UrbaNola Project Hub

Second Line 4 MJ

2009-07-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.nola.com/celebrities/index.ssf/2009/06/huge_secondline_honors_king_of.html

It seems that only a place like New Orleans with its spectacular celebrations of life amidst death could truly send off the world's recently deceased King of Pop.

Ronni ARMSTEAD

http://www.nola.com/celebrities/index.ssf/2009/06/huge_secondline_honors_king_of.html
Il semble que seul un endroit comme New Orleans qui, avec ses célébrations spectaculaires de la vie au beau milieu d'un charnier, soit capable de faire de réels adieux au Roi de la Pop récemment disparu.

Translation by Celia SADAI

New Gulf Coast Recovery Bill

2009-06-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

Re-Post from: Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign
A National Partnership for Human Rights and Hurricane Recovery

May 7, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jainey Bavishi, Equity and Inclusion Campaign, Jainey@equityandinclusion.org (225) 772-2714;
Dr. Scott Myers Lipton, GCCWP, smlipton@gmail.com (510) 508-5382;
Diane Yentel, Oxfam America, dyentel@oxfamamerica.org(202) 496-1304;
Jeffrey Buchanan, RFK Center, buchanan@rfkmemorial.org(202) 257-9048;

Campaign Applauds Job-Creating Gulf Coast Recovery Legislation

The Newly Introduced Bipartisan Gulf Coast Civic Works Act (HR 2269) Promotes Infrastructure, Training, Comprehensive Flood Protection and Energy Efficiency.

WASHINGTON, DC – May 7th – The Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign, a diverse national partnership of community, environmental, faith-based, human rights and student organizations, applauds the introduction this afternoon of bipartisan legislation to rebuild more equitable and resilient communities across the areas still recovering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

The Gulf Coast Civic Works Act of 2009 (H.R. 2269) would create 100,000 “green” living wage jobs and training opportunities for Gulf Coast residents and displaced people to rebuild critical infrastructure, restore natural flood protection and increase energy efficiency. This important legislation allows the federal government to partner directly with local leaders and non-profits to address remaining recovery challenges while building resilience to climate change, mitigating the effects of future deadly storms and confronting poverty. It also addresses the challenges faced by internally displaced, elderly, disabled, women, low income, immigrant and minority communities.

HR 2269 was introduced in the U.S. House May 6th by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (CA), Rodney Alexander (LA), Joseph Cao (LA), Charles Gonzalez (TX), Charlie Melancon (LA), Gene Taylor (MS), Bennie Thompson (MS), John Conyers (MI), Alcee Hastings (FL), Barbara Lee (CA), John Lewis (GA), Peter Stark (CA), and Charlie Rangel (NY).

Read the full bill at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR02269:

Ask your Member of Congress to support the bill: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5107/t/5835/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1375

Almost four years after Hurricane Katrina, our nation’s largest natural disaster, America’s Gulf Coast remains a domestic human rights crisis. As we approach the 2009 Hurricane Season beginning June 1st, levees remain vulnerable, tens of thousands of people have not been able to return home, schools, hospitals and transportation infrastructure remains damaged, and residents continue to struggle for access to affordable housing and living wage jobs.
“Nonprofit and community groups have been the heroic leaders of the citizen-led Gulf Coast recovery. The Gulf Coast Civic Works Act will efficiently allocate funds for job creation and infrastructure development, two significant recovery needs, by avoiding layers of governmental red tape and dispersing funds directly to the entities, regardless of sector, which are ready to do the work,” said Jainey Bavishi, director of the Equity and Inclusion Campaign, a coalition of organizations working on recovery across Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

“ACORN finds the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act to be a reasonable and viable pilot project not just for rebuilding the Gulf Coast from the 2005 hurricane season but for providing a community driven recovery plan for any and every part of America where natural or other disasters occur,” said Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer/CEO of ACORN. “Locals should be at the forefront of recovery and rebuilding of communities following hurricanes, floods, fires, or even bridge collapses. Our infrastructure is in need of repair nationwide and ACORN believes HR 2269 provides a valuable blueprint for how that can happen.”

“This legislation takes an important step towards assuring that communities that are most vulnerable to the direct effects of climate change be able to prepare for and adapt to those impacts by building resilience and reducing risk,” said Rhonda Jackson, Gulf Coast Program Manager, Oxfam America. “The bill would create jobs to assist in restoring the Gulf Coast’s first line of defense against hurricanes and floods by rebuilding the coastline and will employ local citizens in this important work.”

