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Struggle for Black Lives Continues in Gordon Plaza

Sept. 9: Residents, including Derrick (pictured), speak out at rally in Gordon Plaza.

by Christina Tareq

Nearly 40 years ago, the City of New Orleans decided the toxic Agriculture Street landfill was the perfect place to construct and sell homes to Black New Orleanians. Building the Gordan Plaza subdivision, the city sold the homes to first-time homeowners. Today, Gordan Plaza (GP) has the second highest rate of cancer in the entire nation. “We are being experimented on, let’s see how long Black people can live on top of 150 cancer-causing chemicals,” says Shannon Rainey, President of the GP housing association and an organizer with the New Orleans People’s Assembly.

GP residents won a lawsuit against the city 20 years ago but still have not received restitution. There are 54 residents stranded in GP who continue to pay property taxes for homes that are killing them. They have been told by mayor after mayor to “be patient” as community members die of cancer. While most homes appreciate in value, these homes are essentially worthless. With no ability to sell their homes or rent them in good conscience, the only option for these working class Black families is to wage a struggle against the city for fully funded relocation of their community.

While running for mayor, LaToya Cantrell publicly called for fully funded relocation for Gordon Plaza. Since becoming mayor in 2018, she has said that she “hears Gordon Plaza” and that her administration is working on a “solution.” Yet the only changes the residents have seen over the last two years are more deaths, most recently that of one of the neighborhood’s long-time organizers, Mr. Robert Anderson, may he rise in power.

At a rally in Gordon Plaza on September 9, Mr. Derrick, who grew up in the neighborhood and whose mother still lives there, asked in regard to Mayor Cantrell’s empty promises, “who else will fight for our lives, if it’s not a Black woman? That’s the reason we were told to vote for a Black woman.” Mayor Cantrell continues to spur the calls for protecting Black lives in a majority Black city while meeting with White supremacists concerned about the fate of confederate statues. It’s up to the people to stand with each other! Join the struggle for a fully funded relocation for Gordon Plaza. Black lives matter while they yet live!

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Sewerage and Water Board Continues Assault on Orleans Parish Residents

Rate-Payers Have No Voice in Board Decisions

The New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board (S&WB) continues to add insult to injury. The latest moves include granting retroactive pay raises of $20,000 – $45,000 to S&WB managers. Protest was so loud, even by the daily ruling-class papers, that the recipients of the raises were forced to resign on August 20. Mayor Cantrell had acting Executive Director Jade Brown Russel demand the resignations. Then on August 21, Russell was forced to resign and was replaced by retired US Coast Guard Rear Admiral David Callahan who will run the S&WB for two weeks until Ghassan Korban, former Milwaukee Public Works Commissioner, arrives in the first week of September.

Meanwhile the S&WB ordered the resumption of water cut-offs on August 13 despite knowing that the billing system has not been fixed. They claim that more than 7000 people are more than a year delinquent and that the S&WB desperately needs money. Yet they have money to grant raises to the big wigs and to hire legal teams to fend off lawsuits stemming from the August 5, 2017 flooding.

Mayor Cantrell is attempting to show concern and decisiveness in dismissing the latest mis-leadership team while taking no responsibility although she is the President of the Sewage and Water Board. This is same way Mayor Landrieu tried to duck responsibility. This is just for show as we know that the root of the problem is the lack of local control of the S&WB. True leadership would admit and denounce the dysfunction and refuse to cut-off anyone’s water until actual meter reading is done and exorbitant bills resolved.

Also on August 21, the S&WB refused to attend a scheduled meeting with the Public Works sub-committee of the City Council where they were to present a progress report. Since the S&WB is an independent state agency there is little the council can do but complain. Facing more public anger, it finally appeared at a Council meeting. The Council had passed a resolution (which has no teeth) against cutting anyone off. The new Board members arrogantly dismissed this demand.

