In less than two months’ time, the NOPD’s actions have resulted in the deaths of at least 4 people and another 11 injuries. They’ve endangered the lives of hundreds of bystanders, and they have brutally assaulted an innocent woman. So far there has been no accountability.
On February 17, the police were in an open gun fight in one of the busiest sections of town, Canal and Elk. The cops killed one man; five others were wounded. As it relates to gun fights in well-populated, public areas, the Mayor stated that “our city sleeps under the protection of an interconnected web of law enforcement agencies whose effectiveness is on display every day.” In the same breath, she assured “the public” that the city was ready for Carnival.
Looking past NOPD’s decision to engage in a public gun war, she apparently prioritizes Carnival over the safety of everyday citizens.
On March 20, around 8:30 pm, the police, in violation of their own Vehicle Pursuit policy, chased a car into a Beauty Supply Store and Salon. The building was set ablaze during the crash, killing a woman, two teenage boys and injuring six other bystanders.
On April 13, an NOPD commander brutally assaulted a 21-year-old nursing student in the Quarter, as can be plainly seen in a video taken by a bystander. When her family complained, they were arrested.
Reports, surveillance footage and police statements all show that the police will lie about violating laws and rights, even when caught on video. Their reports are filled with contradictions, lies and subjective descriptions that clearly point to their low opinion of the public’s ability to think. Now multiple people have died, and countless people have been traumatized: many lives will never be the same.
These are horrendous crimes by the police without any city action. Now is not the time for the court to cancel the Federal Consent Decree, which was a partial victory against a totally violent NOPD won by community activists.
All these deaths, injuries, and abuses must be investigated. Action should be taken against all involved police officers and any brass involved in cover-ups.
I am deeply saddened by the demonstrations of xenophobia at the Italian, Irish, and Isleños Parade. A float titled “Build the Wall” paraded while people flaunted “white power” hand gestures, wore Kim Jong-un masks while impersonating East Asian stereotypes, mockingly wore “Mexican Lives Matter” shirts while wearing Trump masks, imitated Border Patrol deporting immigrants, and threw out toilet paper with blatant sexist statements written on it (“grab ‘em”, “Stormy Daniels Makes Trump Sammichs”, etc.). At their worst, they were mocking the sanctity of others’ lives simply because they are different than them.
It is a certain type of irony that a parade celebrating the rich culture and history of immigrant groups tolerates the blatant persecution of other, newer immigrant groups at a family event. My great-great grandfather and my great-grandfather were both born in Cefalu, Sicily. They undertook the arduous journey to New York and New Orleans, respectively, in pursuit of a better life promised by our country. Sicilian immigrants were lynched in the streets of New Orleans, forced to live on the outskirts of town or in the slums of the Quarter, and called “dago” or other derogatory slurs on a daily basis. It seems we’ve forgotten our history because we have been accepted as “white.” If we deplore the discrimination against our immigrant ancestors who sought a better life, we must confront and reject it when done to immigrants today, who are seeking those same opportunities. We can celebrate our cultures without dehumanizing other immigrant groups.
Not only would we do well to remember the history of how our ancestors were treated as immigrants, but we would do well to remember the hands that helped rebuild our parish from the ground up after Katrina. I remember the migrants who poured into the community, working in dreadful conditions to gut and rebuild homes, roads, businesses, and schools. They labored tirelessly in oppressive heat and humidity, and many had no place to sleep. They were there for us from the earliest phases of the rebuilding process. Post-Katrina St. Bernard Parish was built on the backs of migrant labor. They assisted us in our desperate time of need as we lamented the unfathomable devastation and mourned the hundreds who perished. We must *never* forget that nor forsake them.
To close, we should always stand up to hate, *especially* within our home community, no matter the backlash or repercussions. We should welcome incoming immigrant communities. Stand with them. To any immigrant, person of color, or anyone who belongs to any other group that was targeted by this vile xenophobia – know that there are people here that want you here. You are welcome here, and you make our community, your community, richer.
How do single parents finagle their schedules for work, other siblings, and transportation with eight hours’ notice of need for childcare? We are all familiar with these situations. Bad weather reports ensue, and you get a call from the school: canceled. Even if you do not have children, this concerns you.
