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Published on <i>The Root</i>
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</font><h1><b>Battle for New Orleans, 6 Years After
Katrina</b></h1><font size=3>By: Jordan Flaherty<br>
Posted: August 27, 2011 at 3:45 PM<br><br>
Political power has shifted to whites, but blacks have not given up their
struggle for a voice -- and justice.<br><br>
As this weekend's storm has reminded us, hurricanes can be a threat to
U.S. cities on the East Coast as well as the Gulf. But the vast changes
that have taken place in New Orleans since Katrina have had little to do
with weather, and everything to do with political struggles.<br><br>
Six years after the federal levees failed and 80 percent of the city was
flooded, New Orleans has <a href="http://www.gnocdc.org/">lost 80,000
jobs and 110,000 residents</a>. It is a whiter and wealthier city, with
tourist areas well-maintained while communities like the Lower 9th Ward
remain devastated. Beyond the statistics, it is still a much-contested
city.<br><br>
Politics continue to shape how the changes to New Orleans are viewed. For
some, the city is a crime scene of corporate profiteering and the mass
displacement of African Americans and the working poor; for others it's
an example of bold public-sector reforms, taken in the aftermath of a
natural disaster, that have led the way for other cities.<br><br>
In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans saw the rise of a new class of
citizens. They self-identify as YURPs --
<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295060,00.html">young urban
rebuilding professionals</a> -- and they work in architecture, urban
planning, education and related fields. While the city was still mostly
empty, they spoke of a freedom to experiment, unfettered by the barriers
of bureaucratic red tape and public comment. Working with local and
national political and business leaders, they made rapid changes in the
city's education system, public housing and nonprofit sector.<br><br>
Along the way, the face of elected government changed in the city and
state. Among the offices that switched from black to white were mayor,
police chief, district attorney and representatives on the school board
and City Council, both of which switched to white majorities for the
first time in a generation. Louisiana also transformed from a state with
several statewide elected Democrats to having only one: Sen. Mary
Landrieu.<br><br>
While black community leaders have said that the displacement after the
storm has robbed African Americans of their civic representation, another
narrative has also taken shape. Many in the media and business elite have
said that a new political class -- which happens to be mostly white -- is
reshaping the politics of the city into a postracial era.<br><br>
"Our efforts are changing old ways of thinking," said Mayor
Mitch Landrieu, shortly after he was elected in 2010. After accusing his
critics of being stuck in the past, Landrieu -- who was the first mayor
in modern memory elected with the support of a majority of both black and
white voters -- added, "We're going to rediscipline ourselves in
this city."<br><br>
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</i></b>The changes in the public sector have been widespread. Shortly
after the storm, the entire staff of the public school system was fired.
Their union, which had been the largest union in the city, ceased to be
recognized. With many parents, students and teachers driven out of the
city by Katrina and unable to have a say in the decision, the state took
over the city's schools and began shifting them over to
charters.<br><br>
"The reorganization of the public schools has created a separate but
unequal tiered system of schools that steers a minority of students,
including virtually all of the city's white students, into a set of
selective, higher-performing schools, and most of the city's students of
color into a set of lower-performing schools," writes lawyer and
activist Bill Quigley, in a report prepared with fellow Loyola law
professor Davida Finger.<br><br>
In many ways, the changes in the New Orleans school system, initiated
almost six years ago, foreshadowed a battle that has played out more
conspicuously this year in Wisconsin, Indiana, New Jersey and other
states, where teachers and their unions were assailed by both Republican
governors and liberal reformers such as the filmmakers behind <i>Waiting
for Superman</i>. Similarly, the battle of New Orleans' public housing --
which was torn down and replaced by new units built in public-private
partnerships that house a small percentage of the former residents --
prefigured national battles over government's role in solving problems
related to poverty.<br><br>
The anger at the changes in New Orleans' black community is palpable. It
comes out at City Council meetings, on local
<a href="http://www.wbok1230am.com/">black talk-radio station WBOK</a>
and in protests. "Since New Orleans was declared a blank slate, we
are the social experimental lab of the world," says Endesha Juakali,
a housing-rights activist. However, despite the changes, grassroots
resistance continues. "For those of us that lived and are still
living the disaster, moving on is not an option," adds
Juakali.<br><br>
Resistance to the dominant agenda has also led to reform of the city's
criminal-justice system. But this reform is very different from the
others, with leadership coming from African-American residents at the
grass roots, including those most affected by both crime and
policing.<br><br>
In the aftermath of Katrina, media images famously depicted poor New
Orleanians as criminal and dangerous. In fact, at one point it was
announced that rescue efforts were put on hold because of the violence.