“The introduction–and hopefully quick passage–of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, is important not just for the Gulf Coast but the entire nation,” said Dr. Scott Myers Lipton, co-founder of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, a student organization with members on over 30 campuses across the nation. “This legislation, with its focus on enlisting communities in their own restoration and expanding opportunity provides the Obama Administration and Congress with an effective new model for disaster recovery and infrastructure development.”

“Passing HR 2269 would be a bold stand for the fundamental rights of displaced and low-income Gulf Coast residents,” said Monika Kalra Varma, Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. “The right to participate in recovery, to return home with dignity and safety, and to decent work opportunities – these are the basic human rights that we have denied survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita for too long.”

Marking the beginning of the 2009 Hurricane Season, supporters of the Campaign including hurricane survivors, advocates and students from across the country will be bringing a FEMA trailer to DC and speaking out about this vital legislation as well as meeting with Members of Congress. For more information on how to support the campaign please visit: http://gccwc.wordpress.com.

Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign partner organizations include:
1Sky
232-HELP/Louisiana 211
ACORN
ACT All Congregations Together
Advocates for Environmental Human Rights
AFL-CIO Investment Trust Program
African American Environmentalist Association
Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, Inc.
Alabama Arise
Alliance for Affordable Energy
Appleseed
Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
Bay Area Women Coalition, Inc.
Bayou Grace Community Services
Biloxi NAACP
BISCO Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing
Black Workers for Justice
Brethren Disaster Ministries
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good
CDC 58:12, inc.
Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal
Central City Partnership
Churches Supporting Churches
Clergy Strategic Alliances, LLC
ColorofChange.org
Commission on Stewardship of the Environment, Louisiana Interchurch Conference
Common Ground Health Clinic
Common Ground Relief, Inc.
Community Church Unitarian Universalist
Community of Christ
COPE Congregations Organizing People for Equality
Dando la Mano / Extending a Hand
Desire Street Ministries NOLA
Disciples Justice Action Network (Disciples of Christ)
Environmental Support Center
Episcopal Network for Economic Justice
Equity and Inclusion Campaign
Finding Our Folk
First Pilgrims Baptist JEDC-HDM
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans, Social Justice Team
For the Bayou
Franciscan Action Network
Friends Committee on National Legislation
FUEL Faith United for Empowerment and Leadership
Gamaliel Foundation
Gert Town Revival Initiative, Inc.
Global Green USA
Global Mission Partnerships, Church of the Brethren
Good Work Network
Gulf Coast Civic Works Project
Gulf Restoration Network
Hip Hop Caucus
Holy Cross International Justice Office
Holy Cross Neighborhood Association
Hope Center, Inc.
Hope Community Development Agency
Hope Haven of Hancock County Inc.
Institute for Human Rights and Responsibilities Inc.
Institute Justice Team, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies
Interfaith Alliance
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
JustFaith Ministries
Katrina Solidarity Network
Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Louisiana Appleseed
Louisiana Community Reinvestment Coalition
Louisiana Conference of The UMC Disaster Reponses, Inc
Louisiana Environmental Action Network
Louisiana Housing Alliance
Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper
Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development
Maria Iñamagua Campaign for Justice
May Day New Orleans
Mennonite Central Committee U.S.
Mennonite Central Committee-New Orleans
MICAH Project
Mid-South Peace and Justice Center
Minnesota Tenants Union
Minnesota-New Orleans Solidarity Committee
Mississippi Center for Justice
Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force
Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance
Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative
Moore Community House
Moravian Church in North America, Board of World Mission
Moravian Church, Southern Province
MPOWER, Mississippi Poultry Workers for Equality and Respect
MQVN Community Development Corporation
National Congress of Black Women, Inc.
National Council of Churches
National Council of Jewish Women
National Economic and Social Rights Initiative
National Employment Law Project
National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
National Jobs for All Coalition
National Lawyers Guild – Minnesota Chapter
National Low Income Housing Coalition
National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness (NPACH)
NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
New Orleans East Cooperative Parish
New Orleans Institute
New Orleans Neighborhood Development Collaborative
New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
New Voices, Academy for Educational Development
North Gulfport Community Land Trust
Northside Neighbors for Justice
Oak Park Civic Association
Ouachita Riverkeeper
Oxfam America
Pax Christi USA
PICO Louisiana
Plenty International
PolicyLink
Praxis Project
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
Prince Garrett Ministries
Providence Community Housing
Puentes New Orleans, Inc.
Renaissance Neighborhood Development Corporation
Retired Senior Volunteer Program
Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights
Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference
Saving Ourselves Coalition
Shiloh Baptist Church
Sierra Club, Delta Chapter
Sisters of the Holy Cross Justice Office
Soria City Civic Organization
Sound Vision Foundation
South Bay Community Alliance
Southern Echo
Southern Poverty Law Center
Special Commission on the Just Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, National Council of Churches
Squandered Heritage
St. Bernard Project
STEPS Coalition
Student Hurricane Network
Survivors Village New Orleans
Tennessee Alliance for Progress
Terrebonne Readiness & Assistance Coalition – TRAC
Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, (t.e.j.a.s.)
The Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana Office of Disaster Response
The Latino Leadership Circle
The Presbytery of South Louisiana Recovery
The Quest for Social Justice
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
The Sisters of the Good Shepherd
TruthSpeaks Consulting
Turkey Creek Community Initiatives
Union of Black Episcopalians
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United Church of Christ, Justice & Witness Ministries
United Hearts Community Action Agency, Inc.
UNITY of Greater New Orleans with Common Ground Institute
Universalist Unitarian Service Committee
Women Donors Network