Imagine the stress a single mother who already has what has been normalized as the regular daily burdens of life on her shoulders. Working a second shift at home, attempting to nurture children, and heaven forbid she prioritize her own needs for a moment. I also keep in mind the fathers who are nurturing children alone. Not every individual has a community of loved ones or elders to look to for support. The stress any parent feels to place their child in a space that they will be safe, respected, and looked after properly is exponential in an unplanned situation. What is the solution? If working people got the $180 million dollars a year in tax dollars currently stolen by unelected tourism commissions, there could be a plethora of options. There could be fully funded, 24-hour, clean, safe, healthy childcare for working parents. These spaces could also provide early childcare, special needs services, and artistic enrichment to nurture whole children. There could be spaces for young people to feel whole and develop a voice.
We must prioritize our children. Another suggestion is creating a budget that allows every worker paid sick leave, maternity leave, and vacation time. In this scenario the stress can be significantly alleviated with a simple phone call to the boss. These options are not utopian; the money is there for working-class people to take back. We must organize ourselves and demand that the money be returned immediately and that it’s that way for every yearly budget. If you are interested in organizing, check out nohwa.org or peoplesassemblyneworleans.org
There are 20,000 empty houses in New Orleans. These homes range from blighted buildings left after Hurricane Katrina to places intentionally kept empty by investors. This number does not include the number kept empty for most of the year for the purposes of short term rentals.
1,188 people sleep without shelter in Orleans and Jefferson Parish every night.
For many, this lack of shelter means sleeping under the Claiborne overpass, in tents and small encampments. For others, it means finding one of the empty buildings and using it for shelter.
Yet the city council, mayor’s office, and NOPD have not opened up any empty houses to those in need. They have not worked with shelters to find solutions to the over-crowding issues they have. They have instead brought garbage trucks under the overpass, treating the possessions of those in need as waste. They have targeted people in the Quarter to take away their dogs (which many people rely on for security when they have no walls to protect them).
City officials attempt to sweep the issue under the rug, hide it from tourists, and arrest people for the crime of being poor. At the same time, landlords are throwing people out at a rate higher than anywhere else in the country, targeting people of color and women especially. These same landlords have raised the rent astronomically since Hurricane Katrina, and in many cases, converted homes and apartments to short term rentals instead. And it’s the homeless that the city treats as criminals.
Meanwhile, the city took steps to cover up the horrifying rate of death among the homeless population. Instead of taking heed of an escalating issue, the city shut down efforts to track and respond to the situation. They actually obstructed the work of people who had been informally keeping track of homeless deaths. No one knows how many were lost for lack of shelter last year, but it was on pace to be one out of every 15 people living on the streets.
The city has the resources to provide shelter for every person in the city, but the landlords and capitalists in the city profit more when they can threaten poor residents with eviction and homelessness if they don’t agree to pay inflated rental prices. No wonder a third of the city hands over half their income every month for rent. With housing, healthcare, and education all designed to provide profits to the rich instead of serving the people, the working people of New Orleans have nowhere to turn to for the resources we need—unless we organize to fight back.
There is no reason except capitalist greed that the empty homes in New Orleans cannot be opened up to those who need them. No one should die of exposure while rich people leave homes to rot for tax write-offs.
Renters in Berlin demonstrate against landlords. Banner read, “Housing is not a commodity. Enough with the crazy rent!”Renters Demand Breakup of Real Estate Monopolies
You have more in common with your fellow workers around the world than you do with you landlord. Whether in New Orleans, San Francisco, or Berlin, we are all facing a similar housing crisis, with the same causes. Rents are doubling or tripling, gentrification is pushing working class people out, landlords are evicting tenants so they can build more profitable apartments or short term rentals, and evictions are commonplace. Meanwhile, public housing has been replaced by watered down programs that benefit the landlords more than tenants and only increase gentrification. Those hit hardest are women, people of color, and immigrants.
