Joyce Green
died on the roof of her Lower 9th Ward home as her New
Orleans neighborhood flooded during Hurricane Katrina.
Helplessly, her son watched her die as the water rushed
dangerously below them. Just last week he was able to
return to their collapsed house on Tennessee Street for
the first time, and found her skeletal remains amidst
the ruins. He was able to identify them because they
were wrapped in the clothes she was wearing the day she
died.
During Katrina,
the lower 9th Ward was deluged due to breaches in the
Industrial Canal levee. Additionally, an enormous barge
that was illegally left in the canal was launched into
the neighborhood, destroying lives and property during
its reckless trajectory. Four months later, many
questions remain unanswered regarding the destruction in
the Lower 9th Ward, including the question of possible
criminal negligence. However, before those questions
have been fully investigated, let alone answered, the
City of New Orleans is rushing to bulldoze much of the
neighborhood--without informing
homeowners.
On the eve of
the holiday season, Greg Meffert, the city's chief
technology officer, revealed that the city would
immediately demolish about 2,500 "red-tagged" homes in
the Lower 9th Ward. Before Meffert's announcement, a
red-tag merely meant that a home was unsafe to enter.
The City of New Orleans website specifically states in
bold italicized text that "a red sticker does not
indicate whether or not a building will be demolished,
only that the structure is currently unsafe to
enter."
Yet the City
decided to bulldoze red-tagged homes without informing
homeowners of the new meaning of the red tags or the
demolition order. This is a clear violation of due
process, guaranteed under federal and state
constitutions, which protects property owners from the
unlawful destruction of their property. It is also a
clear, opportunistic attack on the Lower 9th Ward
community, whose historically black roots run deep in
the neighborhood. Boasting the highest level of black
homeownership in the nation, the area is also where many
black New Orleanians have traditionally been able to
purchase their first homes.
Due to the
massive destruction of the Lower 9th Ward, neighborhood
survivors have been scattered across the country. Most
residents have not been able to evaluate the damage to
their homes due to their displacement. FEMA's fly-back
program for evacuees, which could have been expanded to
allow homeowners the opportunity to return to New
Orleans in order to view their property, expired on New
Year's Eve. Furthermore, the Lower 9th Ward was closed
until December 1st, making it impossible for residents
to visit their homes until quite
recently.
Residents missing
loved ones know that there are more dead yet to be
uncovered in the debris, whose bodies would be
wrongfully buried by demolition. Adding insult to
injury, a history of redlining has left the land in the
Lower 9th Ward not only low-lying, but also lowly
valued. Leveling homes would not only further demoralize
a diasporic community that has had no voice in the
decision-making process concerning their property, it
would also strip them of most of their assets, render
them gravely vulnerable to speculators, and raise the
threat of eminent domain.
Considering how
slow the City has been to respond to the needs of its
citizens during the four months since Hurricane Katrina,
we must ask why it is now rushing to bulldoze the Lower
9th Ward. Is it to cover up unlawful tampering with the
levees during Katrina? Is it to avoid an accurate body
count of the area? Is it because the City intends to
forcibly remove residents from their land to make way
for a glitzy Cajun Casinoland? Or is it simply due to
the blatant racism and classism that characterizes so
much of this tragic disaster?
Concerned
community members are not ceding their rich cultural
heritage without a fight. On December 28th, Kirk v. The
City of New Orleans won a temporary restraining order
against the City to halt the demolition of property
until the court hearing to be held this Friday. Ishmael
Muhammad, an attorney working on the suit for The
People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition,
summed up community sentiment by saying that "there can
be no justice in the rebuilding process unless the
residents and homeowners can fully
participate."
If New Orleans
is to rise from the piles of rubble strewn unevenly
across the city, the often-drowned out voices of poor
blacks must dictate the terms of the rebuilding process.
City planners and developers who may attempt to
capitalize upon a disaster largely manufactured by
negligent funding, poor planning and a criminal response
must not further desecrate the memory of those silenced
in its wake, indiscriminately bulldozing over unclaimed
bodies and haphazardly demolishing what remains of the
Lower 9th Ward. To do so would be the final insult to a
community deluged not only by floodwaters, but also by
injustice.
Much more than the
ubiquitous cookie-cutter houses that characterize
suburban sprawl, homes in the Lower 9th Ward are the
historic connections to a multigenerational community
that has deep roots laid in the land presently under
threat. Bulldozing a person's most emblematic tie to
that land without their consent is not only plainly
unlawful, it is a covert step towards the ethnic
cleansing of New Orleans. Turning a natural disaster
into an opportunity to whitewash one of the world's most
multiethnic cities is not only the lowest form of
racism, it would also spell municipal suicide for a city
whose integrity resides in the preservation of its most
dynamic neighborhoods.
No other neighborhood
better exemplifies the cultural uniqueness of New
Orleans than the Lower 9th Ward-Fats Domino lives
there, as do many Mardi Gras Indians, and countless
French Quarter musicians, mimes and waiters commute to
Bourbon Street from their Lower 9th homes. These people
should decide if and when demolition is necessary, and
they ought to determine the future of one of America's
most vibrant neighborhoods. If any American city
exemplifies the genius of everyday people, it is
certainly New Orleans. And if the city is to truly
recover from this disaster, the local people who created
its international reputation must lead its
reconstruction.
