insurance? Access to prescription, doctors, medication?
• Paperwork. Do they need help with paperwork CFEMA forms, insurance forms, health insurance forms, change of address, etc.). Any legal needs?
•  Contact. Phone? Email access? When and how can they contact you?

• Partner Brainstorm. Call your team together quickly after your initial call. Share the needs assessment, and be as creative as possible.

Ways to Help

• Financial Contributions. How much money can you give up front? Do you want to make a bi-weekly pledge? Some partner teams may decide to make sacrifices during the period of partnership and save that money for the family (e.g. fewer meals out a month, carpooling, etc).
• Gift Certificates. Gift cards to Target, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Sears, etc. can be invaluable, are easy to provide long distance, and allow families to make their own purchasing choices. Ask about other stores in their area that they would like to buy from. If you know other people who want to provide support without going through an organization, buying gift cards for your partner family can be an easy way of participating.
• Local Contacts. If you live in the same area as your Katrina family, you may choose to meet with them in person. Being close by means you can collect items listed above and drop them off. You can give people a tour of the area, brainstorm job contacts, provide help getting a car, etc.
• Local Contacts From Afar. If you are partnering with a family that is not in your region, we bet it will take far fewer than six degrees of separation to find connections between your partner team and someone in your Katrina family partner's region. Does anyone on your team know anyone who knows anyone in that area? Can you invite them to be a local liaison? Having a local contact can be useful for job connections, furniture or moving assistance, visits, help getting to know the area, etc.
• Advocacy. Many businesses - cell phone companies, utility companies, airlines, Amtrak, etc - are providing assistance to evacuees by waiving late fees, freezing loan payments, changing flights without change fees, etc. Sometimes these allowances are not granted, but must be requested (you have to ask to know!). This can be time consuming, stressful, and require comfort speaking with authorities. You can offer to make these calls on behalf of your partner family.
• Material and Emotional Support. While the most pressing needs at the outset are material, such as shelter, security, food, income, etc., there will be other kinds of needs, and other ways you can support your partner family. Some might be as simple as calling often and regularly (reliably) just to check in, listen, and let them know that they are not forgotten. You may also help them to network with other communities and/or support services, etc.
• Regularity and Consistency. Establish some structure to support you, and to help maintain consistency. Examples might include deciding how often (at a minimum) you'll be in touch with the family; identifying times in the day when it's easier for you to work on related tasks; coming up with ways that your whole family can be involved together; deciding how you will stay connected as a team and work together.
• Get out of the Box. Be creative about ways to support your partner family, and also yourself during this relationship. Share your process and the stories you are hearing from the family with people in your community. Contact your local newspaper. Write a letter to community groups in the area in which your family partner has relocated.
• Stay in Touch with the Partner Network. The Partner with a Katrina Family Network can be an important source of support for partnering families during this time. We'd like to hear how it's going~ problem solve with you if there are difficulties, and document the fruits and difficulties of strengthening our network in this way.

Principles of Partnering for Families with Resources:
Reminders, Reflections, Guidelines

• Forging New Kinds of Relationships. Becoming a partner to a family undergoing tremendous upheaval is likely a new experience. Your Katrina family partner is undoubtedly experiencing some form of post-traumatic stress, and cycling through many emotional states all the time: grief~ anger~ confusion~ overwhelm, hopelessness, exhaustion, etc. As you build your relationship with them, you too will likely experience a range of emotions. The more awareness you bring to these states, the less derailing they will be. In addition to the difference in your current circumstances and emotional trajectories, there may be other kinds of cultural differences that emerge along the way, which may not even be recognizable to you or the family you are partnering with.
• Self-Determination. One of the primary objectives of this relationship is for both partners to nurture se1f~determination for the family surviving Katrina. One of the ways to achieve this goal is to start with it. While the relocating family is undergoing a crisis, they are still to be the leaders of this partnership process.
• Commitments. As a partnering team you don't have to do more than you commit, but we ask that you keep the commitments you do make. Pay attention to what you offer, and do not promise casually.
• Active Listening. While team partners may be moved to offer a lot of advice to their partner families, the much more useful contribution, in most cases, is active listening. Recently dislocated families may need to think out loud, vent, express a range of emotions, worry, troubleshoot, weigh options, etc. Many of the people closest to them are going through the same dislocation and are not available. Active listening means not offering solutions, not trying to change their mood, not leading the conversation. It's ok not to know what to say. When in doubt, you don't have to say anything at all. The most important thing is perseverance and staying in relationship.
• Mutuality and Strengthening Human Networks. The partnership relationship feeds all its members. It is also a paradox. On one hand it is not directly for and about the partners with resources. Being able to provide real service to other human beings means being self-reflective and accountable about the psychological motives that may arise in the course of this kind of relationship, such as heroism or valor. On the other hand, the relationship does offer something to each member of the partnership. The partners with resources may not be able to put into words at the beginning what exactly they are getting in return, but as the relationship develops, this will become more clear. Remaining unconscious of the mutuality of the relationship leads to feelings of superiority, condescension, judgmentalness, etc. In a paraphrase of an Aboriginal saying, "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

