Justice Roars

Students Protest New Orleans Center for Creative Arts High School (NOCCA)

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Sun, 21 May 2017 17:32:00 +0000

Friday, May 19, in the early afternoon NOCCA leadership used security to remove three young black men, their parents, and advocates from the campus. The school refused the right to graduate two young black boys after giving them an additional 1,790 online assignments to complete only hours before the graduation ceremony.

The school then failed to provide the young men access to this unreasonably large work packet in time for them to complete it. The school finally barred the students from attending their graduation ceremony, citing these incomplete assignments. NOCCA also attempted to "counsel out" (force to transfer) another young black men, who was recently accepted to University of California Berkeley, and had completed all of his course work.

When he requested a hearing to discuss the options, he and his advocates were also forcibly removed from NOCCA’s campus and he was barred from attending his school's graduation ceremony.

NOCCA has admitted to having problems retaining young black men in their academic program. This is largely due to failing to provide culturally relevant support and appropriate accommodations for students with trauma and divergent learning styles, as well as blatantly racist policies. At least five other black boys and one black girl have been "counselled out" this year. Parents are often told that the school is "not a good fit for them.” It leads one to believe that NOCCA is not a good fit for black children.

Following are the demands being voiced by the black students, parents, and advocates:

1. An apology letter to the young black students and their families for undue stress and trauma.
2. An apology to the class of 2017 for disrupting their graduation ceremony and causing them pain. Many of these young men classmates were hurt by the school’s treatment of the young black boys.
3. That the young men are allowed to participate in the Arts Master Celebration on Monday.
4. That the school get Undoing Racism, School to Prison Pipeline, and Culturally Relevant Education training for all faculty, staff, and board members.

Organizers are also asking that concerned community members join in the ongoing fight for education justice in this city's school system, which is itself a powerful symbol of white supremacy that must also be TAKEN DOWN and replaced with a liberatory system of community controlled PUBLIC schools!

For more information please contact:

Ashana Bigard ambigard@gmail.com
(504)322-6582

Roshsaana Ison isonacts@gmail.com
(504)621-7452

Gina Womack gwomack@fflic.org
FFLIC.org

#NOCCA3
#BMR support young black men
#FFLIC NOLA EDU on trial

Report from Ella Baker Organizing Fund visit to Standing Rock

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 22:16:00 +0000

This report reposted from the Ella Baker Organizing Fund.

The Board of Directors of the Ella Baker Organizing Fund and our supporters from the Korean American Community just finished a four-day visit to Standing Rock, North Dakota. We were an ethnically diverse, multi-generational group of persons with complex and long involvement in movements for civil and human rights, Black liberation,labor organizing, immigration rights, and other critical issues of our time. We went to offer a donation demonstrating our solidarity with the Dakota Access Pipeline Water-Protectors’ struggle against the U.S. government and greedy corporations attempting to invade and contaminate the sacred lands of the Lakota-Sioux people of the Northern Plains and their precious water sources. We presented a letter to Indigenous elders inviting the Lakota-Sioux people to a collaborative project to liberate our peoples. We proposed that Native leaders use their reservations to offer refuge to Black people who are victims of murder, imprisonment, and institutional violence. In addition, we proposed to use the reservations to grow medical marijuana to obtain funds for this revolutionary work. We hope to build on a historical relationship between Native People and African Americans that began during our enslavement. Despite our vast and variant experiences with other mass protests and the mobilizing of responses to basic human needs, few of us were prepared for the sheer scale of the encampment we saw at Standing Rock reservation on the banks of the Cannonball River.

We did not visit only a group of protesters and water protectors, but also a highly organized, self-made and self-sustaining town of 12,000 inhabitants. It was huge, astonishing, and it was developed in an incredibly short period of time; a testament to the superb organizing of the First Nation People. The campsite was complex, subdivided in various areas that functioned like small neighborhoods. The community contained institutions and centers that provided all of the basic needs for a people’s survival, including: food, clothing, winter supplies, shelter, medical care, healing therapies, education, orientation, childcare, communication, (solar-powered) energy, governance, and spirituality spaces. All of these centers were innovative and creative; for instance, the housing options ranged from RV trailers, to yurts, to traditional tepees and wigwams, to “tarpees,” made out of tarp that built upon the tepee structure, and improvised Quonset huts. Moreover, all of these necessities and goods were offered for FREE. The way the camp was run envisions the world we want to live in.

