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terpfan1980

Join Date 08/2004

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Errol Lewis: Why we couldn’t save the people of New Orleans

Fascinating political commentary

Before reading the article below, you should have some history on the person that wrote the article to avoid any claims of racism that might come up. I'm sure by the end of the bio some other claims might pop up, but I'll leave that to the ignorance of readers that want to go in that direction.

Errol Louis was born in Harlem, raised in New Rochelle and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife, Juanita Scarlett. He is the son of a retired NYPD inspector and formerly served as associate editor of The New York Sun. He has taught college, co-founded an inner-city community credit union, run for City Council and was once named by New York Magazine as one of 10 New Yorkers making a difference "with energy, vision and independent thinking." He holds degrees from Harvard, Yale and Brooklyn Law School.

Headline below is linked. Again, this was written by Errol Louis. Enjoy the education as you read.

The ugly truth

Why we couldn’t save the people of New Orleans

Bubbling up from the flood that destroyed New Orleans are images, beamed around the world, of America's original and continuing sin: the shabby, contemptuous treatment this country metes out, decade after decade, to poor people in general and the descendants of African slaves in particular. The world sees New Orleans burning and dying today, but the televised anarchy - the shooting and looting, needless deaths, helpless rage and maddening governmental incompetence - was centuries in the making.
To the casual viewer, the situation is an incomprehensible mess that raises questions about the intelligence, sanity and moral worth of those trapped in the city. Why didn't those people evacuate before the hurricane? Why don't they just walk out of town now? And why should anyone care about people who are stealing and fighting the police?
That hard, unsympathetic view is the traditional American response to the poverty, ignorance and rage that afflict many of us whose great-great-grandparents once made up the captive African slave labor pool. In far too many cities, including New Orleans, the marching orders on the front lines of American race relations are to control and contain the very poor in ghettos as cheaply as possible; ignore them completely if possible; and call in the troops if the brutes get out of line.
By almost every statistical measure, New Orleans is a bad place to be poor. Half the city's households make less than $28,000 a year, and 28% of the population lives in poverty.

I have to pause here for a bit and point out the stats directly above. I'm sure that those stats are all the fault of the failure to raise taxes, and the give away of tax cuts and tax breaks to the wealthy oil barons. It can't have anything to do with the education levels of the individuals (ooops, I'm getting ahead of the original article. Better slow down a bit here), and can't have anything to do with the individuals at all. Personal responsibility is out the window if you can blame it on Bush or at least blame the government in general. (Again, darn it, I better slow down a bit, I'm getting ahead of the original author, but do be sure to read on...)

In the late 1990s, the state's school systems ranked dead last in the nation in the number of computers per student (1 per 88), and Louisiana has the nation's second-highest percentage of adults who never finished high school. By the state's own measure, 47% of the public schools in New Orleans rank as "academically unacceptable."
And Louisiana is the only one of the 50 states where the state legislature doesn't allocate money to pay for the legal defense of indigent defendants. The Associated Press reported this year that it's not unusual for poor people charged with crimes to stay in jail for nine months before getting a lawyer appointed.

Can we get the Americans without a CLUe involved here please?!?! That is a travesty, truly, but whose fault is it? Could it be the State Legislature's, or perhaps even the fault of the voters who vote for the legislature?

These government failures are not merely a matter of incompetence. Louisiana and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption: as former congressman Billy Tauzin once put it, "half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment."
That's putting it mildly. Adjusted for population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes (Mississippi is No. 1). Recent scandals include the conviction of 14 state judges and an FBI raid on the business and personal files of a Louisiana congressman.
In 1991, a notoriously corrupt Democrat named Edwin Edwards ran for governor against Republican David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. Edwards, whose winning campaign included bumper stickers saying "Elect the Crook," is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for taking bribes from casino owners. Duke recently completed his own prison term for tax fraud.
The rot included the New Orleans Police Department, which in the 1990s had the dubious distinction of being the nation's most corrupt police force and the least effective: the city had the highest murder rate in America. More than 50 officers were eventually convicted of crimes including murder, rape and robbery; two are currently on Death Row.
The decision to subject an entire population to poverty, ignorance, injustice and government corruption as a way of life has its ugly moments, as the world is now seeing. New Orleans officials issued an almost cynical evacuation order in a city where they know full well that thousands have no car, no money for airfare or an interstate bus, no credit cards for hotels, and therefore no way to leave town before the deadly storm and flood arrived.
The authorities provided no transportation out of the danger zone, apparently figuring the neglected thousands would somehow weather the storm in their uninsured, low-lying shacks and public housing projects. The poor were expected to remain invisible at the bottom of the pecking order and somehow weather the storm.
But the flood confounded the plan, and the world began to see a tide of human misery rising from the water - ragged, sick, desperate and disorderly. Some foraged for food, some took advantage of the chaos to commit crimes. All in all, they acted exactly the way you could predict people would act who have been locked up in a ghetto for generations.
The world also saw the breezy indifference with which government officials treated these tens of thousands of sick and dying citizens, even as the scope of the disaster became clear. President Bush initially shunned the Gulf Coast and headed to political fund-raisers in the West.