The Partner with a Katrina Family Network: Mission Statement and Contact Information

The Partner with a Katrina Family Network is a process established by organizers and friends of The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, some of whom have themselves been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The Network seeks to join families and resources in order to strengthen antiracist human networks, nurture self-determination, rebuild community, and insure the equitable distribution of resources.

Coordinators of this network volunteer their time and there is no overhead. For information about partnering, either as a person or family dislocated by Katrina or a person, family, or cluster interested in assisting, please contact us:

• Kimberley Richards, Ph.D., Farrell, PA / New Orleans, LA.
• Rachel Luft, Ph.D., New Orleans/ Bozeman, Montana. [rachel.luftsbcgloba1.net~ 504.250.3237] Note: This is a New Orleans phone number and you may get a busy signal or "all circuits are down" recording. If you keep trying in quick succession you should get through within ten seconds.
• Pat Callair, LCSW. Greensboro, North Carolina. [LBCallair7ao1.com; 919.260.0955]
• Bonnie Cushing, LCSW. Montclair, New Jersey. [bonniecushingao1.com; 973.746.1640 or 973.746.0806]

About The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond

The People's Institute was founded in 1980 by long-time community organizers Ron Chisom of New Orleans and Jim Dunn of Yellow Springs, Ohio. It has been based for most of its history in the city of New Orleans until its displacement by Hurricane Katrina. The People's Institute was created to develop more analytical, culturally-rooted, and effective community organizers. Over the past twenty-five years The People's Institute Undoing Racism TM/ Community Organizing process has impacted the lives of nearly 100,000 people both nationally and internationally. Through this process, it has built a national collective of anti-racist, multicultural community organizers who do their work with an understanding of history, culture, and the impact of racism on communities.

Organization:  Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition Date Published:  10/08/2005

PEOPLE’S HURRICANE RELIEF FUND & 

OVERSIGHT COALITION

(PHRF)

 

(Initiated by Community Labor United)

 

Fall, 2005*

(*Retyped for cws Legacies Reader on line

Nov. 2007)

NOTHING   ABOUT  US

WITHOUT US      IS FOR US

OUR TOWN    OUR HOME    OUR LIVES

“The people of New Orleans (and the Gulf Coast) will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants, and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and the Garden District.” 

(Founding statement of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition)

 

 

BACKGROUND

 

On Saturday September 8, a group of New Orleans community activists and supporters from around the country met in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to plan a people’s response to the crisis caused by, and the preexisting conditions highlighted by Hurricane Katrina.  The meeting was called by Community Labor United (CLU), a seven year-old coalition of progressive community based organizations in the New Orleans area.

 

The purpose of PHRF is that every displaced person be allowed to return to his or her home, participate in the reconstruction process, and call for transparency of the billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for relief and reconstruction.

 

 

PHRF FALL 2006.cwk p. 1

 

CALL FOR SELF DETERMINATION IN RELIEF, RECOVERY,

RECONSTRUCTION

 

Our Town, Our Home, Our Lives

We, New Orleans and Gulf Coast Region Survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and our friends, families, supporters, in the wake of the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, call on the world community to support our demands for determining our own future.

 

Katrina put a spotlight on the horror of racism, poverty and environmental abuse in America.  The relief, recovery and reconstruction of our communities will show the will, the heart and soul of the people of this country.  What has happened here must also force attention to all neglected communities in this rich land.  It must never happen again.

 

We were abandoned by the officials whose job it is to care for the people.  We insist on playing a central role in all aspects of putting our lives back together, individually and collectively.  We, the displaced people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, can and will take charge of our own recovery and rebuilding and we demand the appropriate support from the government.