This "town" was a gathering of folk of almost every race, age, gender, hue and culture on this earth. People from all over this country and the world came to support this struggle. We even encountered folks from Indigenous Nations of Brazil, from Palestine, and from Lebanon. The best of humanity was present. Folks would often walk around the camp offering donated goods to people in need; an elder in our delegation received snowshoe-nets from a passer-byer who noticed he was having difficulty walking on the uneven snow and wanted to attend to his need. The air of the camp was infused with a spirit of love, generosity, and concern for our fellow water-protectors, for nature, and for the earth. People stayed and worked despite the bitter cold of North Dakota that averaged 27 degrees Fahrenheit. For some of us, the community of the Standing Rock encampment revived memories of Tent City in Washington, DC, The Poor People’s March, the Gwangja Uprising in South Korea, and a massive civil action when plantation workers were thrown off the plantation in Mississippi. This experience reawakened our belief in a “beloved community.” Through bottom-up organizing, Standing Rock has laid the groundwork for an alternative community, showing us what is possible for our movement work. We, lovers of freedom and justice, DO have the ability to create a new world based on love and justice.

At the core and leadership of this great demonstration were 700 Native Nations from all over the Americas who kept their culture, their history, their leadership, and sentiments of love and respect at the center of all activity. Orientation, which occurred daily for new and old volunteers, emphasized the need to respect the Native’s decisions and decision-making processes. Volunteer leaders would explain the history of this struggle, the core principles and values of the First Nation People, and what allies - non indigenous people - may or may not help them with. This meeting serves as the bedrock of education for allies to understand what it means to be “indigenous-centered” and to reflect upon “settler-colonizer” attitudes and the ways even well-meaning allies may often impose on the indigenous people. We were also often reminded that this is a peaceful protest and that the spirit of the warrior is motivated by and fights with love. Various speeches made at the Sacred Fire, a communication center of prayer, offerings, and announcements, reiterated the importance of respect for the Lakota-Sioux people’s decisions. Speeches also spoke to the various ways in which Native People have struggled against and suffered at the hands of the United States, naming various massacres and genocides, such as Wounded Knee and the Sand Creek Massacre. In these speeches, they would note how they continue to suffer today, and also remind water-protectors how to conduct themselves at this camp in a way that respects Native traditions, especially the need to respect elders. This constant communication and repetition helped this movement stay strong and not be “colonized” and hijacked by protesters acting on their own agenda. To you our Dear Native Brothers and Sisters, we bow to you; we honor you; we respect you for teaching us the power of love as the most powerful weapon for freedom and justice.

Spirituality held ample space at Standing Rock, particularly Native American traditions, but other religious traditions from across the globe were present, fully respected, and welcomed. Native American spiritual traditions were present in the commonplace activities of the camp. Everyday began with a prayer ceremony by the water in which people of all faiths were invited to participate and pray in their own way. The Sacred Fire was kept burning day in and day out, 24/7 by Fire-Keepers. The sacred fire was a place of prayer where people could burn sage, and offer tobacco and other herbs to the fire. Evenings were filled with chanting, the beating of drums, and dancing. On Sunday December 4th, there was an Interfaith Ceremony where people, of various religious and spiritual traditions from around the world, from Christians, to Quakers, to Buddhists, came to express their deep solidarity with the Lakota Struggle. Every speaker lead a prayer, chant, or whatever method is utilized in their tradition to pray and give thanks for and power to this movement. This ceremony continued with ease while U.S. drones and helicopters zoomed over our heads. It was an incredible display, with prayers in various languages, in which spirituality was not only present in a political community but actively utilized to support and give power to our efforts.

