#KatrinaAnniversary: "Katrina Victims Were Forced Into Exile"

Victims of Hurricane Katrina argue with National Guard troops as they try to get on buses headed to Houston on Sept. 1, 2005. Willie Allen Jr./St. Petersburg Times/ZUMA

President Obama celebrated the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by traveling to the scene of the crime, making a nice speech, taking some nice pictures, singing a little song, then boarding Air Force One and flying back to Washington, D.C. 

 Photo Op complete.

It's like DejaVoodoo

All Over Again 

The more things change

Ten years later, it looks like the same people in New Orleans have been left behind again. The population of New Orleans is noticeably smaller and noticeably whiter. While tens of billions of dollars poured into Louisiana, the impact on poor and working people in New Orleans has been minimal. Many of the elderly and the poor, especially poor families with children, never made it back to New Orleans. The poverty rate for children who did made it back remains at disturbingly high pre-Katrina levels, especially for Black children.

The more they don't change

Well you know, black people have been going around the country looking for good neighborhoods, trying to settle down there if they were allowed to. That is the history of black folks. And part of that history is also that white people constantly run away from those neighborhoods. And that's why those neighborhoods then become concentrations of black people and poor people. The poor part usually comes later. Because when there are no more white people there then capital is withdrawn, the employers leave, the public sector ceases to serve that community, and the police are brought in to prey on that community, which diminishes further upward mobility and causes downward mobility.

Shock 

Just two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the city fired 7,500 public school teachers, launching a new push to privatize the school system and build a network of charter schools. Many accused lawmakers of trying to break the powerful United Teachers of New Orleans union. Today former President George W. Bush will return to the city to speak at the Warren Easton Charter High School. We speak to the New Orleans actor and activist Wendell Pierce, whose mother was a teacher and union member for 40 years, as well Gary Rivlin, author of "Katrina: After the Flood." He recently wrote a piece for The New York Times titled "Why New Orleans’s Black Residents Are Still Underwater After Katrina."

And Shame 

New Orleans actor and activist Wendell Pierce looks at how insurance companies discouraged poor and black families from returning to New Orleans after Katrina by refusing to honor homeowner policies. Pierce, whose great-grandfather came to New Orleans as a slave in the 1850s, talks about how Allstate gave his parents just $400 after they paid premiums for 50 year

The Obama surge in black optimism is over.

 Now, black Americans are back to their post-Katrina consensus; a deep sense that America is indifferent to their lives and livelihoods. Indeed, when read in that light, a movement like Black Lives Matter seems inevitable. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina, and its impact on the collective experience of black America, sowed the ground for a reckoning. Yes, Obama's election postponed it for a time, but the recent eruption of black death—at the hands of the state—gave it new urgency. And now, as we can all see, it's here.

Still waiting for HOPE and CHANGE we can BELIEVE in...

#KatrinaAnniversary "The Logic of Genocide"

Alan Chin 84-year old Milvertha Hendricks wrapped in an American flag blanket after spending five days on the street at the Convention Center. New Orleans ...

Today's Must Read by Glenn Ford

The best thing that could happen to poor Black people is for a Katrina-like catastrophe to hit their city, scattering them to the four corners of the country. So says an article in a leading “liberal” magazine, which maintains that “the forced exodus of Katrina should be replicated as public policy, for the good of both the purposely displaced and society as a whole.” In the real world, white supremacy and capitalism created the ghettos.

Katrina was a human rights disaster 

The human rights dimension of the disaster became clear immediately after Katrina struck, when the media struggled to find the right words to describe the estimated 1.3 million people uprooted from their homes and scattered around the country. Some called them "refugees" — a term met with outrage by Gulf residents, since it officially applies to citizens of another country crossing borders. "Evacuees" was also inaccurate, since tens of thousands of people — largely due to a flawed and scandal-ridden emergency response — were never "evacuated" after the storm hit.

Every Kid is Money  

This week commemorates a grim anniversary. Ten years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. It wiped out the entire public school system and cleared the way for what has become the nation's first fully charterized district. In the New Orleans Recovery School District, traditional neighborhood public schools are gone, replaced by privately run charter schools.

B-but President Obama says New Orleans is moving forward after Katrina.... 

"Not long ago, our gathering here in the Lower 9th might have seemed unlikely," Obama says in speech excerpts released by the White House. "But today, this new community center stands as a symbol of the extraordinary resilience of this city and its people, of the entire Gulf Coast, indeed, of the United States of America. You are an example of what's possible when, in the face of tragedy and hardship, good people come together to lend a hand, and to build a better future."

EYE guess it depends on what the definition of moving forward IS.... 

“Plan and simple, the recovery efforts of the last ten years in New Orleans mostly benefited White residents,” said Ernest Johnson, FFLIC’s Statewide Juvenile Justice Reform Campaign and Policy Director. “America’s comeback city is one where the Black median income remains less than one half of the White median income. It is a city where the Black unemployment rate is nearly three times the rate of White unemployment rate. It is a city where only 30% of residents in the predominately Black Lower 9th Ward have been able to return to their homes. It is evident that recovery was out of reach and unavailable to African Americans.”