Source: Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign blog http://gccwc.wordpress.com

Ronni ARMSTEAD

Duke's Heartfelt Plea for New Orleans

2009-06-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

The following is an email entitled "New Orleans." It was sent by Larry Moneta, the vice president of student affairs at Duke University on the eve of Hurricane Gustav's landfall (Saturday 8/30/08 11:39PM):

Dear Students,

Congratulations to Coach Cutcliffe and the Duke Football team for a great win tonight. And, congratulations to you as well for the tremendous showing at the game and the incredible support you provided. It was fantastic to watch so many of you cheering the team on to victory. I can hardly wait for our next win next Saturday!

I write tonight, though, in light of the recently announced evacuation of New Orleans. I know that many of you have family and friends there and will be worried about them. I have already been in touch with colleagues at Tulane to offer support and will do so at other colleges and universities in the area as well.

If any of you need support, please don't hesitate to be in touch with us. You can reach out to residence hall staff, the Dean of Students Office or directly to me if you'd like. Duke Police (684-2444) can forward your concerns to our Dean-on-Call at any time. We have counselors available as well. If there's anything your University can do to support you, just let us know.

Let's hope that this hurricane passes with minimal effect. Have a great rest of the weekend and I'll see you in our Duke blues on Football Friday and Game Day next Saturday!

Larry Moneta
Vice President for Student Affairs

I called the number provided above to ask whether there was any way that i could receive some kind of (financial?) "support" in getting my good friend and her three small children out of the city until the hurricane had passed. I was informed by the then dean-on-call that Duke was offering no support of any kind for students, their friends or families who needed financial help or even housing to escape the wrath of Gulf's 2008 Hurricane season. But i guess they'd be there if i ever needed to talk...

Ronni ARMSTEAD

Cet email a été envoyé par le Vice-Président des affaires étudiantes de Duke University, il est daté du 30 août 2008, soit la veille du passage de l'Ouragan Gustav.

"Chers étudiants,

Félicitations au Coach Cutcliffe et à l'équipe de football de Duke pour la belle victoire de ce soir. Et, félicitations à vous également, pour votre présence vibrante et l'incroyable soutien que vous avez fourni à l'équipe. Ç'a été fantastique de voir si nombreux d'entre vous encourager l'équipe jusqu'à la victoire. Je peux à peine patienter jusqu'à notre prochaine victoire samedi prochain!

Cependant, je vous écris ce soir au sujet de l'annonce récente de l'évacuation de la Nouvelle Orléans. Je sais que nombreux d'entre vous ont de la famille ou des amis là-bas, et que vous devez être inquiets. J'ai déjà contacté mes collègues de Tulane pour offrir mon soutien, et je vais faire de même avec les collègues des universités environnantes.

Si l'un d'entre vous a besoin de soutien, s'il-vous-plaît, qu'il n'hésite pas à nous contacter. Vous pouvez nous joindre au bureau du personnel [...]. La police de Duke peut nous faire part de vos inquiétudes à toute heure. Nous avons des conseillers (NdA. psychologues) disponibles également. Quoique l'Université puisse faire pour vous soutenir, faites-le nous savoir.