After the interfaith ceremony, a prayer circle was being formed, where all water-protectors would make a circle, holding-hands around the entire camp to pray. Before the circle was completed, the camp received an announcement that the Army Corps of Engineers were halting Pipeline Construction. It was a powerful moment receiving such a message with the spirit of prayer among us, and as thousands of U.S. Veterans of all ages and ethnicities were arriving to protect the waters. One member of our delegation arrived in North Dakota on a plane full of veterans who were so moved by the resistance at Standing Rock that they came to flip the script of history and shield First Nation people from attack from the very government they had put their lives on the line to serve. Some accredit the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to stop the pipeline to the power of prayer and spirituality. Others believe that the government did not feel comfortable attacking thousands of former U.S. soldiers. We were blessed enough to be at Standing Rock, a historical event for our people’s movements, at the moment we all received this exceptional news.

Standing Rock demonstrated the powerfully ways in which spirituality can be used as a tool to support our movements and move our people forward. The leadership and superb organization of the First Nation People has shown what is possible for our revolutions. A self-sustaining community lead by the most oppressed that not only provides all of the needs necessary for a people's survival but actively focuses on fighting for freedom and justice. This is a unique and powerful example of revolutionary work. This is the kind of work that makes us believe that revolution is possible in the 21st century. To the leadership of Standing Rock, we honor you and hold you close.

We have had a fruitful and successful encounter. Several Native Nations have expressed interest in our collaborative proposal. We hope to move forward in the upcoming days and weeks visiting various Native Nations across the country to speak about the prospect of investing in the Medical Marijuana Industry, and creating a haven/refuge for Black people. We hope to build coalitions with and also provide refuge for other oppressed people in the United States.

We, The Ella Baker Organizing Fund, promise to continue using what we learned from our visit to one of the greatest gatherings of freedom fighters in modern times. We will continue to nurture our relationship with Native People and will share our experience with everyone we come in contact. We vow to always use the “power of love” as a centerpiece in our work.

We give thanks and honor to all those who participated in this demonstration, particularly the Native People who have brought us together and welcomed us into their lands and their struggles for justice.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are members of The Ella Baker Organizing Fund. Our Board of Directors and donors are composed mostly of veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, namely from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). We are committed to the recruiting and training of Black youth to become full-time organizers in and for oppressed communities.

We have come to you to show our support and make a donation to your campaign to stop the destruction caused by the U.S. Government, corporations and all those who are disrespecting our earth and the sacred lands of our First Nation People. We hope to meet with the elders and leadership of this noble cause.

We also come bearing a proposal to continue and honor a long-standing alliance between Black and Native people. Black and Native people have struggled together for our collective freedom since the time that Black people were first enslaved and forcibly brought to the Americas. We ask that our people, the descendants of enslaved Africans who are still today being killed and jailed, be allowed to move to reservations and work together with Native people to build a life for our collective youth and future. To do this we need to raise 30 to 40 million dollars to hire and sustain 30 to 40 organizers and build and develop schools, clinics, farms, vocational and skill trainings, communication technology and all the institutions needed for our people's survival. Native reservations have the legal right to provide refuge to an unwanted people just as they did during the days of the Underground Railroad.

To raise the resources needed, we ask you to consider making land available for the growing of medical marijuana. Corporate thieves, who actively support and have created legislation criminalizing marijuana that is responsible for the mass imprisonment of our people, are now the beneficiaries of the rising medical marijuana industry. An overflowing quantity of Black youth enslaved to the prison industrial complex has paid the biggest price for the criminalization of marijuana. Yet, there are no people of color growing legal medicinal marijuana. Instead, tobacco giants are beginning to invade and seize this industry. However, we can produce medical marijuana and use some of the proceeds toward funds vital to the hiring of organizers and the building of institutions fundamental to our survival.

We would love to hold our first strategy session together here on this site where the spirit of struggle is alive and well.

Supporters from the Korean American community have also joined our delegation and donation to express their solidarity with Native and Black communities.

Thank you for reading our statement and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship forging our freedom and liberation as a United Front of oppressed people in the USA.

In struggle and solidarity,

Respectfully submitted by the Ella Baker Organizing Fund

Once in a lifetime opportunity - STEAL from New Orleans Airbnb's!

