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<div align="center"><b>Hurricane Katrina: The Black Nation’s 9/11!</b>
<br><br>
this statement by Saladin Muhammad of Black Workers for Justice<br><br>
</div>
The magnitude of the destruction and human suffering caused by Hurricane
Katrina to the people and communities of the Gulf Coast Region, while not
the results of an act of “terror”, is directly a result of a profit
driven system of capitalist exploitation reinforced by the national
oppression of African American people in the US South, a region where the
majority of Black people live and where the conditions of oppression,
poverty and underdevelopment are most concentrated. <br><br>
As anti imperialists and activists engage in work to build support for
the Gulf Coast survivors, we must have an analysis and political context
for properly understanding the reasons for this crisis and the
contradictions surrounding its aftermath. The response to this human
tragedy must be more than a humanitarian response in order to deal with
the magnitude and complexity of issues, international political
ramifications, the legal aspects, and the various levels of local,
regional, national and international coalition and network building and
mobilizing that must take place to build a powerful movement for social
justice. <br><br>
There is much talk about how to define the main social impact of Katrina:
Whether it is mainly a major disaster for Black people or for working
class and poor people in general. This attempt to separate race from
class when dealing with issues where those workers affected are majority
African American is no accident. It seeks to divide the character and
content of the working class responses. <br><br>
Thus, it is important to define the race and class character of the
crisis and to call on the larger working class to unite with it’s most
oppressed sectionthe African American working class who is also the
predominant basis of an oppressed nation and nationality historically
denied real democratic rights and subjugated by US imperialism. <br><br>
The government’s failure to correct this impending danger known far in
advance, that led to the continuously unfolding massive human tragedy,
helps all to see the racist nature of the US capitalist system and how
the system of African American national oppression is in violation of
human rights and guilty of crimes against humanity. <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>African American National Oppression<br><br>
</b></div>
African American national oppression was/is definitely a major factor
contributing to the magnitude of the disaster caused by Katrina. National
oppression takes on more factors than race. It includes among other
factors where people live and worksocial and political territories and
institution, and has a working class character represented by the most
exploited strata of the US working class. Thus African American national
oppression is at the deepest point of the intersection of race, class and
gender oppression and exploitation of the US working class.
<br><br>
As more than 90 percent of Black people throughout the US are workers,
African American national oppression places its primary emphasis on the
exploitation and oppression of Black workers and their communities. More
than two-thirds of New Orleans’ inhabitants were African American.
In the Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood that was one of the hardest hit,
more than 98% were Black. <br><br>
The slow US federal and state government responses to natural disasters
like Hurricanes Katrina and Floyd in North Carolina in September 1999,
that greatly impacted predominately African American working class
communities, make clear that the value of Black and working class life is
subordinate to capitalist property and profits. <br><br>
The racist economic, social and political policies and practices of the
US government and capitalist system shape society’s attitudes about the
reasons for the historical oppression of African Americans. It seeks to
isolate, criminalize and scapegoat African Americans as social pariahs
holding back the progress of society. <br><br>
The characterization of the Black working class in this way is a part of
the continuous ideological shaping of white supremacy that gives white
workers a sense of being part of another working class, different from
that of the Black working class. This often leads many white
workers to act against their class interests, discouraging them from
uniting with the Black working class in struggling to seek common, equal
and socially transformative resolutions to their class issues.
<br><br>
The media’s different descriptions of acts of desperation and survival by
Blacks and whites in obtaining food and supplies following
Katrina“looting” and “finders” is an example. The police and
National Guard were ordered to stop looking for survivors and to stop
“lawlessness.” Bush’s statements about getting tough on “looters” along
with Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, when she said, "These troops
are battle-tested – have M-16s that are locked and loaded – know how to
shoot and kill and I expect they will", made clear that New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast were becoming areas of military occupation.
<br><br>
The refusal by thousands of mainly Black people to leave their homes was
initially described by the media as the main problem related to the slow
evacuation effortsblaming the victims. Nothing initially mentioned
about the low wages, level of poverty and high rates of unemployment
preventing people from leaving. <br><br>
After it took almost a week for the government evacuation effort to
begin, leaving people to fend for themselves without electricity, food
and water, it became shamefully clear and unavoidable for the media to
hide, that the government had made no provisions for a major evacuation.