 

From the bottom of the flood rivers, the corners of the prison-like shelters cramming thousands of stunned human beings without information, rights, care, from the front porches and church parishes of emptied out neighborhoods, from the toxic fumes and the thirst, from the pulled apart families, the coughing, terrified children, in spite of the military and private security vehicles, from the wrench of no-home, from the horror, love and generosity of friends and strangers far and wide; the stories fill the air like seeds.  And the building begins.  We claim our stories, our healing, our future.

 

We insist on government accountability.  We insist on our full participation.

 

We offer solidarity to those around the world experiencing wreckage from natural disasters, compounded by, preceded by, poverty and discrimination.  We welcome, and are heartened by the true solidarity from all corners of this vast country and the world.

 

 

 

 

PHRF FALL 2006.cwk p. 2

We are committed to building and maintaining a coordinated network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations with the capacity and organizational infrastructure to help meet the needs of people most affected by Katrina, to facilitate an organizing process that demands local, grassroots leadership in the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

 

We will work together with all who share the goal of self determined relief, recovery & reconstruction.  We call on friends, allies, those working for a new New Orleans and Gulf Coast to pledge to work together in respect and shared communication for the highest level of harmony.

 

We call on all to engage with us in a process of imagination, discipline, accountability, possibility and building.

 

 

GOALS & DEMANDS

 

The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition demands that the government:

 

* Provide funds for all displaced families to be reunited;

* Allocate the $50 billion for reconstruction to the victims of the hurricane in the form of a Victims Compensation Fund;

* Accept representation on all boards that are making decisions on spending public dollars for relief and reconstruction;

* Place displaced workers and residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in public works jobs, offering union wages;

* Publicly account for and show the entire reconstruction process.

 

WORK

 

* Documentation of all evacuees, their whereabouts and condition;

* Meeting the healthcare needs of evacuees, both physical and emotional;

* Legal advocacy, exploration of human and civil rights abuses, wrongful deaths, and other legal issues;

* Finding teachers and educators to work with our displaced children;

* Assisting in support for all those still in shelters and those moving out of shelters, monitoring of conditions, publicizing the abuses and advocating on behalf of all evacuees;

 

PHRF FALL 2005.cwk p. 3

 

* Collecting the stories of displaced New Orleanians and Gulf Coast residents, articulation of the vision for the new New Orleans;

* Finding experts to test the air, water and soil in preparation for reconstruction;

* Finding engineers, architects and solar experts to advise and participate in reconstruction;

* Coordinating with artists and performers to interpret and share our stories, work with our communities in the process of ‘art as transformation’.

 

WORK GROUPS

 

Arts & Culture/Story Collection

Education

Health Care

Environmental Health

Finance/Fundraising

Internal Communications

Legal

Media

National Solidarity

Reconstruction

Safety, Justice & Accountability

Supplies

Volunteer Coordination

 

(For more information, see archives of

www.peopleshurricane.org;

www.peoplesorganizing.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHRF FALL 2005.cwk p. 4

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Organization:  ACORN: Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now Date Published:  10/18/2005

ACORN member Paul Fernandez hangs a 'No Bulldozing' sign in front of a home located in New Orleans' Ninth Ward.

On October 18th, ACORN announced the formation of the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association (AKSA) -- the first nationwide organization of displaced New Orleans residents and other Katrina survivors. The AKSA will unite members of our displaced communities in order to demand more effective relief efforts and a voice in the rebuilding process.

"We want to return to our homes, and take part in rebuilding our communities," says Tanya Harris, a former resident of the Lower 9th Ward and a leader of the AKSA. "Right now, too many decisions are being made without us at the table." Harris and 1,600 New Orleans residents from across the country came together to form the Survivors Association, whose launch was announced today in a national phone-in press conference.

The ACORN Katrina Survivor Association plans to reach a total of 100,000 members in the next year. In the coming months,The AKSA will use public pressure, direct action, and dialogue with elected officials to win a platform that includes:

• Respect and a voice -- Our voices need to be at the center of developing and implementing relief and reconstruction programs.
• Right of return - The people of New Orleans will not be kept out by deliberate attempts to change the make-up of the city, or by neglect, which gives the richer and more powerful first access to choices and resources.
• The means to take care of ourselves and our families - Survivors need help with housing, healthcare, income from unemployment, and assistance for those who've helped us.
• Rebuilding the right way - Reconstruction should include good and affordable housing, living wage jobs, and good schools for our children.
• Recovering together - The Hurricane should not be used as an excuse to cut health care and food assistance programs that help families across the country.
• Accountability and honesty - An independent investigation is necessary so we can understand what went wrong and how to protect ourselves in the future.