This is as true in New Orleans today as it is in Berlin, and on April 7, tenants in Germany took to the streets to protest. Their demands are not for voucher programs or minor breaks, but for the rental properties owned by the biggest landlords to be taken back and returned to the people.
One group called Expropriate Deutsch Wohnen & Co. is working to enact a law that would ban any rental companies owning more than 3,000 apartments from operating in the city. Companies that would like to stay in Berlin, like Deutsche Wohnen—a company owning 100,000 apartments in the city— would be required to sell their excess housing units to the city for conversion into public housing.
The landlords claim they aren’t responsible for the rise in rents, but the people know who set the rates. People across Germany are organizing. Tens of thousands of people, including 25,000 in Berlin, marched demanding that the German government use Article 15 of the German constitution to acquire hundreds of thousands of units from Deutsche Wohnen & Co. and other major companies and turn them into social housing for the people.
Suddenly the city is concerned that residents are driving safely in school zones, making sure party buses are safe and making space for folks on bikes. But the current campaign to raise fines has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with the city trying yet again to bleed working class New Orleanians dry.
Consider Mayor Cantrell’s decision to reject the idea of an advance notice that school zones ticketing speeds would change. If it was about safety, the city would have publicized it, and educated residents about the change. Her aides suggested that she give a warning, but she rejected it. It’s really about levying another tax on New Orleanians.
When a rich person gets a ticket, the expense is nothing to them. Or they can afford to park in an over-priced lot or take Uber wherever they like. But when a worker gets a ticket, it’s a crisis that can turn into a nightmare.
The attack on party bus operators is another attack on one of the few economic areas still controlled by Black drivers. Is the plan to put them out of business and bring in some white businessman with loads of bank cash to take over? Or just to shut down an aspect of Black life that the white elites don’t like? The move to gentrify the area under the Claiborne bridge is another example of the city taking away a significant gathering spot for Black people just to satisfy real estate developers.
Raising tickets to $300 for parking in a bike lane is horrendous. Did the city study why people park there? Most are just trying to drop off a child or pick someone up, not permanently park. Some streets like N. Galvez have just a bike lane on one side of the street but people live there. Should their kids run across the street to get into a car, or double park to get out their groceries? Did the city consider this problem?
Safety comes from education and support. Every school, library, community center, organization and church would gladly lend a hand to do presentations about traffic safety. But this was never about safety. It’s a money grab at the expense of those least able to pay.
Since April 15 more than 1,000 people have been arrested in London blocking trains, roads and bridges to demand an end to fossil fuels and a plan to save the planet for humans and all species. Activists in 33 countries joined in similar actions across the world. The environmental crisis is upon us now and serious. Extinction Rebellion, a grassroots environmental organization that has led these protests, points out that it is the rich who are responsible for the crisis. Their militant actions should be applauded and repeated everywhere.
This May marks 71 years of displacement and mass murder of the Palestinian people. We call this our ‘nakba’ which means catastrophe in Arabic. The anniversary of Nakba, May 15, 1948 occurred when the United States, the British and the United Nations, gave Palestinian land that does not belong to them, away to Jewish people from Europe and renamed our homeland ‘Isra-el.’
To this day Palestinians are hunted in the streets and continue to have our homes stolen, demol-ished or given away. Children and adults are murdered and imprisoned because just like the poor and working class in New Orleans, we are often only considered “useful” to the rich ruling class if we are dead or are being used to make the rich richer.
Like many New Orleanians post-Katrina, the rich ruling class has made it impossible for us to go home. Similarly to the people of New Orleans, there are now more Palestinians who live outside of Palestine than in our homeland.
If there is a people who have experienced their own nakba, it is the people of New Orleans.
If there is a people who feel the Palestinian struggle for land, dignity and safety, it’s the people of New Orleans.
If there is a people who understand what it’s like to see your own neighborhood, overrun with strangers who want your culture but don’t want you – it’s the people of New Orleans.
If there is a people who understand what it’s like to see your homes gutted, your pain broadcast for the world to see and still not get justice, it’s the people of New Orleans.
If there is a people who understand what it’s like to be scattered and still have a deep sense of who you are and where you come from, it’s the people of New Orleans.