The more things change..... the more they don't. 

"Don't believe the hype, this is NOT ‪#‎schoolchoice‬. This is #sabotage, #racism, and #abuse."

The "Southern Strategy" never gets old h/t Field Negro 

Charter School operators continue to make billions by pushing harsh discipline practices that ‪punish black/brown/poor children, under the guise of providing them with a quality education.

 While the conference sponsors point to charters and vouchers as needed options for low-income families trapped in low-performing school systems, critics argue that public resources should be reserved for conventional public school systems. They say privately run charters infringe on democracy, as charter school boards are typically self-selected instead of elected.
School choice critics wanted to share their views with conference attendees but said the $400 registration fee was too costly. So they protested outside.
"We would prefer that funding would be kept in the public school system," organizer and parent Gina Womack said. Charters should be held more accountable, to ensure that children are fairly disciplined, she and others said. 

Charter schools are a big part of the problem.

State Rep. Phil Williams (r.) and his gop cronies are pushing for Charter Schools under the guise poor, black children can escape under performing public schools.  Bull Poo.  If Phil Williams and the gop really cared about the education of poor, black/brown  children they would address the funding inequities instead of whining about  the myth of throwing money at the problem, and trying to destroy the Alabama Education Association.

 Charter schools are just another way the conservatives try to backdoor privatize education.

 The premise is that they hope to be able to convince the district to allow them to operate multiple charter schools under the premise they can do things cheaper.  Do you really want your kid being educated by a for profit company basically doing the work of the lowest bidder? With all the private schools here in Alabama, bleeding parents dry for the simple fact they don't want their kids to have to go to school with brown or black kids, the state seems to be ripe for laws allowing charter schools.  Now parents will be able to have their "school choice" at a fraction of the cost private school would have required.

 Segregation today = Segregation forever.

 Let's get one thing straight right off the bat...if Charter Schools provided options for poor/black/brown children, it would NOT be a top priority for Alabama republicans.   Charter Schools are the  vehicle republicans drive on the road to privatized  public education.  Although Charter Schools are funded with tax dollars, Charter Schools don't have to accept ALL children, regardless of race, income, gender, disability, or athletic ability.They can pick and choose the cream of the crop and leave the rest behind. 

Mission Accomplished

Gov. Robert Bentley's new segregation policy director has worked under some controversial regimes in high-profile efforts to turn around failing schools.
Emily Schultz, 28, began her job as Bentley's segregation policy adviser in November, with a top priority of getting a law allowing segregated schools passed during the next legislative session.
Previously, the Birmingham native worked under Michelle Rhee, who became chancellor of Washington, D.C., public schools after the mayor took control of the district and cost him his job.

Follow the money

RedEye

Today in Black Mayors bad leaders, White Mayors good leaders

First it was CNN's Carol Costello,  now it's MSNBC's Morning Mika putting Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed in his place, I mean, taking him to task for refusing to accept total responsibility for something that is not his fault.   I mean, really?  You would think Mayor Reed closed down a bridge for partisan political gain or something.

This is what happens when there is a lack of diversity in the mainstream media.  Black politicians get no love unless it's a republican black politician. Is the media using the snow storm to put Mayor Kasim Reed in his place?

Remember former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin?  Journalist tired to put him in his place, I mean, smacked him down too.


Black Mayors bad leaders. White Mayors good leaders.

If it's Sunday, it's time to Meet the Pest

Poor White Cash:  GOP and Food Stamps

The Republican Party is engaged in class warfare against poor and middle-class white Americans. It is a little-discussed fact but an ironic one worth noting, since those are the very same people who elect them.

According to the Blog-o-sphere, President Obama ripped the republiklans a new one at the Congressional Black Caucus Dinner last night, which might explain why the feed was bad on the only network (MSNBC) carrying the remarks live. I guess since PBO wasn't reminding the CBC He's not Black President Obama wasn't newsworthy.  But hey, everybody knows it's not the media's job to educate the public.  It's the media's job to uniform the misinformed.  They are doing a Heck of a Job.

Speaking at the annual Congressional Black Caucus dinner, President Obama excoriated congressional Republicans Saturday night for risking a government shutdown, and vowed to stop their efforts to defund his health-care plan.
“It is time for these folks to stop governing by crisis,” Mr. Obama said at the Washington Convention Center. “Some want to shut down the government rather than provide people with health care!”
Referring to Republicans’ strategy to defund Obamacare, the president said he wanted to speak “as clearly as I can.”
“It’s not going to happen,” he said.

 The New Left is Coming!!!  The New Left is Coming!! Yippee Kayay!

Maybe Bill de Blasio got lucky. Maybe he only won because he cut a sweet ad featuring his biracial son. Or because his rivals were either spectacularly boring, spectacularly pathological, or running for Michael Bloomberg’s fourth term. But I don’t think so. The deeper you look, the stronger the evidence that de Blasio’s victory is an omen of what may become the defining story of America’s next political era: the challenge, to both parties, from the left. It’s a challenge Hillary Clinton should start worrying about now.