Espérons que cet ouragan passe sans grandes conséquences. Passez une bonne fin de week-end et rendez-vous à notre rencontre des Blue Devils samedi prochain!
Larry Moneta - Vice Président des affaires étudiantes

J'ai appelé au numéro mentionné pour demander s'il était possible de recevoir un support d'ordre "financier"pour permettre à mon amie et ses trois jeunes enfants de quitter la ville jusqu'au passage de l'ouragan. J'ai alors été informée par le "centre d'appel du Doyen" que Duke n'offrait en aucun cas de support financier pour aider financièrement les familles et amis, ou encore les reloger pour échapper au courroux qu'amenait sur la Côte du Golfe la saison des ouragans. Mais j'imagine qu'ils auraient été là si j'avais eu besoin de parler...

3rd Year Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as Hurricane Gustav Enters the Gulf

2009-06-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

This letter was written by ms.lydiajean at the peak of Hurricane season in New Orleans 2008:

Dear friends, loved ones, and comrades,

Over the last few weeks I have been marinating on the email I would write you all to reflect and remember the 3-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Nowhere in these thoughts did I imagine I would be writing you as another hurricane was on its way to strike Louisiana almost three years to the day of Katrina. But it is exactly the responses that I have seen in the last 48 hours to news of Hurricane Gustav that reminds me both of the spirit of resistance in New Orleans and the continued failure of the government (city, state, and federal) to meet people's basic needs along lines of race, class, and gender.

Over the last few weeks, as the anniversary has drawn nearer, I have started to let myself re-feel the sorrow and grief I so often ignore and push away in my day-to-day life. I have begun to look at buildings again and take in that the Katrina X's on their houses and remember the lives that were lost in so many of them. To remember that these were roofs that people waited on for days, praying that rescue would come. And that in the midst of a desperation I have never known, people rescued their neighbors in boats, floating in refrigerators, swimming to carry one another from one roof to the next. Even in the most desolate of times, people found the strength to look out and care for each other.

And their repayment for such a sign of human spirit and dignity was the forced removal and displacement of poor and working class Black people. Tens of thousands of people were marched out of their home at gunpoint by the National Guard to be taken to the Superdome and onto buses to unknown locations across the US. I remember this as I heard today of an elderly woman who is a former public housing resident refusing to leave the city. She does not want to lose her home again or be put on a bus like an animal not knowing when or how she will return. While I wish she was evacuating, I cannot say I do not understand parts of her response. How must it feel to again be told to leave—knowing last time it followed with the demolition of you and your family's (along with approximately 3,000 other families) home.

As it is announced by Governor Jindal that this morning 1,500 National Guardsmen will be entering the city as part of "hurricane preparedness" with another 1,500 to follow and 2,000 standing by, I cannot but fear that this is part of an excuse to further militarize the city again (because it never stopped being militarized since the storms). I am deeply concerned that when I return, despite how hard the storm has hit, the National Guard will be here to stay.

I think about at a moment where there has been great gains in the criminal justice movement in the city—that New Orleans of all places is not the first city East of the Mississippi to have an Independent Police Monitor gained from community organized not from federal mandate. Yet, also the terrible lost in the fight for police accountability when the 7 cops who shot at civilians killing two and seriously injuring several others (while cheers went up over NOPD radios) in the aftermath of Katrina had all their charges dropped two weeks ago. It was from that news that I let myself to feel the grief of people already forgetting the horrors of Katrina. And now, as Gustav approaches it has been announced the NOPD will set up five undisclosed "emergency looting response stations" and will patrol Wal-mart and other department stores during the storm. I cannot help but worry about how many unarmed Black people will be shot in the name of public safety.

I also worry about all the inmates at OPP and other local parish jails. People are worried we are only going to see a repeat of three years ago where prisoners were left for dead. Folks were calling all day trying to get the city to tell them of an evacuation plan for prisoners with only sketchy responses. Theoretically people will be transferred to Angola and other nearby jails (including the former youth jail in Jena), but there is little confirmation of such a move. And who knows if it will be to late? Local community activists are mobilizing people to put pressure on the sheriff and other city officials to make the official plan for prisoner evacuation public and to move quickly and effectively. We will not let this happen again.