Wow, lots of information there, and plenty of targets for who to blame. We're starting to get around to the finger pointing (which is deserved, btw) at the Federal Government (including the swipe at President Bush directly above) now. Keep reading.

That left matters in the bumbling hands of the director of emergency management, Michael Brown, who ranks No. 1 on the list of officials who ought to be fired when the crisis has passed. Even as local officials were publicly reporting assaults, fires and bedlam at local hospitals, Brown took to the airwaves to declare that "things are going well" as mayhem engulfed the city. When asked about the rising death toll, Brown attributed it to "people who did not heed the advance warnings." Brown's smug ignorance of the conditions of the place he was tasked to save became the final door slammed on the trap that tens of thousands of the city's poorest found themselves.

Now this is exactly what should be said about Brown, though again, I challenge anyone else to do the job and not get similar results. Unfortunately it's how things work (or, excuse me, don't work) in the governmental bureaucracy that we have. Any of the Monday morning QBs here at Joe User would have been just as ineffective themselves, though I'm sure they would have treated the environment gently and would "feel the pain" of those involved.

The challenge for America is to remember the faces of the evacuees who will surely be ushered back into a black hole of public indifference as soon as the White House and local officials can manage it. While pledging ourselves to remember their mistreatment and fight for their cause, we should also be sure to cast a searching, skeptical eye on the money that Bush has pledged for rebuilding.
Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Well, I'm a bit disappointed that the original author didn't rank the politicians for competence. He could easily have put Brown near the top of the list, but the state and local pol's should be up there as well.

In anycase, the last line of the original article is the one to pay real attention to. Money, a lot of it, is gonna get spent on rebuilding New Orleans and the surrounding area. Where that money goes is an important fact to keep track of. I'm sure that some will complain that we're spending that money when we have a deficit, and as they have already, will ignorantly call for raising taxes -- the bulk of which burden still comes out unfairly hard on the lower classes.

The original article also includes commentary about the fact that many of those that lost their homes in this catastrophic event were unfortunately uninsured, or at least under insured. Such is what normally happens for people that have little or no money, and little hope of getting more money. Sadly, this problem may be severely worsened after the impact of this storm is completely dealt with. Insurers will raise their rates severely to cover the costs of the benefits they just paid out.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

i read the article you're quoting on saturday. thanks for reposting it. i'm not sure why you did because it pretty much supports the contentions and conclusions of those with whom you are most frequently in disagreement.

(as i recall, you cluelessly attacked myrrander for mocking brown's dismissal for incompetence from a position of incredible irrelevance.)

sadly louis missed or ignored one aspect of this tragedy yet to be mentioned by anyone i've read. sadly, because i believe it would have bolstered his piece to category 5.

new orleans is the nation's largest port. the amount of revenue generated by providing inbound and outbound shippers with required services, with proper administration should easily be far more than enough to provide each resident with educational, environmental and social services equal to those anywhere in the country. the fact that louisiana and new orleans rank near the bottom in all those areas is nothing less than shameful.

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(as i recall, you cluelessly attacked myrrander for mocking brown's dismissal for incompetence from a position of incredible irrelevance.)

Not so cluelessly bee.

I've seen in my lifetime many people that think they can do a better job than the person in charge, no matter who, and no matter where.

I've also seen blind ignorance and discrimination in refusals to give jobs to people "because they don't have experience" or "don't have education" or don't have ---insert choice of reasons to discriminate here---

I'm not saying Brown is or is not the right person for the job. Certainly, the results have not been what anyone would like, and certainly someone will take a fall for it. It could be Brown, and if so, he probably understands it comes with the job.

