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Four years after Hurricane Katrina, only 19 percent of residents have returned to the poorest neighborhoods. That is a disaster for them, but it is not an accident.
A wealthy New Orleans resident gave away the game in 2005, during the Katrina disaster. Referring to the poor, black population of the flooded areas, he told the Wall Street Journal “we do not want them back”.
Standing beside the swimming pool in the backyard of his New Orleans mansion, this latter day “Southern gentleman” said that the storm was a good opportunity to “clean up the city” by getting rid of “those people” (the poor and black who have still not been allowed to move back in to New Orleans). And so the New Orleans elite have managed to do since the storm.
Perfectly sound public housing and homes were torn down to ensure that the poorest people could not return to New Orleans. Naturally the land for the public housing units, only a fraction of which will be replaced (somewhere, sometime, supposedly), is being sold.
The land under the scarcely damaged, sturdily built old public housing projects just happens to be quite near some very expensive New Orleans real estate—and therefore highly valuable to developers.
For decades, everyone knew that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. Yet the federal government (the only entity who could legally do so) did not rebuild or reinforce the levees.
In the interests of real estate developers and right-wing politics they simply waited for a major hurricane to free up valuable land—and vastly change the demographics of New Orleans by getting rid of many thousands of poor, black Democrats.
What happened and is still happening in New Orleans is a crime. People were put in harm’s way and deliberately allowed to die for the sake of politics, racism and greed. Then their homes, including houses that had been owned by families for generations, were taken away.
We must never forget the real meaning—and purpose—of the Katrina disaster.
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