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Sat, 21 Nov 2015 17:02:00 +0000

On Thursday, November 19, a posting on New Orleans Craigslist quickly went viral and just as quickly was deleted. As a service to the public, we are re-printing it here. We do not know who the writer is, and we claim no ownership of its contents or views.

Are you tired of Airbnb rental prices driving up rent in your neighborhood? Is the lip service your city pays to reigning in short-term rentals leaving a bad taste in your mouth (or on your lips)? If so, become part of the NEW OFFENSIVE and pledge to STEAL INDISCRIMINATELY from New Orleans Airbnbs.

Look at this graphic posted by Nola.com. 200 Airbnb listings in the Bywater/Marigny. There are barely 200 residential housing units in the Bywater/Marigny. There are barely 3 people I personally like living in the Bywater/Marigny. Maybe we should just burn the Bywater/Marigny. Let's save that for another post! No fire yet! Just theft.

We cannot afford to wait for the city of New Orleans to fix this. THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS DOES NOT WANT TO FIX THIS. ALL THEY WANT IS A CUT OF THE MONEY. MEANWHILE THEY WANT TO CALL MEETINGS AND MAKE PIE CHARTS AND RECEIVE CREDIT FOR TRYING. We must steal whatever is not nailed down from New Orleans short-term rental units NOW.

"WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO MONETIZE MY LIVING ROOM," said no one, ever. The only way to beat back the incessant privatization of everything is to make it unprofitable. The only way to make Airbnb unprofitable is to remove as much value from the rental property as you can until individual mini-landlords can no longer assume the risk of accepting a stranger into their home. The easiest way to remove value from Airbnb is to steal things.

"BUT RENTAL PROPERTY TECHNOLOGY IS THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE," you reply. What about your "progressive" friends who are currently glad-handing each other for "disrupting" mega-hotel chains like Hilton and Motel 6! Their hands are cold and clammy, because they are dead inside, specifically in the brain area.

Hilton can take the hit. Motel 6 pisses away perfectly good electricity leaving the light on for you every night. Know who can't take the hit? The service industry people who will see their hours cut when hotel business across the board is affected. Does your Airbnb-fiefdom offer health insurance? Of course not. It buys you a vacation. When your business model is based on labor precarity there is no room for humanity. Next time you head to P-Cola to chill out and get some culture while someone pays you for the privilege of ignoring your neighbors, think about your blistering Facebook post about health insurance a few years back. I remember how adamant you were that people make individual sacrifices for the greater good. Now that you have the opportunity to actually affect people's livelihoods with your economic decisions, what will you actually do?

"WELL IF U WANT TO MAKE A OMELETTE THEN U GOTTA BREAK EGGS," is a garbage metaphor. Let's pretend for a sentence or two that it's not sick and cynical to compare the human effects of housing privatization to the loss of one unit of the productive output of millions of enslaved birds who never see the sun and poop on each other as a matter of course because we decided that even when chickens poop on each other the eggs come out just fine (the eggshell protects the egg from the poop!). Good fucking morning, how about YOU be the egg today?

Let's not dance around the topic of which eggs are being broken here, either (hint: it's the brown eggs). I would bet dollars to donuts (which contain egg!) that an overwhelming majority of Airbnb landlords renting one of the 50-99 rental units in "Historic Treme" are white-operated. I wish someone would take me up on that bet. They'd have to burn down the donut factories for insurance money to pay me out, like so many Hubig's Pies buildings. Donuts for everyone! Or, donuts for no one, because we just burnt down all the factories. Burnt donuts.

"BUT ALL EGGS ARE THE SAME ON THE INSIDE," you say. Yes, #alleggsmatter. But we're done with the egg metaphor. We're on donuts now. Airbnb proponents are like the fake scrambled eggs that come from a carton. And the hole in the donut is where their empathy used to be.

"BUT IM AN ARTIST AND THIS IS HOW I GET THE SPACE I NEED TO DO MY CREATIVE" is another thing some dull person is probably saying right now, whilst painting a jazz guy with wavy music-lines coming out of his music-horn (the wavy lines mean it's jazz!). Do you know who used to live in the side of the half-shotgun that you live in (you rented out the other side)? THREE ARTISTS. And their art was just fine. The extra space has not made your art better. New Orleans art has not improved since the imposition of Airbnb. Your art compares unfavorably to George W. Bush's paintings of his dogs.