But, had Katrina never happened, would anyone care a whit about Brown? Would anyone really be that concerned about "the people of New Orleans"?

If you can answer those questions with a Yes, then you are delusional.

The problems that existed in New Orleans are documented in the original article above, along with a lot of other public records. The same for the political problems there. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas and other southern states continue to be relatively poor, even as much of the rest of the country has gotten back on the economic bandwagon and started rolling along again.

Whose fault is all that -- certainly yourself, Myrr, Dabe and a host of others want to blame the problems on Bush. Clod, I mean C.O.L., Gene wants to blame it on not taking enough money from the rich (who no one ever can define) and giving it to the poor (which is fairly easily defined when you see pictures coming out of New Orleans and other areas that were hit by this storm). But simple give aways don't solve the problems. Many of those that were victims in New Orleans didn't leave the area because they had no money -- yet each month they receive money from the Government. The problem is that the money is spent well before the end of the month, leaving nothing at the end of the month. If the storm hit early in the month, then maybe money for getting out of town would have existed, but then again, the people may still have stayed behind because they didn't get the word, because they didn't want to abandon their homes, or because they didn't want to believe that the storm of the century was really coming at them.

Your last paragraph/sentences are very true. It is shameful that an area that does that much business is also that poor is shameful, but the same thing has happened in many other locations. Money comes in, goes somewhere, but never into the hands of the workers. It happens in New York, Baltimore, and a host of other places, and it happens despite any efforts to take the money away via taxes or other wealth redistribution systems.

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John Galt's excellent article (and linked article) on this topic are also well worth reading. Linked here: Want to Understand What's Happening in New Orleans?

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

Not so cluelessly bee.

unless i'm the clueless one, the real point of myrrander's post wasn't that brown had no experience...but that he'd been canned from a job that has to rank in the top 10 of ridiculously unnecessary positions of our time.

as far as institutionalized poverty goes, there are a lotta factors involved.

favoring big agribiz over family farmers is one. racism is another. in combination, they've helped to create a couple generations of urban poor.

somewhere i read about a farmer whose crop of actual table produce (in other words, not soybeans or corn) was under several feet of water saturday. he wasn't planning on giving up tho. he said he guessed there'd be some money available down the line. he also said he figured small farmers like himself would be among nearly last to get nearly least. the last to get the least would be black small farmers like himself. he'd been there three or four times in the past 40 years.

Many of those that were victims in New Orleans didn't leave the area because they had no money -- yet each month they receive money from the Government. The problem is that the money is spent well before the end of the month, leaving nothing at the end of the month. If the storm hit early in the month, then maybe money for getting out of town would have existed, but then again, the people may still have stayed behind because they didn't get the word, because they didn't want to abandon their homes, or because they didn't want to believe that the storm of the century was really coming at them.

what is the size of the average guvment check? in louisiana, unemployment insurance pays 27% of your qualified salary with a min and max of $10-248/week. so if you make minimum wage you'll be takin in a whopping $58 a week. the average mom & 2 kids cash assistance check is $240/month (apparently childless singles or couples aren't eligible at all). if you're disabled and collect ssi you get about $650/mo i believe.

i hate to get personal but how far could you stretch any of those amounts? even if you KNEW for a fact, you'd have to leave on the 31st, could you have put enough aside to go anyplace? (i'm reminded of a guy i used to know in detroit who once told me if they were sellin the whole city for a penny, he'd have to run outside the city limits so as to avoid being sold.) if your check was due on the 1st thru the third, would you have been willing (or able) to risk not being available to receive it?

as far as the flooding due to the broken levee goes, i don't think there's much to debate. the corps of engineers had their funding requests slashed by 80%+ for fiscal 2003, 2004 and 2005. cutting taxes, fighting a war, pumping billions the country you broke and must now rebuild doesn't leave much left over from--or for--a revenue producer such as a large port.

i don't know if you're aware of it, but jude wanniski--the crackpot who compared slobodan milosevic to lincoln, insisted saddam never gassed any kurds and sold yall on the idea that cutting taxes for the wealthy fuels new jobs while growing the economy--died last week. fortunately fats domino didn't.