The acts of heroism by the people themselves in rescuing their neighbors,
although not emphasized by the media, could be seen throughout it’s
coverage. <br><br>
The so-called “looting” and “lawlessness” must be addressed and placed in
proper context. When it became clear that there was no emergency
evacuation plan in placepeople waiting up to a week before any major
evacuation effort began, people were forced to take desperate actions for
survival, both until they got “rescued” and for their uncertain future as
refugees with no resources and sources of income. TV’s, appliances, etc,
become a form of capital and a means for trade during a crisis.
<br><br>
Some survivors were forced to “steal” cars to get their families out of
the areas. Should this be considered a crime? NO! Also, when people
are oppressed, neglected and left to die, they often engage in
spontaneous acts of rebellion striking out against those who control
wealth and power. <br><br>
This is why the term “racism” without the context of national oppression
and imperialism is grossly inadequate in describing the scope and depth
of the impact of the US oppression of African American people. It often
fails to point out the impact that African American national oppression
has on influencing the standard of living and social conditions of the
general working class regardless of race especially in areas where Black
workers make of a majority or large minority of the population.
<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>US Imperialism on the Domestic Front<br><br>
</b></div>
Not only did the US federal and state government place the working class
of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in impending danger, including failing
to develop a planned emergency response to the crises, it has also
refused the aid of other countries like Cuba and Venezuela who have
offered to send hundreds of doctors, tons of medical supplies and fuel to
help the people in the Gulf Coast Region. <br><br>
US imperialism has thus decided that it has the sole right to decide if
the majority African American and working class people and communities in
the Gulf Coast Region have the human and political right to survive or
not. This is clearly an international human rights question where
the demand for self-determination must be applied as part of the
resolution. <br><br>
Though food, water and transportation trickled in, the government made
sure the oil industry was taken care of fast. Over 10 major refineries
were knocked out of commission in the Gulf region, but many of them were
back operating within the week. Bush released federal oil reserves, but
oil companies jack up gas prices to a <b>criminal</b> level.
Environmental safeguards were loosened for gasoline producers to allow
more pollution. All this while the four largest oil companies had profits
of nearly $100 billion in the last 18 months. Why isn’t this labeled as
corporate “lawlessness?” <br><br>
The African American working class majority of New Orleans and parts of
the Gulf Coast have been “evacuated” to other cities several hundred and
in some cases thousands of miles away from their communities. Many feel
that their communities will never be restored and that they won’t be
returned home. <br><br>
They have good reason to feel this way, as some majority African American
communities have already begun to experience gentrificationmoving Black
and poor people out of the inner cities and replacing them with more
affluent and predominantly middle and upper class whites. <br><br>
Many reports and scientific papers warned that unbridled development
along the coast had done away with millions of acres of wetlands that
buffered coastal communities from storms. Thus, this disaster and the
racist and capitalist circumstances surrounding its occurrence and
aftermath, raises the issue of “ethnic cleansing.” <br><br>
The media in some of the cities receiving the “evacuees”, are describing
them as “the worst of New Orleans' now-notorious lawlessness: looters,
carjackers and rapists.” This sounds like the racist labels placed on
working class and poor immigrants and refugees from throughout Latin
America and the Caribbean who have been forced to leave their countries
and come to the US for economic and political reasons. <br><br>
Many African Americans in particular will experience problems related to
the loss of identification documents in the Flood and fall into a similar
status as undocumented and immigrant workers that come from Latin America
and the Caribbean. Their residential and citizenship status will be
challenged in most cases, when it comes time to get disaster relief
subsistence. The racist nature of US capitalism often makes this
reality of being a refugee and undocumented worker within one’s “own”
country a unique reality for African Americans and other oppressed
nationalities, especially during times of natural and social crises.
<br><br>
We should expect the US to use this disaster to increase restrictions on
forced economic immigration. It is therefore important that African
Americans and Latinos united in challenging the refusal of survivor’s
assistance on the basis of the lack of documentation or citizenship
status. It is important to point out that countries in Latin America have
offered aid to all without regard of citizenship status and
nationalityeven though the US seeks to overthrow their governments.