"BUT ITS RAISING PROPERTY VALUES DURRRRRRRR." Once upon a time a house was something you made into a home. Just so you know. The idea of your house as a money-generator is relatively new, and only exists because we're running out of things to monetize.
(Also, if you are not aware that property values have long been manipulated as a means to wrest property from "undesirables" during gentrification, beautification, re-settlement, or whatever you want to call it, you are either stupid or willfully ignorant. And if you ARE aware of this but choose to cast your lot with Airbnb, you are the worst kind of cynic.)

"IT'S A QUALITY OF LIFE THING, I LIKE MY SPACE" is another grammatically questionable thing that is probably coming out of a mouth right now, which is stressing out the owner of the mouth because he/she prefers to breathe through it. It should be noted that it's also a "quality of life issue" for the people who have been forced out of their homes and neighborhoods due to rising rents (which - shut up for a second - are ABSOLUTELY affected by the short-term rental market). You just don't see them anymore because they live somewhere else and can't afford your rental unit.

AIRBNB "ENTREPRENEURS" ARE NOTHING MORE THAN ASPIRING LANDLORDS. Once people get a taste of making money for doing nothing, it's hard to get them back to work. However, if you can't make rent, you'll be sure to hear from them about your "work ethic." Landlords are sick fucks. Donald Trump made most of his money as a landlord. The fact that some landlords are planning on voting for Bernie Sanders doesn't make them better people; rather, it makes Bernie's campaign less trustworthy by several orders of magnitude, because if you want to see a socialist in office, you should at the very least be willing to attempt solidarity with your neighbors.

Some of us choose to live within our means and establish human relationships with the other humans who have chosen to live out their lives in proximity. Others choose to annex more property than they need so they can parcel it out to vacation-bros from Ohio State who attack people on Gay Bourbon because they wandered there by mistake and got a boner. Choose your path.

SOLUTION: STEAL

Again, the only way to get rid of Airbnb is to make it unprofitable. Because Airbnb is an invisible middleman, we have no choice but to attack its physical expression within our city. A diffuse and decentralized campaign of petty theft is the best course of action. The recommendations below are to be understood as recommendations only; each participant in this action of economic warfare will exercise his or her creativity differently.

CULTIVATE YOUR PROFILE. Don't start stealing right away. Build a trustworthy Airbnb profile. Enjoy yourself! Comment on the quirky art on the walls, and be sure to heed your landlord's recommendation re: the best brunch spots! Airbnb is truly a revolution in travel.

STEAL EXPENSIVE THINGS AND THROW THEM IN THE RIVER. Most Airbnb furniture items make great habitat for endemic species. Make sure to check with the manufacturers of your stolen items before throwing them in the river; some items, like flat-screen Tvs, may need to be stripped of certain metals before they are placed in the Mississippi.

STEAL IRONIC THINGS. Who steals only the cables and wires from a home entertainment system? Who steals the rings that hold the curtains up and replaces them with zipties? You do.

STEAL PERSONAL ITEMS. As it stands, when a landlord reports theft or damage to their Airbnb "property," Airbnb pays out generously. It's just good PR. That's why you will steal things that elude value: bronzed baby shoes, those prayer cards they make for funerals, wedding photos, etc.

STEAL FROM ADJACENT PROPERTIES. Nothing like a little peer pressure from the neighbors, who never signed up to live next to your stupid faux-tel.

STEAL ITEMS FROM ONE RENTAL PROPERTY, HIDE THEM IN A SECOND PROPERTY RUN BY A DIFFERENT LANDLORD, AND REPORT THE SECOND LANDLORD FOR THEFT. Create dissent in the ranks. Agents provocateurs, all of us.

MAIL STOLEN ITEMS TO AIRBNB. The address is 888 Brannan Street, Floor 4, San Francisco CA 94117. Have you been to San Francisco lately? It's godawful. It's as if Skynet got bored with world domination and got an online design degree instead. No appraisal of Airbnb's value is complete until it takes into account that they chose to locate themselves here. New Orleans is great! San Francisco should slide into the ocean.