Why do republican hate America?

I've never understood the logic of putting in government positions people who really hate the very idea of government. There's something profoundly hypocritical about guys like Ted Cruz, whose raison d'etre is to hate government, and yet they cash their government paycheck just like the teachers and firemen and federal workers they excoriate even as they check their bank balances on their government-issued hand-helds. But if there's one thing they hate more than the idea of government, it's Democratic presidents in general, and Barack Obama in particular. And they hate Americans. They really, really, really hate every American that isn't funnelling large sums of soft-money into their campaign coffers.

Trust  us, there's nothing to see here.  Apples and oranges.  Now, please move on.

Now, there may be some among you who would seek to find some link between these stories, to see an underlying commonality in a story about members of a white North Carolina school board who see no literary value in the great American Classic Novel of African American alienation and residents and police officers of a North Carolina city who react to the pleas of a wounded African American man with fear and deadly violence.

InJustice American style

A Texas Court overturned former U.S. Congressman Tom Delay (r.Texas) conviction for money laundering,  a  Federal Judge in New Orleans overturned the conviction of four police officers tied to the shooting of unarmed citizens in the aftermath of Katrina,  George Zimmerman is acquitted for shooting an unarmed teen, and former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is still in prison for a crime that doesn't exist under the law.

And they want us to sing God Bless America?

"For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are constantly experiencing it." - Barbara Smith

This is one of those rare times I agree with Mo Brooks

A broke clock is right (no pun) twice a day. 

"Lessons learned from War: 1.) The rich will profit from it, 2.) The Middle Class will pay for it. 3.) The Poor will suffer from it 4.) The Innocent will die from it....."

I must admit I was feeling helpless watching  some of the same ones that marched us to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, beating the Deja Voodoo drums all over again for war with Syria, but then Mo Brooks saved the day  issuing the following statement via his mouthpiece.

Dale Jackson @TheDaleJackson

Just got off the phone with @RepMoBrooks, he wants @BarackObama to wait until Congress returns in 10 days to debate military action in Syria

1:11 PM - 30 Aug 2013

Hallelujah!  Here comes Congress to save the Day!  Everybody knows if President Barack Obama is for it, republicans are against it, and this is one of those rare times I agree with the TeaPublicans.  We shouldn't be spending money we don't have attacking Syria.  I bet even  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be against drones dropping bombs on innocent people.

 Maybe we should help the Syrian Refugees instead of killing Syrians

If, as Juan Cole recommends, Obama decides to pivot and move to diplomacy after losing British support, focusing on the plight of refugees and using our airlift to send them aid would be smart politics as well as good policy.

We have our own problems over here, I wish the Obama Administration would be as Hawkish about domestic issues as they are foreign affairs.

Shouldn't the problems in Detroit,  Chicago,  New Orleans,  health care and the economy come before killing more people in Syria?

Hell Yes, they should!

"Let's have an up or down vote and put these hypocrites on record. "

Update~I love it when the Brass Knuckle Wing of the Democratic Party is Allowed on TeeVee

What do you want to bet Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed's uppity donkey be seen on TeeVee ever again?

Oops, spoke too soon, the Mayor showed his uppity donkey to Chucky Todd too.  Back to the attic he goes.

Thank you for being brave enough to speak truth to power Mr. Mayor.  I hope you don't end up like the last black Mayor of a mayor U.S. City  that showed his uppity donkey......

I'm just saying....

"All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper"~Edit

Despite the white wing media driven stereotype that black people want the government to take take care of them, all black people really want is equal rights.  Nothing more, nothing less.


If George Zimmerman is not arrested, or if the Grand Jury doesn't indict him, black folks aren't going to resort to mob violence  if the mob doesn't get what it wants. Violence begets violence.  Black folks want justice,  nothing more, nothing less, by any non-violent means necessary.

We live in a sick country, and no one with any power is trying to heal it.

Today's Must Reads

Sanford 911s- Gaps in the Armour, Officer Involved

Who's Covering Up  For Who is Florida?

Trayvon Martin and America's, Long, Horrific History of Vigilante Justice

Edit~I don't think George Zimmerman will be arrested~Redux

I don't think George Zimmerman will be arrested, much less tried and convicted, for killing  Trayvon Martin. After all, Trayvon is just another one of them there government nig, I mean bluh,  who wants the government to take care of him, and everyone knows the government doesn't care about very poor/bluh people who would rather have food stamps than jobs.

Like this

This

This

And this

Nothing to see here, move along.


Snark

Alabama is the #1 State for College Football

More than 1 in six Alabamians live in poverty.

1 in 4 children in Alabama live in poverty.

Alabama has the 2nd largest income gap.

Alabama has a 41.4% high school dropout rate.

Alabama is the second most obese, 4th most diabetic state.

Alabama is responsible for the increase in Food Stamp recipients

Alabama has one of the toughest immigration laws in the nation.

The Poverty rate for Louisiana is 19.6%

Louisiana is ranked 49th nationwide on the well being of children.

Louisiana is ranked 44th in graduation rates.

Just something to chew on while you're watching the Allstate BCH championship game tonight.