<br><br>
Forging this unity is an important part of a larger and more difficult
and absolutely essential process of building international solidarity and
working class unity against US imperialism. This is why it’s so
important for Black workers and their organizations to play a leading
role in shaping the class as well as national character of the struggle
for justice around this disaster. <br><br>
The future of New Orleans in particular in terms of the reconstruction of
the historical communities, but at a higher quality of social conditions
and standard of living will be decided by the US corporate class, the
white power structure, unless there is an organized and combined African
American and working class struggle led by the African American working
class majority in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Such a struggle must
take the popular form of a combined struggle for African American
self-determination and workers power, and must have an international
component. <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>Katrina Disaster Exposes Impact of Unjust US War
and Occupation against Iraq<br><br>
</b></div>
The Katrina disaster exposes how US imperialist war in Iraq and
throughout the Middle East, including billions in support for Israel’s
occupation of Palestine is directly connected to the human tragedy in the
Gulf Coast Region. <br><br>
Vital resources that had been allocated by the Bush administration to fix
the substandard levees in New Orleans and the erosion of marshlands along
the coast that caused the Region to experience such enormous flooding and
massive loss of lives were cut and shifted to the war budget.
<br><br>
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have consciously refused
to adequately maintain or strengthen the levees that protect New Orleans.
Hurricane and flood control has received the steepest federal funding
reductions in New Orleans historydown 44.2% since 2001. The
emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told
<i>The</i> <i>Times-Picayune</i> in June 2004: “It appears that the money
has been moved in the President’s budget to handle homeland security and
the war in Iraq, and I suppose that is the price we pay.” Requests
for an additional $250 million for Army Corps of Engineers levee work in
the delta went unmet. <br><br>
There were over 15,000 National Guard from the Gulf Coast Region in
Afghanistan and Iraq fighting unjust wars. Their equipment,
including generators, water purification systems and <br>
other needed life support and disaster preparedness supplies were
overseas as well. Precious hours and days were lost as the bureaucratic
machinery slowly moved equipment from other parts of the country that
could have helped save lives of thousands who are expected to die.
<br><br>
As was the case during every war engaged in by this country, African
Americans and working people were sent to fight, kill and die to bring
about so-called “freedom” while they and their communities are denied
freedom from hunger, imminent dangers, racial violence, gender oppression
and state repression. <br><br>
As was also the case during the Vietnam and Korean wars, the US tried to
conceal the racist treatment of African Americans on the home
front. In both of these wars, the racist treatment of African
Americans in the US led to rebellions in the military and drew many
former veterans into the civil rights and African American liberation
movement when they returned home. <br><br>
It is important that this connection be raised and exposed to help
African Americans better understand the more immediate relationship to
the wars abroad and the national and working class oppression of African
Americans in the US. This will not only serve to strengthen the current
US anti war movement, it will strengthen the US and international anti
imperialist movement. <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>Lessons From North Carolina’s Hurricane
Floyd<br><br>
</b></div>
The coalitions and movement that develops to aid the survivors of this
disaster must understand the magnitude and how it differs from other
disasters throughout the US history. When one analyzes the
conditions and responses to Hurricane Floyd label the “Flood of the
Century” that impacted 30 counties in Eastern North Carolina in September
1999, we see at least one major difference that defines how people’s aid
must be organized. <br><br>
With Floyd, the evacuation of thousands of survivors to far away distant
cities and states did not occur. People were moved and went on
their own to neighboring towns and communities, thus making it easier to
build a survivor’s organization and movement in the area made up of
representatives of the various towns and communities that were impacted.