THE FUTURE IS YOURS TO STEAL.

We speak our future into reality. If we refuse to speak, we tacitly support the dominant vision. I am but one voice. I am but one pair of untrustworthy hands. Only a multiplicity of voices and stealing-hands will rid our fair city of the scourge of garbage people who seek to monetize your every interaction. Only by depriving Airbnb of "value" can we recapture what we actually value: our homes, our neighborhoods, and our city.

In conclusion, fuck Airbnb.

Jena Six Family Member Killed in Double Murder

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 03:00:00 +0000

Catrina Wallace, who came to national prominence as a civil rights activist and the sister of one of the Jena Six, was found dead early today, the victim of a double homicide in Monroe, Louisiana. Wallace had three children.

Wallace, 35, was the sister of Robert Bailey, Jr.. In late 2006, a series of incidents in the town of Jena, Louisiana - including the hanging of several nooses in a school yard - led to racial tension and violence. After a school fight, Bailey was one of six high school students who was arrested and faced decades in prison. Catrina Wallace helped lead months of protests that eventually brought national and international attention to the case, culminating in a mass protest of nearly 50,000 in the small town of Jena, in what has been called the first major struggle of the 21st century civil rights movement. Although the story leapt to national attention in summer of 2007, Catrina and other family members had been leading protests, sometimes every week, for over six months before the first national press arrived.

The protests and the movement behind them were successful. The six young men went on to college, instead of prison. Last year, Robert Bailey graduated from Grambling University. Earlier this year Theo Shaw, another of the young men, received a full scholarship to law school.

After the young men were released, Catrina Wallace and her mother, Caseptla Bailey, stayed in Jena and remained focused on grassroots organizing. The two founded Organizing in the Trenches, a community organization dedicated to empowering youth. However, after the legal cases ended and national attention moved on, funding and support was hard to find for a small project located deep in rural Louisiana.

On July 9, 2009, Wallace was one of a dozen Jena residents arrested in a multi-agency police raid that many saw as retribution for her organizing. After the arrests, which were focused entirely in Jena's Black community, some white residents of Jena began wearing t-shirts that celebrated the police action and featured an image of a monkey behind bars.

Wallace was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. In 2014, her sentences were vacated on appeal, and she was released later that year.

Wallace moved out of Jena after her release, and at the time of her death was apparently working at a bail bonds office in Monroe, LA. As of this writing, police have not released any information on who might be behind the murder, but Monroe Police Detective Reggie Brown told reporters, "We're interviewing witnesses and possible persons of interest at this time, and we feel very strongly that we're going to bring the person responsible to justice." Since earlier today, Wallace's facebook wall has been filled with dozens of heartbreak-filled messages from friends and family.

Marcus Jones, another Jena Six family member, died last year in an apparent accident.

Photos by Mavis York.

Reflections on the Ten Year Aftermath of the Federal Flood, by Lydia Pelot-Hobbs

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 21:51:00 +0000

Trying to sum up my thoughts on the 10^th anniversary of Katrina has proven to be more difficult than I ever imagined. A few months ago, when I decided it was worth it to take a step back, think about what I’ve witnessed over the past ten years, and how I understand these pieces fitting together within a longer history of racialized violence and resistance, it seemed like an easy assignment. It is the exact sort of thing that I have been trained to do. But figuring out how to actually articulate my thoughts became more and more emotionally charged and messy as the days passed by and the barrage of Katrina media coverage has grown exponentially each day. I have given up on this assignment a number of times already as I’ve alternated between feeling too raw (even as a non-New Orleanian) to productively write and questioning if any of my thoughts are worth sharing at all.

But, I know I will regret not capturing what I have to say now, at this particular moment as myself and so much of the city and broader Gulf South are being forced to remember not only August 29, 2005 but the losses and changes of the past ten years. I’d rather put down some messy and imperfect reflections of this moment than none at all, so here they are.