The S&WB must come under popular control of the residents who struggle to pay bills, not the rich who are there to sniff out opportunities for their friends to have an inside track to lucrative S&WB contracts. It must also pay reparations to the victims of the Augusts 5, 2017 floods who suffered damages. This of course will not happen unless we organize and force these changes

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Two Cantrell Appointees No Good for New Orleans Workers

Norman White has been appointed by Mayor Cantrell to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO )for the City. This is a position most of us have never even heard of or thought about. But it is a powerful job, advising on our tax dollars and all spending matters. (Despite many phone calls to city agencies, his salary remains undisclosed).

White comes to us as the twice former CFO of Detroit, under two discredited Mayor’s. He was also the former head of the Detroit Department of Transportation who was sued over illegal or excessive parking tickets and fines. Oops, watch out!

According to the lawsuit, the city of Detroit has issued about 300,000 parking tickets annually over the last three years, during which the city implemented a high-tech, $3.5 million meter system that accepts cash, credit cards and smartphone payments. The new system generated $13 million in 2015 alone, 30% more than the year before — but the lawsuit says this money is being made illegally.

At his appointment, Mayor Cantrell said of Norman White, “He helped right the ship there during a challenging time.” This is disturbing. Recently, Detroit has cut off thousands of people’s water, and this is not the first time. Tens of thousands have lost their homes and schools were closed. Why? Detroit, during White’s tenure, was under state control, depriving the people of the city from any say in their budget and policies. The state authorized the city receiving millions in loans from the big banks. In exchange, the banks demanded austerity and cuts to all social services. It was a dictatorship of the banks. Norman White’s job was to ensure that these cuts went through and the banks got their tax-free interest payments. Millions are suffering. Norman White may be good for the bankers and developers but not the working class.

CRIMINAL “INJUSTICE” COMMISIONER
Another disturbing appointment is Tenisha Stevens as Criminal Justice Commissioner. She was the deputy chief of investigations for Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro who has shown himself an arrogant, law breaking racist who is responsible for continuing mass incarceration. Recently, his office issued phony subpoenas and arrested domestic violence victims to force them to testify. We need someone who is working to keep people out of jail, not put them in. Stevens, as Cannizzaro’s Deputy Chief, is not the one we need.

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Take ‘Em Down NOLA Takes on Mayor Cantrell’s Backwards Ways

By A Scribe Called Quess

After Take ‘Em Down NOLA’s groundbreaking summit last March, welcoming Take Em Down organizers from around the country and ending in the disruption of Mayor Landrieu’s book signing, the coalition celebrates the one-year anniversary of forcing the city to remove four monuments to white supremacy by continuing to charge unapologetically forward. This time, TEDN’s sights are set on mayor Latoya Cantrell. TEDN recently issued a letter and held a press conference calling Cantrell out for her latest flubs regarding white supremacist monuments.

It’s not the new mayor’s first time being on the wrong side of this issue. During the infamous monument hearings of 2015, the former City Councilwoman earned the nickname Latoya “Cant Tell” for refusing to pick a side as pro or anti-monument removal. She recently revisited her compromised stance by allowing leaders of the pro-monument movement to set up a committee to determine what to do with the four monuments removed last year. That committee included renowned racist Tulane professor Richard Marksbury, bigoted Monumental Task Committee president Pierre McGraw, and multi-millionaire Frank Stewart, who publicly faced off with Mitch Landrieu over the former mayor’s attempt to remove monuments.

TEDN’s letter informed mayor Cantrell that “we are very disappointed and angry that [she] would set up a secret working group to discuss the fate of these monuments, not meet in public.” On May 16, TEDN cofounder Malcolm Suber stated that “we are calling on Mayor Cantrell to get rid of that committee and to have a public forum where she discusses with the public what are her plans not only towards the removed statues, but what is her attitude toward our ordinance that mandates that the rest of these white supremacy monuments be removed from our city.”