The AKSA will continue and expand the organizing that local ACORN chapters have accomplished since Katrina first hit, which has already resulted in some notable actions and victories:

• • On October 7th, the Houston ACORN Hurricane Survivor Committee brought together survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and their host families to confront Houston FEMA Director Tom Costello about a lack of response to the needs of the survivors.
  • In negotiations a week later, FEMA agreed to a number of reforms to make services more accessible, including a shuttle bus to their service center, translated materials, and extending benefits to Rita survivors.
  • Displaced New Orleans ACORN members have organized in shelters in Baton Rouge and other part of Louisiana, advocating for a "right to return" to New Orleans.
  • On October 15th, Louisiana ACORN members staged a caravan into the Lower 9th Ward to claim their right to return and placarded hundreds of homes with signs stating "Do Not Bulldoze."

In the coming weeks, the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association will conduct public events in Washington, D.C. and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and other cities around the country to build support for a recovery and rebuilding plan that reflects the needs and dreams of Katrina survivors. Read more at www.acorn.org/katrina.

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Author:  Catherine Jones Date Published:  10/25/2005 Link:  http://www.floodlines.blogspot.com/

A post-Katrina blog which I'm cautiously restarting, mostly as a testament to the increasing complexity of life in this city, as well as an homage to the thousands of unsung people who are pouring their hearts and souls into fighting for justice and equality as we rebuild.

Monday, November 28, 2005
Photos

here's a link to the first set of photos i took... pardon the awkwardness with my new digital camera :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/33985017@N00/sets/1469457/

posted by catherine at 8:26 PM

Friday, November 25, 2005
Sometimes things do go right

Every day for the past few months, I've seen people's stuff out on the street. Every day. Sofas, photographs, laundry, musical instruments; I'm sure you're sick of me talking about it. Sometimes, the stuff is all soggy and moldy and turned inside-out and you know it got flooded out with everything else. Lots of times, though, everything is intact and there's a big "For Rent" sign in front of the house, and I wonder.

A few weeks after I got back, it was a beautiful Saturday and lots of people had started returning to my neighborhood to clean out their houses. In less than an hour, I'd talked to three different people who had all gotten evicted by their landlords. One landlord even told her tenant, an older Black gentleman who'd been living in the place for 15 years, and doing all the renovations for free (!), that she wanted him out so she could make more money.

"That's cold," he told me. "Where does she think I'm gonna go?" He ended up moving to Baton Rouge; he says there's nothing for him here anymore.

We keep hearing stories of people coming back to find all their stuff out on the street with no notice at all. The 73-year-old neighbor of some friends in Treme who went out of town one night and came back to find everything thrown, shattered, into the street. He ended up setting up a camp on the curb outside his house because he had nowhere else to go, and that night the temperatures started dropping. Cold, cold, cold.

Until very recently, there were hardly any tenant protections in New Orleans, and people were reluctant to fight evictions anyway, because they didn't know if it was worth the hassle. One of my neighbors said he wasn't going to fight his landlord in court even if he was in the right, because he couldn't afford a lawyer, and didn't know where to find one, and wasn't sure he'd win anyway, and it still didn't resolve the fact that he needed to find someplace new to live.

Sometimes, though, things do go right.

A few days ago, team of lawyers from the People's Hurricane Fund and New Orleans Legal Assistance (NOLAC), as well as other groups, won a major victory that now makes it impossible for Katrina survivors to get evicted without adequate due process. They will be mailed eviction notices and their trials can't even be scheduled until 45 days later. And FEMA is obligated to provide information to protect survivors.

Wow!

And then, the next day, FEMA, after tremendous public outcry from evacuees in hotels around the country, pushed back its deadline for evacuees to move out of FEMA-subsidized hotel rooms, giving people breathing room to look for a place until January 7.

These are 2 major victories! And they wouldn't have happened without people organizing together to improve their conditions: hurricane survivors and grassroots organizations creating a strong voice to demand real justice and accountability. What potential we have in this moment, I keep thinking.

Let's keep our voices up, y'all: right now it may be all we've got.

posted by catherine at 12:02 PM

Wednesday, November 23, 2005
The camera, the love and the recipes

Yesterday I got back from Washington, DC. It was the first time I'd left Louisiana since I'd returned here, about five days after the storm. I was strangely apprehensive about leaving. I know this storm has made us weird down here: I am used to people cooking huge pots of red beans for strangers on the neutral ground; I am not used to eight different kinds of toothpaste in Walgreens. What would it mean for me, I wondered, to go to a place where people take the subway to work, and don't talk to each other, and then go home, or maybe stop for groceries or a beer on the way? Could I function in a place that wasn't so marked, as we are here, by such deep collective grief?