I am also deeply inspired by people's focus on making sure one another have evacuation plans. So many community organizations are activating the phone trees of their bases and making sure they know each person's evacuation plan. For example, yesterday I helped the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic, a project of the Women's Health and Justice Initiative connected to INCITE! New Orleans, call all their patients to check and see if they had evacuation plans and needed assistance. The genuine gratitude and surprise from patients that a health clinic was concerned enough to call made me wish we lived in a world where such an action was the norm instead of an aberration. It made me realize that no matter what anyone has said before or might say again about the people of New Orleans, this is a place where people place one another as a priority—even if they do not know each other.

I am inspired that today's Katrina commemoration events are occurring on schedule. Because as noted by Rosana Cruz the co-director of Safe Streets/Strong Communities, "we will not lose this opportunity to fight back." There will both be a march in the morning starting at the levee break in the Lower Ninth to commemorate the lives that were lost and a secondline and rally in the afternoon highlighting the continued fights around housing, education, healthcare, criminal justice, and workers' rights being waged in the city in the hopes of looking backwards to build a better future. Even as the storm heads closer to us, there is hope that this coming year will be one of successes and strength.

I hate to say this inspiration is also coupled with the frustration of a lack of an adequate evacuation plan for the city. While a mandatory evacuation has yet to be called, it is already announced the public transportation will stop between Friday and Saturday night. There are only 30,000 spots on buses available to those without personal transportation and the number to call to reserve a spot is constantly busy and often hangs up on the caller. Once again, it is the end of the month the time hardest to be poor in America with little resources for food and supplies. The Red Cross has supposedly resources but is not yet stating where or how they will become available. The levees have never been adequately prepared, and a water pump is busted. Let's not forget the Latin@ workers, with estimates of their numbers being between 100-150,000 while there are still little to no Spanish speaking services. There is much to worry about.

And then again, many people have reminded me that there have been many hurricanes before with very few producing the results the level of Katrina. I am hoping that this turns out to be one of the most anti-climatic moments of my life. That I will return in a few days happy to have gotten an extra day or so off from work. That this city with its joy of life and insistence of its survival will be intact ready for a fall filled with secondlines and dancing in the streets; with po boys by the river and beignets with friends; with wins for the peoples' right of return and a renewed movement commitment to racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. I have hopes that we can build and move forward even at the moments I am filled with the most worry and dread.

And then again, many people have reminded me that there have been many hurricanes before with very few producing the results the level of Katrina. I am hoping that this turns out to be one of the most anti-climatic moments of my life. That I will return in a few days happy to have gotten an extra day or so off from work. That this city with its joy of life and insistence of its survival will be intact ready for a fall filled with secondlines and dancing in the streets; with po boys by the river and beignets with friends; with wins for the peoples' right of return and a renewed movement commitment to racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. I have hopes that we can build and move forward even at the moments I am filled with the most worry and dread.

Much love and solidarity to you all,
ms.lydiajean@gmail.com

August 29, 2008

2009-06-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

Roots of Music Re-Post

Roots of Music - New Orleans Roots of Music is a music education program for middle-school students in New Orleans. This blog is intended to keep members, supporters, and friends of RoM in the loop and provide information about the students, Program Director Derrick Tabb of the Rebirth Brass Band, Band Director Lawrence Rawlins, and Instructors Shoan Ruffin, Allen Dejan, and Edward Lee. Saturday, August 2, 2008

http://www.therootsofmusic.com/

http://www.rootsofmusic.blogspot.com/

Saturday, August 2, 2008: Sock Hop
Last Thursday the parents' booster club threw a Sock Hop for Roots of Music students and their families. The students had a great time on the dance floor at Tipitina's, especially when the Baby Boyz Brass Band took the stage.Did Miss Regina stop working and enjoy the music and the dancing? Nope. She was working as usual, cooking up a storm for the students like she does every day at the Roots of Music rehearsals. Shout out to Miss Regina!
Finally, we want to thank one of our many volunteers, Ronni Armstead, for helping keep Roots of Music going. Ronni was visiting this summer from Duke University and she helped Ms Regina keep the students well fed. Thanks Ready-Red!

