Can These Bones Live?

[Whistler]

It's a year now since Hurricane Katrina.

Yesterday I spent another day in New Orleans. My sister-in-law wanted to show us an area vastly more devastated than anything we've seen or photographed in our previous expeditions.

We went to a place where the houses had been lifted off their foundations and sent sailing into one another, usually splintering in the process. These were scattered at odd angles alongside (and sometimes in) the streets, the house number on one house often bearing a number belonging to a street blocks away from the structure into which it had crashed. A number of the houses were resting on the roofs of crumpled automobiles. For a brief moment, my mind conjured up the weird image of the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East, complete with ruby slippers, poking from the mud beneath the house that had crushed her.

We passed a gutted church, in front of which this message had been painted under the word RESTORATION:

CAN THESE BONES LIVE? O YE DRY BONES, HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD! CAN THESE BONES LIVE? THESE BONES SHALL LIVE; AND YE SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD!

We entered the church and found nothing...except for a huge primitive painting of the baptism of Christ. The figure of the Lord stood waist-deep in crudely painted water. A year ago, the water had been real. But of course it had been fouled with petroleum and sewage, hardly the waters of the blessed Jordan.

In the front of a yard, somebody had erected a cross and adorned it with bunches of artificial flowers. Surely this wasn't the marker for an actual grave? Or maybe it was.

We found a severed head. Not a real one! It was a mannequin head, tossed long ago onto a heap of curbside garbage. Its features were Caucasian, but it had been painted chocolate brown in keeping with the racial makeup of the neighborhood. My sister-in-law, an eccentric artist of sorts, snatched it from the heap and declared that she would utilize it in a piece of art commemorating the hurricane. Of course she would call the head Katrina.

Here and there, some terse but eloquent poet had spray-painted the name BAGHDAD.

Everywhere for miles, more of the same. My sister-in-law slipped into her usual depression at seeing such miserable sights. She thinks the world is bored with Katrina and doesn't want to hear any more. Maybe she is right.

Well, I reminded her that anytime I make such a trip, I post a brief account of it here to be read by people from all around the world. I believe that made her feel better.

So now I have posted it, for what it’s worth.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is worth much, my friend. Indeed, I think it is particularly worthwhile to remember the devastation of Katrina today, along with remembering the victims of the horrible events of five years ago. Neither tragedy should be used to demean the impact of the other; the lessons of both need to be learned if we are to successfully journey into the 21st century and beyond.

[axordil]

I'm not sure if the world, or at least the US, doesn't want to hear it, or isn't being told because most of the media THINKS we don't want to hear it.

There was a story on NPR this morning about the beginnings of demolition of abandoned houses in NOLA and St. Bernard Parish. There was a guy there who surprised the building inspector...he had seen an empty house three weeks ago and was about to put a teardown sticker up when he saw the owner working on electrical stuff. Evidently he had been on the road with a band and "didn't know" there was a deadline for coming back.

I found myself thinking that his band must have done a LOT of drugs for him to never consider the possibility that after a year, someone MIGHT want him to actually show up at his flood-ravaged home once or twice if he wanted to keep it.

[vison]

There isn't much a person can say.

I don't know what should be done or who should do it.

But I think that a nation should care for its own before it interferes with the citizens of another nation thousands of miles away.

And I also think it's not that simple; I know it's not that simple.

[MithLuin]

I certainly agree about taking care of the people. But I also question the wisdom of rebuilding in a flood-prone area. One solution would be to rebuild....elsewhere. (Not that that is easy, either.)

[axordil]

Building elsewhere has one major logistic drawback (as opposed to the other drawbacks): the city is where it is because that's where it has to be to have a reason to exist.

edit to add: that didn't come out right, looking at it. Let me try again: NOLA is a port for ocean going vessels AND for river traffic. It is the only such port on the Mississippi, and thus for the middle third of the country. The zone in which it can be both is physically constrained at this point (after 80 years of Army Corps of Engineers work) to more or less exactly where it is on the river.

So all cultural, historical, and economic barriers aside, there is no point to rebuilding a port city someplace where it can't be a port.

[Jnyusa]

What I'm hearing on NPR, and what I heard from the mother of my daughter's roommate last week (from Alabama) there is NO ONE in the Black community anywhere in this country who won't be thinking about Katrina when they vote in November.

Jn

[Whistler]

What I'm hearing on NPR, and what I heard from the mother of my daughter's roommate last week (from Alabama) there is NO ONE in the Black community anywhere in this country who won't be thinking about Katrina when they vote in November.

Jn

And what will that mean? The last time, it meant they returned to office the same blowhard mayor who presided over the last fiasco and will do no better next time.

[Jnyusa]

I was thinking about the Republicans in the House and Senate. Seats are expected to be lost, and Republicans are actually trying to replace White encumbants with Black candidates through the primary process here on the East Coast in the hopes of saving the vote. It's a tiny bit of a scandal. But pollsters are saying, 'no dice,' and the Black community is saying loud and clear that they know what an oreo is a don't want any, thank you.

Jn

[Erunáme]

the Black community is saying loud and clear that they know what an oreo is a don't want any, thank you.

How lovely.