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It seems to me this article should be targeted towards the government and people of New Orleans and Louisiana who have chosen to fund Mardi Gras instead of Educating their kids (no matter what color or the income of their parents). A lot of tax money is collected through New Orleans... Like bottles and urine on Bourbon street, apparently tax money doesn't end up where it should either.

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I think the article that was originally quoted basically targets everyone and everything in the process that deserved it.

As you noted here Ted, there's been far too little said so far about the lack of responsibility among the local and state governments in Louisiana and New Orleans, and you are absolutey correct that they worried much more about spending money on things that should not have been any where on the priority list.

I know I probably sound hypocritical in saying that it was ignorant of New Orleans and Louisiana in general to be worrying about making a sweet heart deal to keep the Saints (NFL team) in town when I've argued that D.C. is doing the right thing in spending money on building a baseball stadium for the Nationals, but D.C. doesn't have the same levels of poverty that exist(ed) in New Orleans. Yes, D.C. has problems, and yes, they could and probably should spend the stadium money on other things, but with most of their financial house in a more stable place, and with the economic development that is going to come to D.C. through having a new stadium, I think they're doing the right thing.

In the case of the Saints, they had a nice venue, and could have had perhaps a newer one, but the blatant attempts to hold that town (and the state in general) for ransom to get a new stadium is more problematic to me given that NFL games only happen (at most) about 10 - 12 times per year. It's a lot of money to spend on a luxury for an area that has far too many poor and indigent to deal with.

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I wonder if littlewhip is reading this?

It still comes back to what I have said before and want people to understand:
Black people do not have generations of wealth, education, and family (Mother, Father all in one house) behind it. It has only been 30 years since most of the laws in this land changed AND actually were used to make life better for people of color. You could say its been only 15 years since the dominate culture excepted those laws (please don't tell me that I could get a job in 1985 as I would in 1995) and some people of color could take advantage of them.

How far does anyone expect a culture to go when its first generation under the new laws have only reached 30 years of age? keep in mind that a person might be able to be changed, but a whole neighborhood is a little bit harder. If my Mom had to drink from the 'colored' water fountain, then at the age of 30 and a decendant, just exactly how far should I have reached statisically?

If I am still growing up in the 'hood' in the late 70's and during the 80's, what are the chances that I will be in jail in the 90's?

I personally think that the true first generation of of Blacks that can actually take total advantage of the new age were just born (late 90's and upward).

Well? I wonder if litlewhips' knee jerk reaction to what is happening in NO has got its answer; Why are all the looters Black?

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What is funny about rebiulding NO is that there are so many people willing to say that we are in a war.

While I would not totally consider what is going on a war specifically (it more akin to the war on crime or the war on drugs), this war on terror is obviouly taking more resources than any other war on whatever. I'll also admint that because of the wolrd state of affairs since 9/11, the US is on a war stance.

So how, exactly, can we rebiuld such an area ESPECIALLY since the money and the effects the port area has on the economy usually skips the states that it inhabits?

Why rebiuld? Why invest in a area that we all know it very probamatic? What about the lives put in danger?

People talk allot about rebiulding, but what about MAINTAINING the area? How much will it cost to maintain NO?

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Good article Terpfan, it offers some valid points and gives much food for thought. The things I would think of adding have already been stated here. I wanted to say ask Joe another question in response to his "what about MAINTAINING the area?" What is left to maintain? From what I can see of pictures in the paper and on the television, there won't be a lot left to maintain. Won't there be a lot of mold and other environmental issues after the water has dried out? It will definately be a matter of rebuilding NO.

I don't know the full history of the city and have never had to read about it (NO that is) for any particular reasons but have seen and heard about it from time to time before the hurricane and flooding. And this might be a naive question but why is it that so much of the city was below sea level and remained that way for so many years? From what I've also read the majority of the city that was below sea level were the poor and people who couldn't afford to live elsewhere. Also the monies were never allotted to make the levees stronger (or better) in case of a scenario like this.

I was sent an email of an article written by Michael H. Brown last year about New Orleans.."Oh New Orleans, shed ye the darkness or face disaster",.....pretty interesting stuff and it definately would get called on for some of what he said in it, especially by non-christians. I think I might post it but haven't decided yet especially since I don't know which paper Mr. Brown writes for..although I could google him!

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