Posted by Roots of Music - New Orleans at 9:05 PM

3 comments:
Sally said...
HORNS FOR GUNS Press ConferenceFriday, August 15, 2008 10amChrist Church Episcopal Cathedral2919 St. Charles Avenue, New OrleansAnnouncing HORNS FOR GUNS, an innovative collaboration between musicians, artists, community groups, and the Episcopal and other local churches, where folks from all over the metro area are asked to trade guns for creative community solutions to benefit programs for the city's youth that offer mentoring in the creative arts toward team building and developing the job, life and leadership skills and opportunities for our city's youth and future.“New Orleans is the most creative city in the world - we don't need guns when we can create music and dance in the streets, when we can create Indian suits and rhythms and film and art - what do we need guns for? They're not good for anything but killing and that's NOT what New Orleans is about!! We're about creating!” Derrick Tabb, Rebirth Brass Band
August 9, 2008 3:45 PM
Barbara said...
I would like to know why is it just open to black students, I'm sure their were other races that were affected by Katrina. If that were a caucasian starting this band and just had white kids , Jackson and Sharpin would be all over it. I think it's a great program but why just for blacks, after all is'nt that what your President vowed to bring everyone together.
April 30, 2009 4:07 PM
nolaprojecteam said...
to my knowledge, this program is not exclusively open to Black students; however, the founder of the camp had a specific goal which was to provide young children living in new orleans (most of whom are Black, and many of whom were already attending underfunded public schools before Katrina)with the skills and discipline to pursue serious artistic expression, and/or to make an honest living in a shrinking job market. if a white person decided to run a program only open to white children s/he would be well within their rights to do so. i would not have any problem so long as my tax dollars weren't paying for it; just because Revs Jackson and Sharpton would be all over it does not mean that all Black people would agree with them.
June 30, 2009 8:01 AM
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The Roots of Music blog is updated by Matt Sakakeeny. View my complete profile

Gulf Coast Civic Works Act

2009-06-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

The H.R. 4048: Gulf Coast Civic Works Act was sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren [D-CA16] and introduced into the 110th Congress of 2007-2008, although it was never called for a vote. The goal of the Act as stated to Congress is: "To establish the Gulf Coast Recovery Authority to administer a Gulf Coast Civic Works Project to provide job-training opportunities and increase employment to aid in the recovery of the Gulf Coast region" (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-4048).

The folks at the Katrina Information Network are pushing for the bill to:

Rebuild and repair vital infrastructure, including schools, police and fire stations, hospitals, parks, roads, water and sewer systems, workforce housing, and cultural centers

Rebuild natural flood protection such as barrier island, marshes, and wetlands

Create good green jobs and provides job training

Appoint a Gulf Coast Recovery Coordinator to the Office of the President with a charge to speed recovery programs so that people can move home to new opportunity
Fill the funding gaps for home repair and rebuilding so people can afford to move home to recovered neighborhoods

The Gulf Coast Civic Works Project (GCCWP) is the national student movement to pass the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, a federal bill with which they hope to create 100,000 jobs for Gulf Coast residents and evacuees to rebuild their public infrastructure. The GCCWP is working in coalition with community, faith-based, and human rights organizations to pass the Act. You can find out more information about the movement behind the bill at http://www.solvingpoverty.com/

Because the problems facing New Orleans pre-date the catastrophic events of the Hurricane season 2005, the rebuilding of the city has been plagued with a number of social and political set-backs. One of the major urban challenges to rebuilding the Gulf Coast post-Katrina has been the political climate.

George Lipsitz (2006)*** argues that a hostile political climate has predominated ever since the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s challenged the American white supremacist status quo. Because of this new era of conservatism, he writes, a new social warrant of “competitive consumer citizenship” emerged in which each individual was forced to fend for herself. It was this “organized abandonment of poor and working class Black people in New Orleans prior to the hurricane” (24) that produced the conditions of possibility for the disaster that was to unfold after Katrina and Rita breached the levies and flooded the city.

Stephen Graham (Understanding Katrina 2006) also illustrates how the war on crime and the war on drugs in particular ended up producing a war on cities across the nation. He indicts the protection of the ex-urban American lifestyle and its voracious consumption of energy (for which he argues the Iraq war was waged) as well as its furious denial of global warming and climate change, as the reason for which U.S. government priorities were in Iraq instead of New Orleans at the time of the storm. On the other hand, D. Strolovitch, D. Warren, and P. Frymer (Understanding Katrina 2006) see anti-federalist backlash as at the root of weakening governmental capacities. The authors assert that debates about federalism and states’ rights tend to act as smokescreens for powerful elites to discriminate against and do violence to Black people and other politically subversive, marginalized communities. Although the political climate has changed somewhat since the election of Barack Obama, only 4.4% of the federal stimulus money allocated to LA has gone towards housing, and 2.3% to human services (http://www.stimulus.la.gov/).