If there is a people who still love life despite facing its cruelty everyday, it’s the people of New Orleans.
This year marks 14 years since Katrina and over 100,000 Black New Orleanians still haven’t come home. From Palestine to New Orleans, we are returning.
We will reclaim our land. We will fight back.
From Palestine to New Orleans the time to unite and recognize our shared struggle is now.
Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church on April 4, 2019. Opelousas, LABy Malcolm Suber and Gavrielle Gemma
The terrible burning of three historic Black Churches in St. Landry Parish was intended to inflict racist terror and trauma throughout the state. This follows the lead of the Trump administration who has welcomed the inclusion of white supremacists in the government and whose sympathies for white supremacist organizations have unleashed a torrent of racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant attacks across the country.
The 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL killed four girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair.
This white supremacist attack fits the historic pattern of attacking Black churches as a way of intimidating and politically controlling Black communities. The Black church represents one of the only social institutions owned and controlled by Black people. The Black church has served not only as a house of worship but as a community meeting space where Black people can discuss and debate their response to their oppressed condition. Many churches have been active in the Black liberation struggle and have produced good leaders in the Black freedom struggle. The white supremacists unleashed by the rich white ruling class are bent on preventing the Black community from organizing to advance the social and political position of Black workers.
Once again, politicians have responded to the church burnings by offering prayers for the terrorist, by trying to cover up the racist purpose of the attack with phony psychiatry and by trying to paint it as an isolated event. Finally, they admitted what the whole world already knew: that this is a hate crime. They have yet to call it terrorism.
All these crocodile tears distract from the real story, which is the ongoing link between white supremacy, the police, the military, corporations and politicians. Although the ruling class mainly fosters racism through “legal” means of mass incarceration and economic and housing segregation, they’ve always relied on the existence of “extra-legal” white supremacist groups to foment division among the multi-national working class and to guard their own fortunes.
DEFENDING CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS, POLITICIANS AID KKK TERRORISTS
These politicians praise monuments to the confederacy and slavery and resist efforts to take them down. Why? Because they—hand in hand with the super-rich—want to maintain the current state of institutional racism that divides the working class of Louisiana. They turn a blind eye to the eight highly armed white supremacist groups functioning in the state. Many of these groups have members and friends in the police as well as links to the U.S. military.
After the civil war, the KKK and its allies, such as the White League, were used to terrorize Black people. Their aim was to prevent Black freedmen from voting and adopting socially progressive policies. During Reconstruction, the Louisiana legislature was majority black and had a Black Governor. The northern bankers and industrialists wanted more than anything to reach a new unity with former slaveholders. Lynchings and church burnings were rampant and voting rights were taken away from the Black population. The new white politicians were secretly or openly in the KKK. Several members of the U.S. Supreme Court were in the KKK. In just one century, 64 Black churches were burned.
Today nearly all white politicians in Baton Rouge are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) an organization which pays legislators to promote racist ALEC-drafted laws. On behalf of the oil companies and war profiteers, ALEC has been working to disenfranchise Black voters all across the country.
These politicians may distance themselves from openly white supremacist groups, but they share a common ideology. And across the country, they’ve allowed Klan-type groups to proliferate.
WHITE SUPREMACY IS PART OF CAPITALISM
The capitalists—who are few—can only maintain their undemocratic accumulation of huge wealth by dividing the workers, who are many. When the working class is divided, all sectors suffer from lowered wages and benefits, greater poverty, and fewer social programs. This is true for white workers although Black workers suffer much more. This is the legacy of racism and national oppression in the south, where workers are the poorest, the minimum wage lowest, and every indicator from infant mortality to educational quality is at the bottom.
Because the masses are currently quiet—despite ever worsening conditions—the bosses and politicians are moving ahead with even harsher assaults on the social and economic life of workers. They’re ramping up racism, scapegoating immigrants, vilifying other countries—all to distract from their thievery and their war profiteering.
The capitalist rulers’ insatiable drive to amass more wealth is the basis for the renewed growth of white supremacist and other racist groups. The more that wealth is concentrated in their hands, the more the capitalist system is endangered from below. That’s why they lean on extra-legal repression to maintain control.