[Inanna]

But pollsters are saying, 'no dice,'

Amen to that.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Whistler, your words are poetry.

BrianIs AtYou

[Jnyusa]

How lovely.

What is thoroughly contemptable, in my opinion, is that the Republicans are thinking about strategy in those terms - toss up any old Black person and they'll get the Black vote. Thank goodness our Black communities see through this.

Jn

[Whistler]

Damn Republicans.

[MithLuin]

Erm...how much of the Black community was Republican to start with? Where I am, anyway, everyone assumes they will vote Democratic, anyway. (To be very precise, where I am, everyone will vote Democratic anyway, so it doesn't really matter who runs on the Republican ballot, usually).

I know you cannot rebuild New Orleans elsewhere. I was suggesting that NO become a smaller city, and that some of the people who used to live there....move elsewhere. As I said, I know it isn't an easy solution, and I'm not about to suggest where or whom. Just...rebuilding it exactly how it was isn't the answer, either.

Displacing a community so that everyone scatters is not the goal...the goal is to relocate. I don't know if any of the communites that were wiped out by Katrina could relocate elsewhere.

[Jnyusa]

Damn Republicans.

If it were the Democrats who were implementing this strategy, I would be excoriating them, too. But the Democrats lost their encumbants in the last election and are not looking to replace those who remain by means of the current primary, and for sure not by race-flipping, which is so absolutely contemptuous toward the voter that I can hardly find words for it.

How much of the Black community was Republican to start with?

The Black community has been greatly disenchanted with the Democrats in my neck of the woods. It's actually the White people in my municipality - once exclusively Republican - who have been switching to vote Democratic. Not really sure why that is. The actual city of Philadelphia is registered overwhelmingly Democratic but the Republicans controlled the city for decades and the next mayoral race is going to be a close one. Our State was also Republican-controlled for decades; our two Senators are Republican and about half our Congresspersons are Republican, in spite of the fact that PA has all the earmarks of a Democrat state - labor-oriented, huge minority population, twilight industry and chronic recession.

I suspect that the people simply drew the conclusion that the Democrats are hypocrites. With the exception of our current governor who was formerly the mayor of Philly - Ed Rendell - and really a beloved figure who earned the loyalty of the voters by just doing a damned good job, Democrats have never had the leg up here that they should have had given the constituency.

But for the Black community, Katrina brought into perspective the difference between a hole and an abyss. The Democrats would take the Black vote and then not deliver on their promises, but it is the Republicans who whistled while they died and are now carpetbagging for the real estate value of their graves.

If I were Black, you couldn't get me to vote Republican at the national level this time around if you held a gun to my head.

Jn

eta: as some of you know, I am a member of the Green Party and would like to reserve my right to lambast both Republicans and Democrats as it suits me according to the affront of the moment.

[Erunáme]

I was under the impression that both Republicans and Democrats pander for the black vote...and latino. It's always seemed to me that Democrats are just as bad at using candidates of a certain race to garner votes.

And as far as the term oreo...I find that name to be really horrible. What exactly is wrong with a black person doing well in school and becoming educated? Why is that so bad? Why is that only a "white" thing to do? Isn't something good to do for oneself so you can succeed in the world?

I find racism from both sides to be thoroughly contemptable.

[Primula Baggins]

A black Republican may be called an Oreo not because he or she is educated, but because he or she is supporting a party that has historically built its base on white people and the white vote.

Democrats don't have to bring in black candidates to garner votes; they already have black candidates, and they already have most of the black vote.

[axordil]

I don't know if any of the communites that were wiped out by Katrina could relocate elsewhere.

An interesting notion, but one with a time limit. It may already be too late to implement such an idea...the people who aren't coming back to the lower Ninth and to St. Bernard et al ARE dispersed, and would have to be recollected to recreate any semblance of those communities elsewhere. I don't even want to think about the logistics of that...

Of course, to really capture the essense of those neighborhoods, it would have to be somewhere with lousy job prospects, so they have to continue to be bound by mutual desparation. I have very mixed feelings about preserving a "cultural heritage" that seems to amount to surviving in the face of grinding poverty for generations. I mean, solidarity is all well and good, but actually having a real chance to thrive is kinda nice too.

[anthriel]

A person, whatever color, should be able to follow whichever political choice makes sense to them, without censure.

I have to agree with Eru that I am enormously surprised by the word "oreo" being used here. The fact that someone who is choosing to represent a party not historically associated with their race would be so comfortably called such a negative and hurtful name, on this board, with the sensibilities I know are here, saddens me, a bit, I must say.

Even if the Rebublicans plucked up the first black face they saw and tossed that person in the hot seat, I would hope that respect and consideration would be given to all candidates. The tossing about of derogatory names is not necessary.

Actually, the fact that both parties have black candidates makes a lot of sense to me... the constituency is primarily black. According to Jn, the vote is going to go straight ticket Democratic, no matter who is in the race... it seems that out with the old boss, in with the new, is a good idea there.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said, and I paraphrase, that he dreamed of a time that a person would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.

I know he's not supposed to be my hero, 'cause I'm white and all my ancestors did all those bad things to all his ancestors, but this man inspires me beyond all description.

MLK rocked.