In response, the second-in-charge of the New Orleans Police Department
reportedly told officers to shoot looters, and the governor announced
that she had given the National Guard orders to shoot to kill.<br><br>
Over the following days, police shot and killed several civilians. A
police sniper shot a young African American named Henry Glover, and other
officers took his body and burned it behind a levee. A 45-year-old
grandfather, Danny Brumfield Sr., was shot in the back in front of his
family outside the New Orleans convention center.<br><br>
Two black families -- the Madisons and the Bartholomews --
<a href="http://www.theroot.com/views/why-you-should-care-about-new-orleans-police-trial">
walking across New Orleans' Danziger Bridge</a> fell under a hail of
gunfire from a group of officers. "We had more incidents of police
misconduct than civilian misconduct," says former District Attorney
Eddie Jordan, who pursued charges against the officers but had the
charges thrown out by a judge. "All these stories of looting, it
pales next to what the police did."<br><br>
Jordan, who angered many in the political establishment when he brought
charges against officers and was forced to resign soon after, was not the
only one who failed to bring accountability for the post-Katrina
violence. In fact, every check and balance in the city's criminal-justice
system failed. For years, family members of the victims pressured the
media, the U.S. Attorney's office and Eddie Jordan's replacement in the
DA's office, Leon Cannizzaro. "The media didn't want to give me the
time of day," says William Tanner, who saw officers take away
Glover's body. "They called me a raving idiot."<br><br>
Finally, after more than three years of protests, press conferences and
lobbying, the Department of Justice launched aggressive investigations of
the Glover, Brumfield and Danziger cases in early 2009. In recent months,
three officers were convicted in the Glover killing (although one
conviction was overturned), two were convicted of beating a man to death
just before the storm, and 10 officers either pleaded guilty or were
convicted in the Danziger killing and cover-up. In the Danziger case, the
jury found that officers had not only killed two civilians and wounded
four, but also engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy that involved planted
evidence, invented witnesses and secret meetings.<br><br>
The DOJ has at least seven more open investigations into New Orleans
police killings and has indicated its plans for more formal oversight of
the New Orleans Police Department, as well as the city jail. In this
area, New Orleans is also leading the way: In a remarkable change from
DOJ policy during the Bush administration, the department is also looking
at oversight of police departments in Newark, Denver and
Seattle.<br><br>
In the national struggle against law-enforcement violence, there is much
to be learned from the victims of New Orleans police violence, who led a
remarkable struggle against a wall of official silence and now have begun
to win justice. "This is an opening," explains New Orleans
police accountability activist Malcolm Suber. "We have to push for a
much more democratic system of policing in the city."<br><br>
In the closing arguments of the Danziger trial, DOJ prosecutor Bobbi
Bernstein fought back against the defense claim that the officers were
heroes, saying that the family members of those killed deserved the title
more. Noting that the official cover-up had "perverted" the
system, she said, "The real heroes are the victims who stayed with
an imperfect justice system that initially betrayed them." The jury
apparently agreed with her, convicting the officers on all 25
counts.<br><br>
<i>Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans and the author of
the book </i><a href="http://floodlines.org/">Floodlines</a>: Community
and Resistance From Katrina to the Jena Six.<br><br>
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