For the past nine years, every time I drive on 1-10 towards the West Bank and look up at the Superdome, the same image pops in my head. It’s of looking up at the Superdome in the summer of 2006 watching tiny little figures (who I would later learn were likely immigrant workers) atop of the Dome connected to ropes fixing the roof so it would ready for the 2006 Saints football season.[i] I remember how that summer the image of the folks fixing the Superdome,[ii] while houses still sat in the middle of the street in the Lower Ninth, tap water threatened to give one giardia, and Katrina refrigerators littered the city, served as a daily reminder of what city elites’ vision of the future of New Orleans was and was not to be.

That image probably only lasted a few months but it and dozens of others from the first months and years following the storm continue to shape how I see New Orleans as she speeds towards the 10^th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, or what People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and many others made sure we rightfully referred to as the Federal Flood. Mitch Landrieu and his conspirators are doing everything they can to make sure we forgot such images. There is no room in the success story of New Orleans for the remembrance of thousands of Black folks abandoned on roofs and highway overpasses or the unapologetic shootings of Black men by NOPD and white vigilantes or of the proliferation of homeless encampments across the city as the crisis of homelessness reached epic proportions in 2007[iii] or of the bulldozing of the WPA era public housing developments still filled with the countless possessions of thousands who never were able to come home.[iv] For Mitch and his ilk, these are the moments are best left forgotten[v] as the city moves forward and proves its ‘resiliency’ to the world. Reproducing the old liberal notion that the past does not shape the present, every where you turn is the disavowal that the ‘triumph’ of the city is predicated on the ongoing state sanctioned and extralegal violence, exploitation, and dispossession of Black New Orleanians.

Yes, this celebrated new New Orleans follows in the long tradition of New Souths remaking themselves time and time again through the dirty secret of all New Souths—their so-called successes have always been built upon the infrastructure of Jim Crow.[vi]

And indeed the last ten years have much in common with the dismantling of Reconstruction and the rise of the Jim Crow regime of the New South. The framework of Reconstruction is not only familiar but was intentionally employed by numerous social justice organizations in the wake of the storm. Tracking back to both the promises of Radical Reconstruction and the ‘Second Reconstruction’ of the Black Freedom Movement, so many grassroots organizations named that the city’s rebuilding needed to be done as a “just reconstruction” if there was any hope of transforming the structures that created the conditions for such devastation to occur. Indeed, I was just one of thousands upon thousands of mostly, but not entirely, white Northerners who were called, moved, encouraged, recruited to come to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to support the reconstruction effort not dis-similarly from the Northern activists who went South in the 1860s and 1960s.[vii]

What’s more, community activists further followed in the best of the internationalist impulse of the Black Radical Tradition and other liberatory anti-racist movements in calling upon the most radical edge of human rights organizing, in the tradition of Paul Robeson and Malcolm X. People demanded that Gulf Coast residents be understood as internally displaced persons with the accompanied right of return, right to housing, right to healthcare, right to education, right to a living wage, right to a healthy environment and the right to collective self-determination. In doing so, Gulf South organizers highlighted that the experience New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents were facing had to be understood in a global frame of how climate change was (and would continue) wrecking havoc on vulnerable communities the world over.

Against such bold and visionary organizing were the other plans for the city. For a whiter and wealthier New Orleans. It feels hard to imagine it now, and perhaps I was just naive at the time, but I really believed that the organizing work across the city was going to be able to stop this land grab. But the racial capitalist state, at both the local and national level, was strong. HOPE VI was to destroy public housing exacerbating the city’s housing shortage, the busting of the teachers’ union and refusal to reopen Charity Hospital ensured that unknown numbers of New Orleanians (often women, usually Black) were unable to come home as their jobs were eliminated, Road Home was not only a disaster but the homeowners who did receive funds received them in a racially uneven manner, and so on and so on. With local folks busy trying to rebuild their homes and lives, and the weakening of solidarity networks over the years,[viii] to say nothing of the political depression experienced by many (including myself) as the losses accumulated, the capacity to confront the racialized neoliberal agenda for the city was limited (but never completely diminished).

In all of this, I see 2010 as one of the turning points of the city. During the previous five years, although the agenda for the city had clearly been set, it still had not come to full fruition.[ix] But then coupled with the incredible soul-lifting Super Bowl win was the historically low voter turnout for the mayoral election that brought Mitch Landrieu into office as the first white mayor since his father held the position in the 1970s.