This is true not only in the U.S. One has only to look to the outright fascist governments with whom the U.S. government is allied, including Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the Philippines, Israel and others.
COPS & KLAN WORK HAND IN HAND
Charles Sims of the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Bogalusa stands defiantly on courthouse steps, displaying Klan hoods.
It is for this reason that one cannot rely on the capitalist state to stop racist terrorism. To combat white supremacist terrorism, workers and oppressed people must organize their own self-defense. When various Nazi and white supremacist groups announced they were coming to New Orleans to defend confederate monuments, the government headed by liberal democrat Mitch Landrieu allowed them total freedom—even to brandish arms in so-called “safe zones.” Take Em Down NOLA confronted the NOPD, asking why they weren’t enforcing the legal restrictions. The answer from former Police Chief Harrison was, “we don’t have the police able to do it.”
WORKERS & OPPRESSED PEOPLE MUST ORGANIZE THEIR SELF DEFENSE
Robert and Mabel Williams
It was the emergence of armed Black groups in the south that pushed the KKK back, including here in Louisiana. In 1964 the KKK burned down five churches in Jonesboro and carried out horrific assaults. This led to the formation of the Deacons for Defense and Justice which soon had 20 chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Many were workers with combat experience.
Even Dr. King employed armed body guards and had guns in his house during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party armed herself.
In North Carolina, Robert Williams led the arming of the NAACP chapter in Monroe to combat Klan terror. While the KKK and others were never—not even to this day—labeled domestic terrorists, the FBI and local police targeted Black civil rights and armed self-defense groups, labeling them terrorists for protesting their oppression and for defending their community.
We need to continue mass organizing and we need to increase our efforts to defend our communities, individuals, churches and unions from the instruments of capitalist terror.
Take Em Down NOLA demands the removal of a monument to E.D. White, U.S. Supreme Court Justice and member of the white supremacist terror organization, the White League.
President Donald Trump has called on Venezuelan soldiers to disobey orders and join coup perpetrators headed by U.S.-backed opposition leader, Juan Guaidó. If they do not do this, President Trump threatened: “You will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything.”
While President Trump speaks of supporting democracy in Venezuela and Latin America, the real purpose of the U.S. assault on the Venezuelan government is to fully open the vast Venezuelan oil reserves to U.S. and other Western oil corporations as well as to destroy progressive governments in Latin America that put their own peoples’ needs above the profits of foreign corporations.
The Veterans For Peace Statement of Purpose states that, “we will work, with others both nationally and internationally:
To increase public awareness of the causes and costs of war
To restrain our governments from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations
To end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons
To seek justice for veterans and victims of war
To abolish war as an instrument of national policy.”
In this spirit, Veterans For Peace (VFP) calls on all members of the U.S. military to refuse illegal orders to intervene in Venezuela. Furthermore, VFP urges all U.S. military leaders to inform the president that they will order their units to stand down from preparations to invade Venezuela.
Illegal, immoral and irresponsible U.S. actions, including “sanctions” (economic war) have already taken a great toll on the people Venezuela. Nonetheless, the vast majority of Venezuelan people and military are standing firm against foreign intervention. Now there is a very real possibility that President Trump will order U.S. troops to intervene in Venezuela, whether through a direct invasion and occupation, or through support for irregular counter-revolutionary forces. This would likely lead to a widening war that could spread to other Latin American countries and the Caribbean, bringing increasing suffering to the peoples of Latin America and the U.S.
It is illegal under both U.S. and international law to launch a military attack against another nation unless it is clearly in self-defense, and is approved by the United Nations. There are a number of options for GI’s who do not wish to follow illegal orders. Veterans For Peace wants service-members to be fully informed as they make profound choices with possibly serious consequences. We urge GI’s facing possible deployment to contact the National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force at (619) 463-2369 and/or help@militarylawhelp.com for referral to a civilian attorney to discuss your options. Many of their member lawyers are willing to do an initial pro-bono (free) consultation.
Refuse to be used in an illegal war. Follow your conscience and be on the right side of history.