<br><br>
There was a decision to define people as survivors and not “victims” as
one way of helping to empower them and to discourage a “victim’s
consciousness” which made many feel they had no right to challenge the
abuses of FEMA and the state. The children were teased at schools
that their close and food were “hand outs” from charity. Many begin to
deny they were survivors of the hurricane. <br><br>
There were also strong religious pronouncements in the Black communities
about the reasons for the disasterthat God was unpleased with African
Americans “social decay”, falling away from the church, that God was
punishing America for its sins. All of this had some affect of
taking people’s focus off of the neglect and failures of the system to
protect the safety, lives and communities of African American working
class majorities. <br><br>
There was the need to establish a survivor’s sloganSocial Justice, Not
Charityto promote that aid is a human right the actions of the people
themselves in surviving the disaster was an expression of courage,
heroism and dignity. This is why it’s so important that this movement
have a strong cultural component. <br><br>
The largest camp housing Floyd survivors was set up on a toxic waste dump
which had not been inspected ahead of time and was located behind a
women’s prison. Survivor’s felt they had no right to complain and
also feared that if they did, they would be put out of the FEMA camp with
no place else to go. <br><br>
The Survivor’s organization was not a “support” or emergency “relief”
organization per say; even though it participated in “relief”
activitiesworked in food and clothing distribution centers set up by
community forces and supporters. <br><br>
A survivor’s committees were organized in 15 sites throughout Eastern, NC
and a survivor’s summit was organized to bring survivor communities
together to hammer out a survivor’s manifesto of demands to serve as
their program for recovery and reconstruction. <br><br>
The state of NC had established a Floyd Relief fund that had several
hundred million dollars of federal money and private “donations.” The
survivor’s organization demanded that the fund address key needs and
ensure that the cut off period did not leave survivors to fall through
the cracks. <br><br>
The Survivor’s organization and support coalitions in the areas organized
reconstruction brigades of people who came in from other cities to help
repair and rebuild damaged homes. Progressive lawyers and legal
clinics were set up to deal with the massive insurance fraud, and real
estate speculators who were trying to get people to sell their homes for
little or nothing to get desperately needed money. Volunteer doctors and
medical people set up screening and emergency support clinics that wrote
subscriptions for medicine, and college students and educators set up
schools and day care in the camp areas. A people’s transportation service
was set up to take people to work, to look for work and to shop for
clothes and other items. There were discussions about setting up
survivor worker run businesses to help create employmentsuch as paint
crews, home repair and survivor taxi service, but they never
materialized. <br><br>
The postal workers union local led by a member of Black Workers For
Justice that was part of the Survivor’s support organization brought mail
transfer forms and workers to assist survivors in getting their mail
rerouted. The scope of this work was based on he level of
participants that were drawn into this social justice work. This is
a main reason why it’s very important to build a broad network tying
together activists groups with allies. <br><br>
It is very important to draw the trade unions into this movement, the
Gulf Coast wide coalition and national support network. They should
be encouraged to contribute directly to the a survivor’s and people
driven support coalition in the region, not to the red cross or
government agencies. The identity of the working class efforts will
not be projected by the contributions made to these agencies. <br><br>
It is important that workers see that trade unions have a broader concern
and commitment to the needs of the working class and not just their
immediate members. The employers will certainly ask the workers where the
unions were during the disaster when they try to organize. <br><br>
They can play an important role in supporting those evacuated to their
cities, especially outside of the South. The unions can help in
adopting families and shelters in their areas. They must also play a
leading role in helping to combat the racist attempts by the media, white
supremacists, religious right and others to alienate those evacuated to
their cities by educating their members and getting them actively
involved in support efforts. <br><br>
Distribution centers were designated by FEMA and state crises agencies.
The Black Workers For Justice set up a distribution center at its Workers
Center in Rocky Mount, NC, but had to struggle to demand it be recognized
as an official center so that it could receive food and supplies from
distribution warehouses that were set up in the areas by FEMA. <br><br>
Most of the FEMA designated distribution centers were the big white area
churches, some Black churches, YMCA’s and OIC’s. The white paternalistic
and missionary character of a major portion of the establishment
designated “formal” relief efforts was overwhelming. <br><br>
</font><div align="center"><h1><b>Disaster Relief Efforts Must be Carried
Out as a Political Struggle</b></h1></div>
<font size=3>Yes, it’s important that organizing be done around the
humanitarian aspects of this crisis and recovery. It must not try and
substitute for the obligation that the US government has to fully address
the problems. A “full” recovery requires some political and economic
changes and pressure by a mass movement. <br><br>
We learned that during times of disasters, the state and federal
government declarations of a “state of emergency”, allows local
governmental powers to be suspended or place under the direct demand of
the state government. During Floyd, survivors particularly from the
Town of Princeville, the oldest historically Black town in North Carolina
and some say in the US, were organized to demand that their city council
convene itself, even though the town had been destroyed. <br><br>
This was a struggle for self-determination within the context of the
struggle for reconstruction. The Princeville city council held weekly
open meeting where activists organized transportation to take survivors
by cars and church buses to have input into the decisions and town
government struggle for reconstruction. <br><br>
The movement in the Gulf Coast Region has major concerns that require the
organization, politics and leadership of the African American liberation
as a central component to help unite a broad, multi-national,
multi-racial and international campaign for social justice and
reconstruction. <br><br>