And of course I had those moments of culture shock: looking at my friend's enormous pile of junk mail in her entryway; being amazed that I could recycle my Arizona tea can at a party; getting snapped at by a shopworker when I pocketed a tiny perfume bottle that I'd really assumed was free. (In New Orleans right now, you can find huge crates of bottled water, and dry food, and hot meals, and cleaning supplies, and toiletries, and blankets and coats and pants and baby clothes and diapers, almost anywhere. I kind of forgot that in the real world, if there's stuff in a big bin, you can't just walk up and take it.)

And of course there were all those reminders that DC is a functioning city: garbage, for example, does not consist of furniture and electrical wire and sheetrock and decaying animals. It can fit into cans that people organize neatly on their curbs. And it doesn't get picked up by tractors and bulldozers, but by garbage trucks. And every single billboard has an advertisement on it. And every single streetlight works, and the mail comes, and there are no 1-800-GOT-JUNK? signs on the telephone poles, and the power lines don't lean down over the sidewalks like nooses. But I knew about all that. I had been expecting it, and it was somehow less weird than I'd thought it would be to see so much intact-ness.

Here's what I wasn't expecting: the love, the camera, or the recipes.

I'd decided to take a train, partially because it was so much cheaper than flying, and partially because I wanted to look out a window for 24 hours and watch the land change. I had all these visions of myself sitting alone on a train gazing out of a window for hours and hours, not doing anything, not thinking anything. I knew it would be exactly what I needed.

Here's what really happened on the train: 20 minutes after pulling out of New Orleans, my whole car started talking. Everybody. About the storm, obviously: it's become a sort of dysfunctional security blanket for us. It gives us definition and purpose. We don't go anywhere without it, tucked, barely visible, into our back pockets.

But not only about the storm, not only about houses, jobs, relatives, schools. Not only about jail and being evicted and not being able to find the doctor. No, not only about those things. We talked about grandparents, holidays, the games we used to play as kids. We talked about cooking for about three hours. We got into arguments about how long it takes to learn how to make good red beans. A 23-year-old cook was going back to Pittsburgh, where his fiance' and three-week-old son were waiting for him. He'd found a job in Pittsburgh restaurant, where he'd convinced them to let him cook "real New Orleans" food. Now the restaurant is making all kinds of money.

"Yes, indeed," the 90-year-old great-aunt across the aisle kept saying. "Yes, indeed. But I bet it's cold up there."

"Baby, it's cold everywhere," the old man said in front of her, buried in his jacket.

Once people found out I was in medical school, that was it. "Congratulations!" people told me. The seat next to me was never empty again. "But I'm not a doctor yet," I kept saying over and over again."I don't care, baby!" everybody said as they showed me their rashes, told me about allergies and headaches.

Then I started speaking in Spanish with a construction worker from Panama. He had gotten on the train with paint still drying on his clothes. He was going up to Atlanta to get his truck and his five roommates to come down here to work. After that all the Spanish speakers on the train made a little corner in the lounge car. Deep into the night we drank hot chocolate and talked about food and kids and immigration policy and how to fix cars.

No alone-time on that train. That was ok. Privacy might be nice sometime, but I guess now's the time for us to be together. "This is what's happening to me now," I thought, surrounded on that train by so many beautiful people. "I am so, so grateful." --

The reason I went to DC in the first place was to meet with other national leaders of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), a joyously progressive and dynamic group of medical students from across the country. I was really apprehensive about the meeting, because I'm so aware, even back in New Orleans, of how much my own capacity for doing work has shrunk in the past few months. I was worried about being around people who can function at a really high level. (And if you think medical students in general are super-high-functioning, try spending some time with these brilliant, committed, activist medical students. Whoa.) Energy is dizzying to me these days. I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up with folks, and that people might think I was a slacker.

But then I got there, and spent the next few days being crushed in all these enormous hugs the AMSA people are sort of famous for. There is so much love among these folks. And so much commitment to social justice.

And here's what else: AMSA is serious. They are totally committed. We spent a huge part of the time there talking about how to be strategic about ending healthcare disparities based on race. This is an enormous national organization of medical stud