Anderson@Large

Tale of Two Cities

I'm back from the Big Easy, where the living isn't easy in certain parts of town.

If you lived on higher ground in, say, the Garden District or Lakeview, it's laissez les bon temps roulez!

But if you lived in the Ninth Ward, New Orleans East or Gentilly, it's the day after the storm.

The uneven recovery is frustrating to residents and vexing to outsiders. I got some insight into the problem when I overheard New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refuse to answer a filmmaker's question after the candlelight vigil in Jackson Square.

The cameraman may have captured the video (or perhaps just the audio) of Nagin blowing past his colleague because he was off the clock. So, while his constituents are struggling 24/7 to rebuild their lives and homes, their, um, leader punches a clock.

The vigil was held in Jackson Square to expiate the sins of omission and commission of President Bush, who two years ago stood before the American people and promised to "do what it takes."

But as the Rev. Al Sharpton noted:

This disaster started with broken levees. It was continued in this square with broken promises. The government let the people down. Drive-by sympathy cannot fix the city.

Something is wrong when you can see weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but you can't see a hurricane in New Orleans. Bush can find money to rebuild Baghdad but he cannot find the will to rebuild New Orleans.

Don't blame God for the government's neglect. The hurricane was God. The levee breach was government. We will stay with you until the job is done.

In declaring "better days are ahead," Bush continues to ignore the plight of the 33,000 New Orleanians who are trapped in FEMA trailers. Homeowners, whose ability to pass on wealth to the next generation was lost in the flood, and renters, who have been locked out of public housing, know what it means to miss New Orleans.

Bearing Witness and Telling Their Stories

Today marks the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. While progress is being made, the recovery is uneven and reflects the racial and economic disparities that existed before the storm.

The challenges facing Katrina survivors include housing, education, employment and training, health care and mental health services, and public safety.

By our presence in New Orleans, we will bear witness to the ongoing crisis in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and tell the stories of Katrina survivors for whom today is just another day to get through.

Melanie Campbell, executive director and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, told BlackAmericaWeb.com:

This is not about pointing fingers. This is about, "Can we demand from our government at all levels to come together for the people of the Gulf Coast region?"

As for the recovery effort, Melanie noted that outside the French Quarter:

All it takes is a five-minute ride in either direction, and you know it's not okay. If this thing stays as it is, it will be one of the largest forced migrations of this century and the last.

So we will march and rally to show Katrina survivors that they matter. We care and we have not forgotten the anger we felt two years ago as we watched their suffering on CNN and other media outlets.

From 2 pm to 5 pm CST, there will be a rally in front of Halls A and B of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the site of unimaginable misery, perseverance and survival. CNN is expected to broadcast the event live so tune in.

But don't just sit there like a bump on a log -- multitask. Flood Congress with calls and emails and demand an equitable recovery here.

After the rally there will be a silent march from Spanish Plaza to Jackson Square, where we will hold a candlelight vigil.

Earlier this week, I stood in the spot where President Bush promised to "do what it takes…to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives." I was struck by the inscription on the base of the statute of Andrew Jackson: "The union must and shall be preserved."

Now that sounds like a plan for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

The Day the Music Died

I'm in New Orleans, where the sense of loss is palpable from the moment one deplanes at the Louis Armstrong Airport. The presence of absence evokes a Southern belle sitting on her front porch waiting for a gentleman caller who never shows up.

My friend, noted pollster Dr. Silas Lee, told The Times-Picayune:

Like all communities, we in New Orleans have a microscopic perception of culture. It's a way of living – the food we eat, the institutions we're committed to – the people we're used to interacting with.

Anyone who loses a component of their culture, it's like losing an immediate family member, a part of your soul, the essence of what makes your community. It's part of the spirit of a neighborhood.

Silas told me New Orleans is losing the social anchors of its neighborhoods – churches, grocery stores, barber shops. "The people made those institutions."

As I walked around the French Quarter, the ubiquitous T-shirts show that New Orleanians haven't lost their sense of humor. My favorites are "Drove My Chevy to the Levee and the Levee Was Gone" and "FEMA: Find Every Mexican Available."

While the city cannot find the resources to support local musicians (and here), it had no trouble finding Mexican children to fill up the slots in a new escuela. In fact, there are so many Mexicans the school reportedly reached its capacity in a month and now has a waiting list.

Meanwhile in the birthplace of jazz, American musicians, the heart and soul of the Crescent City, are drowning in their own tears.

Lest We Forget: A Day of Service

And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.
-- President George W. Bush, Sept. 15, 2005 

President Bush's promise to "do what it takes" remains largely unfulfilled for tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors (and here).

Fortunately, more than 1.1 million volunteers -- ordinary Americans -- stood in the breach and provided over 3.5 million service hours to aid Katrina victims, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service. Their volunteer service was worth $263 million to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Donald E. Powell, Federal Coordinator of Gulf Coast Rebuilding, said:

The outpouring of compassion by more than one million Americans has been a vital part of the Katrina recovery effort and is a sign of the fundamental goodness and generosity of the American people. As the rebuilding effort continues, volunteers will remain a critical source of hope and help in the Gulf, and I encourage more Americans to get involved, because the government cannot bring these communities back alone.