The dispersed masses from the region has to be organized and reconnected
by a representative body that acts as a kind of provisional government to
deal with questions regarding the future of their communities, the
blatant neglect of the US government in placing them in imminent danger,
the failure of the government to have a planned and speedy evacuation,
the denial of the government to allow aid from other countries and the
use of the police and National Guard as military occupation forces, among
other concerns. <br><br>
<b>Some of the demands that must be included in this movement
include:</b>
<ul>
<li>The right to return of the people of the Gulf Coast Region,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Open up area military bases for no cost temporary housing to begin
moving survivors back into the region,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Extended unemployment and emergency financial relief based on a
living wage until people are returned to their homes and jobs,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A People’s referendum on all decisions affecting the politic and
residential issues of the Gulf Coast survivors,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Establish a public workers program funded by the federal government
and the big corporation to rebuild New Orleans and the affected Gulf
Coast Region,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Employ the survivors at a living wage as required by the David Bacon
Act to work on clean up and reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf
Coast, with the right to organize unions,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>That major contracts fro clean up and reconstruction of New Orleans
Black and working class communities be allocated to Black contractors,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>That the US immediately allow other countries to provide aid to the
survivors,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>That the United Nations conduct an investigation into the
circumstances surround the Katrina disaster to determine if the US is
guilty of human rights violations,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>That everyone suffering property damaged and destruction, dislocated,
death and illness, including emotional and psychological, receive
reparations from the US government as victims of a racist act of placing
people and communities in imminent dander because they are Black and
poor.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Issue a massive bankruptcy executive order for Gulf Coast survivors
forging all debt of property lost or destroyed by the disaster,
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Cut the US military budget and reallocate finances to deal with state
and local programs to address social and environmental needs which
threaten the lives, safety, health and communities of African American
and other working class populations.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>End the wars and occupation in the Middle East, bring the US troops
home now,
<li>The immediate impeachment of George Bush for his role in the US
government in placing people’s lives in imminent danger and thereby
committing crimes against humanity.
</ul> <br><br>
The political movement must be organized nationally. The
progressive organizations of every political tendency and humanitarian
expression should be able to support this movement. However, it is
very important and political necessary to give it its proper anti
imperialist character, that it be led by a national Black united front,
in terms of shaping and putting forward its main political demands and
representing it at the national and international levels. <br><br>
We must be careful while insuring the presence, politics and leadership
of the African American working class and liberation movement forces, not
to narrow the scope and content of the struggle around to try and fit a
particular ideological perspective. A mass movement must be built
that the African American liberation movement must work inside of and
influence in a more conscious anti imperialist direction.
<br><br>
There will be multiple responses from progressive forces representing
various classes, ideological, political and religious tendencies and
social movements. Many will be small groups seeking foundation
grants to help in the effort. Progressives in these groups must be
careful not to allow competition for funding to create tensions among
themselves. Differences among the progressive and genuinely
humanitarian forces and the methods of struggle around these differences
should be mainly non-antagonist. This requires close relations to be
built between revolutionary political forces active within this effort.
<br><br>
As opposed to abstract and sectarian polemics and arguments at mass
meetings, there must be an effort to isolate and out organize opportunist
elements who see using this disaster to win favor and reposition
themselves within the Democratic and Republican Parties or with sections
of the corporate class by promoting their image as being savors.
<br><br>
This means discouraging efforts to create sole dependence on cult of the
personality savior’s or liberal and paternalist dominated groups however
well meaning, to solve the problems for the people or to speak on their
behalf. This is also why it’s so important to have Black working
class leadership at the national and local levels of the anti war and
Millions More Movements. <br><br>
We must work to make this tragedy and the struggle for Gulf Coast justice
a major projection of the anti war movement and demonstrations, not only
in the US but internationally. Survivors must speak at anti war
demonstrations and activities in other countries. <br><br>
Likewise, the major African American and working class mobilizations like
the upcoming Millions More Movement must project this disaster and
struggle for justice as a major demand for the African American
liberation movement. The US Congressional Black Caucus must help to make
this struggle a congressional centerpiece for measuring the treatment of
African American majority and working class communities, including
immigrant workers. <br><br>
The main strategic anti imperialist political tasks of the Gulf Coast
struggle for justice, should be to isolate and indict US imperialism and
to gain concrete international support and ongoing recognition for the
plight of the African American people to bring mass and international
pressure on the US to win justice for the Gulf Coast survivors, and to
force US imperialism to retreat in its war on the Middle East. The
African American liberation movement and anti imperialist forces must
take up the main tasks to carry out this strategy. <b>9/5/05</b>
<br>
<br><br>
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522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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