*** Lipsitz, George. "Learning from New Orleans: The Social Warrant of Hostile Privatism and Competitive Consumer Citizenship." Cultural Anthropology. Volume 21. Issue 3. August 2006 (Pages 451 - 468)

Ronni ARMSTEAD

Genesis

2009-06-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

J'ai, comme tout le monde, entendu parler de la Nouvelle Orléans et de l'ouragan Katrina. C'est même devenu un couple indissociable. Au point que Katrina n'est plus à mes yeux un prénom que l'on donnerait à une petite fille. Je me souviens qu'en 2005, lorsque les médias européens ont diffusé l'information sur cette catastrophe, les discours les plus communs étaient anti-bushistes. Et anti-américanistes. Deux ans après l'envoi de ses troupes en Irak en 2003, Bush frappait encore:

"- Nan mais c'est dingue j'te jure!!! Le mec il a juste mis trois jours à se rendre sur les lieux. Genre le mec il était en vacances, tu comprends!"

Tout s'est finalement passé comme si nous cherchions tous à confirmer quel personnage mi-légendaire, mi-diabolique était George Bush, à nos yeux à nous, Français pouponnés par notre Douce France. Du coup qu'est-il resté dans nos esprits de l'épisode tragique? Avons-nous réellement saisi symboliquement, politiquement, et historiquement ce qui a marqué le mois d'Août 2005? Ou bien y avons-nous vu ce que nous voulions y voir?

Pour ma part j'étais très occupée à célébrer "l'année du Brésil en France"... un cours de samba à Paris Plage ? C'est presque trois ans plus tard que l'événement a pris sens à mes yeux, à mes larmes et à mon indignation. La genesis, c'est une rencontre. La genesis, c'est Ronni.

Célia SADAI

Le début

2009-02-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

Like many (Black) Americans, I can recall exactly where I was on the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall: August 29th, 2005. Having only just graduated from Oberlin College months before, and equipped with all the critical thinking skills, intellectual curiosity, and righteous indignation a good liberal arts education can instill, I wanted to get outside of the academe and do something that would have tangible and liberatory effects for the lives of ordinary folks struggling to change the world around them. Sure this was a lofty goal, but I wholeheartedly believed in Oberlin’s creed: “Think one person can change the world?... So do we!”

Wanting to take full advantage of my youth, as well as newfound opportunities to travel, and build coalitions with other groups fighting for social justice, I took an internship in Charles Mix county, South Dakota in the Yankton Sioux reservation. I arrived the farthest west I had ever been on the evening of August 27th 2005. I was just making myself at home in the women’s domestic violence shelter (where I was to perform half of my internship duties) when I was confronted by the suffering and willful neglect of the people of the Gulf Coast. I was astonished and could not believe that no one had prepared any plans to evacuate the elderly, the sick, children, and the poor people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I was paralyzed by the thought that any of those (Black) people waiting on rooftops and wading through chest-high waters could have been my familiars. I wanted to do something to help, but I didn’t know what. I had just arrived in South Dakota, was making a minimal salary, and wanted to experience what the Great Plains had to offer. No longer an idealistic student, but now an “independent adult” with no money and very few (institutional) resources, I decided I’d stay where I was.

On the one-year anniversary of Katrina’s landfall, I was beginning life anew in Durham, North Carolina. As a graduate student in Cultural Anthropology at Duke, I was learning more and more about the practical and theoretical uses of ethnography. As I understand it, ethnography – writing culture – is an act of synthesis wherein the author draws together social science literatures, participant observation, interviews, media representations, and personal experience. At best, an ethnography is a sort of history of the contemporary moment in which different social actors get to tell their stories. Because ethnographies tend to privilege attention to detail, everyday life, and social relationships as they evolve over time, I believe that they are best suited to demystifying the complexities of economic and social change, political upheaval, and even so-called “natural” disasters. I would like to humbly offer these tools in response to the ongoing challenges posed by Katrina. It is my aim to collaborate with residents of New Orleans, activists, artists, migrants, and workers in order to connect people to each other and to much-needed resources, as well as to advance the cause of social justice; I see the production of an ethnography about the changing social conditions in New Orleans as one (small) contribution towards that larger goal.

Ronni Armstead