Actually, the government alone can bring the communities back but the fact is, folks are suffering. So a coalition of groups, spearheaded by Melanie Campbell and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, will bring hundreds of volunteers for a day of community service in New Orleans.

On Tuesday, Aug. 28, volunteers from across the country will engage in variety of activities, including:

• remove contaminated top soil from damaged communities
• paint and pressure wash buildings
• repair the playground in a local public school
• help restore a historic African American church
• visit the sick and elderly

If you can't be present in New Orleans, don't sweat it. Your assistance is needed in communities throughout the Katrina Diaspora. Melanie said:

If you can't make it to help rebuild a Gulf Coast community, volunteer where you are. There are "lower ninth wards" across the country. "A Day of Service" is to highlight community service and self empowerment.

You can also donate supplies, including face masks, trash bags, gloves, sod and soil, garden tools, hand sanitizer and water.

To donate supplies or volunteer, contact Rosaria Beasley here or call the Urban League of Greater New Orleans at 504/620-2332.

Give Amnesty the Blue Slip

The Senate will resume debate on the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill today.  While home on recess, senators got an earful from their constituents.

Through their calls, protests outside senators’ district offices, town hall meetings, etc., Americans have sent a loud and clear message: Secure the border first.

The recent revelation that a traveler with multidrug-resistant TB, whose passport was flagged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still managed to slip past a Homeland Security Border Protection officer, exposed the gaps in border security.

So President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff lack credibility when they say they will secure the border.

As Newt Gingrich told “Fox News Sunday”:

Just take this week. An American with tuberculosis shows up at the border. We're in the middle of a debate over immigration and controlling the border. He shows up at the border. The computer says do not let him enter and only deal with him in a hazardous suit.

And the border patrol currently is so ill-trained, or the immigration service is so ill-trained, that the guy lets him in — looks at him with his eyeballs and says, “you know, I don’t think he looks sick,” and lets him in.

You learn that there are three illegal terrorists in New Jersey who were in the U.S. for 23 years illegally, intercepted by the police 75 times in the last six years, and it was never indicated that they were here illegally.

The Bush administration’s manifest incompetence has been documented by independent commissions, congressional committees (and here), the General Accountability Office, among others.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee cut to the chase:

The folks out there in America who, when they see Washington saying we have this wonderful plan, they say “Yeah right. We saw what you did with Katrina, we saw what you did with corruption, we saw what you have done in terms of managing the war. So when you tell us you fixed immigration, we are not buying.”

To try to sell amnesty to an outraged public, senators voted for an amendment that would require illegals to pay back taxes.  Assuming the legislation doesn’t fall apart on the merits (or more accurately, the lack thereof), this amendment will be its ultimate undoing.

Indeed, there will be race to “blue-slip” (read: kill) the Senate’s sellout of American sovereignty and identity since “all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives."

Right to Return

The Atlantic hurricane season gets underway in just a few hours. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts an “above normal” season.

If just one of the predicted 13 to 17 named storms matches the fury of Katrina, a fresh group of hurricane survivors will join the 49,000 Katrina families still living in hazardous FEMA trailers.

While Katrina fatigue has set in, tens of thousands of evacuees remain locked out of their homes in New Orleans. So Tavis Smiley and filmmaker Jonathan Demme have joined forces to present “Right to Return: New Home Movies from the Lower 9th Ward.”  The mini-documentaries are portraits of survival and determination.

"Right to Return" chronicles displaced New Orleanians as they reclaim their homes and participate in the rebuilding of their communities.

An Academy-award winning director, Demme felt compelled to tell the rest of the story of Katrina survivors:

Once the water subsided and the imagery wasn’t fresh anymore, we stopped knowing what’s going on down here.

The hurricane, the floods got our attention. The big question is, “Then what happened?”

The five-part series began on Monday. To check your local listing, click here.

Katrina Survivors Twisting in the Wind

While President Bush promises to “help in any way we can” Kansans displaced by a tornado, Hurricane Katrina survivors are still twisting in the wind.

In September 2005, Bush promised:

The people who call it home need to have reassurance that their lives will be safer in the years to come. Protecting a city that sits lower than the water around it is not easy, but it can, and has been done. City and parish officials in New Orleans, and state officials in Louisiana will have a large part in the engineering decisions to come. And the Army Corps of Engineers will work at their side to make the flood protection system stronger than it has ever been (emphasis added).

With hurricane season less than a month away, the levees still may not hold water (and here).

And when it rains, it pours. The Road Home program, which was supposed to help displaced New Orleanians “get back into their home,” may run out of money.

If that happens, Katrina survivors once again will be left high and dry – and stuck in FEMA trailers.