Black folks in ‘Chocolate City’ are still stuck in the mud
By Jamala Rogers
For the St. Louis American
NEW ORLEANS – A year after the unthinkable devastation of New Orleans wrought by Hurricane Katrina, progress in reconstruction is slow or non-existent if you’re poor or black. In fact, many observers believe New Orleans is a case study of what those in power would make out of every American city if left alone to execute their plans – urban centers without poor folks.
Katrina left 80 percent of the city flooded, killed more than 1,339 people in Louisiana, displaced 786,372 citizens and has ruined 18,752 businesses, according to the NNPA.
In New Orleans, there are efforts to reassure the people that everything is all right. On WYLD 98.5 FM radio, deejays continuously plug the slogan “Building New Orleans, one day at a time.” A “My Katrina Hero” essay contest is underway by the city government. The French Quarter, which sustained only wind damage, looks like a Hollywood movie set. Rumors still persist that levees were blown up to spare this historic tourist district by redirecting raging waters to the predominantly African-American 9th Ward.
A casual pan of city streets indicates priorities in the rebuilding effort. A gigantic sign graces the top of the New Orleans Astrodome, letting passersby know that the facility re-opens on August 26. The Dome of Death was the shelter of last resort for more than 60,000 stranded victims and the centerpiece for many a reporter’s human interest (or horror) story.
A closer look and a chat with the residents reveals that all is not well, even in the Quarter. Two hostile, hand-written signs were posted on the storefront windows of YesterYears on Bourbon Street, a shop of quaint and quirky novelties. One sign read, “There is no real intention to rebuild New Orleans” and the other lamented “There is no economic recovery money.” The owner had just laid off her last paid employee and was uncertain about her 29-year-old business. Without government assistance, YesterYears was about to become yesterday’s failed business statistic.
The Democratic members of the House Small Business Committee have found that 80 percent of small businesses on the Gulf Coast have not yet received loans promised by the federal government. The Small Business Administration has approved loans of more than $10 billion, but only $2 billion has been loaned to business owners.
The House report also cited massive delays at the federal agency, forcing some business owners to wait as long as 100 days for a decision on loan applications.
While small or independent proprietors were suffering or already busted, the banks were open for businesses. Most of New Orleans’ 140 hotels are also up and running. The Hyatt Regency Hotel, which suffered the most damage of all the hotels, won’t be open until January 2007. The exterior was intact, and hotel management was refinishing the damaged interior and replacing furniture that was sucked out of gaping windows by the fierce hurricane winds.
T-shirts on sale sported new meanings for old acronyms. FEMA became “Fix Everything My A**!” and NOPD became “Not Our Problem, Dude!” There was even an image of Mayor Ray Nagin in a Willy Wonka top hat and suit, playing on Nagin’s reference to New Orleans as “Chocolate City.”
Nagin’s re-election in the spring amplified the complexity of the New Orleans political landscape. The election was closely watched around the country, since the victor would lead the city’s rebuilding efforts. It had been 30 years since the city had a white mayor, and Nagin’s campaign emphasized “not turning back the clock.”
Despite local and national protests to provide voting satellites for dislocated residents, the April election moved forward with 80 percent of the city’s electorate scattered across the country. In the primary, Nagin – one of 21 candidates – advanced to the run-off as the only African-American. The irony is that mostly white voters elected him in 2002 while mostly black voters reluctantly brought him back in 2006.
Reconstruction is slow going for those without personal resources or ready access to government funds. In the residential areas, FEMA trailers have replaced the mounds of debris in front yards. The government-issued trailers serve as temporary housing while homeowners fix up their homes.
An Oxfam America report concludes that although $17 billion has been approved by Congress to rebuild homes in Louisiana and Mississippi, not one house has been rebuilt with that money in either state.
Renters are faring even worse. In Louisiana and Mississippi, blacks are more likely to be renters than whites, according to U.S. Census data. Though a large proportion of the dwellings destroyed by Katrina were occupied by renters, only a fraction of the federal housing assistance has been earmarked for rental units, according to several new studies.
A Mississippi conference of the NAACP report said “the lack of rental aid will have long-term impacts on places like Biloxi, Miss., where 70 percent of renters were black, and Pascagoula, where 75 percent were black.”
A report by the Brookings Institution in Washington argued that with rents having risen 39 percent in New Orleans, the need to repair affordable rental units is crucial.
Along Elysian Fields Avenue, many of the older homes were untouched since being boarded up and marked with the bright orange symbols of FEMA recovery teams, whose uneven efforts are clearly depicted in the new epic Spike Lee documentary, After the Levees Broke. Between rows of abandoned houses on Elysian Fields, an occasional black family member could be glimpsed sitting on the porch. Further north on the avenue, closer to New Orleans University and Lake Pontchartrain, newer, bigger homes were already re-inhabited, sporting fresh coats of paints, new windows and manicured lawns. It was another stark example of disparity.
In December, closer to the shell shock of the disaster, many survivors insisted that their situation was not a natural disaster – it was a man-made disaster caused by the neglect of the levees, despite persistent warnings by engineers and environmental experts. The situation was compounded by the lack of a disaster plan, a bureaucratic blame-game and a woefully inept federal emergency response.
Spike Lee took heed of this clarification when he filmed his HBO documentary, a four-hour requiem that will be shown in its entirety on the August 29 Katrina anniversary date. Lee was moved to document the scale of the disaster, its deep roots in bad planning and mismanagement, as well as the pathetic recovery efforts.
Lee also documented the chaos in the New Orleans Public Schools before the disaster, which was hideously compounded by the disaster.
As Hazel Trice Edney reported for the NNPA, only 56 of an original 128 district schools will reopen this fall, and about 30,000 of the pre-Katrina 60,000 elementary, middle and high school students are expected to return. Trice’s report may be read in full on www.stlamerican.com.
“We don’t know how many children are coming, and we are not sure whether or not we have enough teachers to meet the need if more children come than has been anticipated,” Louella Givens told the NNPA. Givens represents New Orleans on the 11-member Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and is prominently featured in the Spike Lee documentary
Givens told the NNPA she believes that most teenagers are suffering from some level of disassociation from past friends and loved ones from whom they may have been separated, either by death or relocation.
“First they were torn away from some friends and family. Then, they were put in new environments with new children. And teenagers are cliquish. They were outsiders and they were not always accepted,” Givens said.
“Then they were brought back to New Orleans with their families, but not necessarily to their homes, not necessarily to their schools and not necessarily to their friends, and the city is still a mess.”
Since the levees broke, nothing has been easy for the people – in particular, the poor black folks – in the Big Easy.