Cantrell’s enlistment of these men to make decisions about the future of this city is reminiscent of the Yankee government that squashed the progress of Reconstruction after the Civil War by compromising with racist white militias that carried on the legacy of the Confederacy. By removing federal troops from the South in 1877, the US government allowed groups like the KKK to rise as monuments to white supremacy went up all over the South. Likewise, Cantrell has chosen to compromise with the present day losing defenders of white supremacy. And their ideas promise harm for the city’s future like their ancestors’ did for the city’s past. They proposed to put Robert E. Lee up in Greenwood Cemetery and make that place a landmark for Confederacy defenders nationwide. This would only turn New Orleans into a hub for the lowlife types that swarmed Charlottesville in August of last year, leaving Heather Heyer dead under the wheels of a racist’s car.

TEDN’s next step this summer to push the ordinance to remove all signs, symbols and statues to white supremacy will be a large public forum. Community members will be informed and speak their piece on next steps around dealing with the already removed monuments as well as the remaining symbols. Mayor Cantrell and other community politicians will be invited to this forum and thereby be forced to pick a side in the fight for racial and economic justice as opposed to hiding in back rooms making deals with the oppressive ruling class.

Take ‘Em Down NOLA invites everyone to come out and be heard and take a stance against the symbols that represent the system that continues to oppress working class Black, brown and white poor people in the city. If Cant Tell—ahem, Cantrell’s actions show nothing else, they show that she, like so many New Orleans mayors before her, will bow down to the money system of the ruling class rich white elite unless we the people force her to do otherwise. Take ‘Em Down NOLA encourages you to come out, be heard, and take part in shaping the future of this city to be free from the chains of its past.

Take Em Down NOLA’s next moves: Take Em Down NOLA Zine is looking for experienced educators, writers and copy editors interested in contributing to our first Zine. Email us at info@ takeemdownnola.org for more info.

In June, TEDN will hold a public forum to speak on the remaining monuments and our ordinance to remove ALL remaining symbols to white supremacy.

TEDN continues to support its comrades in other cities and states making major moves against white supremacy. To that end, shout out Take Em Down JAX, who completed 40- mile march against white supremacy in May. This is the largest march against white supremacy by a Take Em Down coalition and we are hugely inspired by their efforts!

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Mayor Elect Latoya Cantrell: No Friend of the Working Class People of New Orleans

By Malcolm Suber

There’s an old saying that you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. If we use this as a measure of our mayor-elect, LaToya Cantrell, we can safely predict that New Orleans workers have four years of hard struggle ahead. Cantrell styled herself as the people’s candidate during her mayoral campaign. She was widely embraced by a number of self-proclaimed progressives like Step-Up Louisiana as being on the side of the workers. Her campaign even issued a statement about forming a people’s transition team that would include residents from all walks of life and social classes.

What we find of course is a transition team made up of the usual suspects, members of rich white ruling class and their most loyal lackeys. The transition team is co-chaired by Walter Issacson, former head of the Aspen Institute; Norman Francis, former President of Xavier University; and Gayle Benson, wife of Saints owner Tom Benson, Louisiana’s favorite charity who became a billionaire on our tax subsidies to his empire. A few community people were thrown in as window dressing.

This ruling class transition team will help mayor-elect Cantrell develop policies for her administration. The make-up of this committee tells us that New Orleans workers cannot put any faith into Cantrell’s mantra that “we’re moving forward together” and that she is a “bottom up organizer”. Hardly. Workers will discover that Cantrell, as all the mayors before her, are solidly in the hands of the developers and local capitalist class that stand for low wages, racism, police terror, mass incarceration, sexism and gentrification. Cantrell will be new wine in an old bottle.

On top of all the above, Cantrell is requiring those who join her transition team to sign “disclosure agreement” which forbids them to discuss transition team proceedings. So much for being transparent and welcoming all points of view.

We in the New Orleans Workers Group are not swayed by sloganeering and empty promises. We will continue to organize and prepare New Orleans workers for a fight against the bosses and their newest servant-mayor LaToya Cantrell.