Following the election, you could hear white folks unabashedly rejoicing at having a white mayor for the first time in decades. And again, following in the tradition set forth in the dismantling of Reconstruction, white folks justified their glee as not about racism but about *finally* having politicians running the city who weren’t corrupt or incompetent, neatly ignoring the fact it was only Black elected officials who were targeted for such investigations.[x]

Although the policy programs of Landrieu were not too dissimilar from the pro-business, neoliberal agenda that Nagin had promoted since 2002, their abilities to marshal outside resources were markedly different. While this difference can be partially understood as the timing of their respective administrations in the rebuilding landscape, we cannot and should not overlook how the city having white political leadership influenced the ways outside investors viewed New Orleans. Confidence in the city soared with Mitch in office and new capital flowed in to take advantage of the speculative boom. This private investment alongside the continued funneling of federal recovery dollars into private enterprises such as the St. Roch Market, demonstrated again the goal of the city’s recovery was capital accumulation on the backs of Black and poor New Orleanians.

I could go on at length about the heart-breaking experience of watching this most recent manifestation of the city disinvesting in Black New Orleans in favor of the new New Orleans over the past three years or so. The uptick in policing Black youth, notably transgirls, in the corridors targeted for ‘revitalization’; the ongoing commodification and marketing of the city’s Black cultural traditions even as Black musicians and other cultural workers struggle to make ends meet; the city’s auctioning off of property for exorbitant rates rather than investing in housing for working class and poor residents; the expansion of tourist rentals and the accompanied creep of drunken dude bro tourists that have made neighborhoods unrecognizable even to folks like myself and my friends who moved here in 2006 and 2007. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for folks who are actually from here.

Perhaps one of the things that most marks this most recent period to me is the extent to which the storm and its aftermath had faded and forgotten to the extent that many of the newest arrivals I talk with don’t even seem to consider themselves as living in a post-disaster environment. Yes, the houses are no longer strewn in the middle of the road. Humvees do not roll up and down streets. Katrina X’s on houses are hard to spot these days. But this is still a post-disaster world. Every single one of us who has come since the storm are here because of Katrina and what it did to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast whether we recognize it or not. This is not to feel to guilty, but to squarely and honestly assess where it is that we are so that we can think to the best of our abilities about how to best be and move in this incredible, complicated, magical, and contradictory place.

Because even with all the losses New Orleans has sustained in the last decade, it still is not lost. Just as it is a disservice to New Orleans and the Gulf South to forget the violence that folks have experienced here and in the broader Katrina diaspora, it is a disservice to ignore the wins of grassroots organizing from the shrinking of Orleans Parish Prison by several thousands beds to the recent win of higher wages for city contract workers.[xi] The current mobilizations of activists to disrupt the narrative of the city’s recovery and resiliency, to highlight the tremendous organizing work of the past ten years, and to come together to envision new just futures for the region reminds us that the work of movement building is never over. New Orleans organizing continues to build upon the city’s long legacies of resistance, that stretch back to slave revolts and Homer Plessy’s contestation to the solidification of Jim Crow, while creatively pushing for a city that does not continue to displace and exploit the people who’ve made it what it is over the centuries.

This is what still gives me hope. This is how I can imagine moving forward. Not forgetting the past or ignoring what is happening around me. But thinking critically, learning from the brilliance of people here, and finding ways to support the work of materializing the still unrealized project of abolition democracy and collective freedom.

[i] I must admit, I held a grudge at the Saints for this special treatment until the 2009/2010 NFL Season and their Super Bowl win.

[ii] Which we should not forget as also the site of much suffering by Katrina survivors in the aftermath of the flood.

[iii] During the summer and fall of 2007, a number of homeless folks came together to form a homeless union called Homeless Pride that set up a political encampment to demand an end to homelessness across from City Hall in Duncan Plaza until they were evicted by the city under the guise of park renovations. More about Homeless Pride can be found here: http://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2393&context=td.

[iv] I will never forget that a week or so following the storm I called up an old friend from New Orleans who was collecting donations to get to the folks she knew who had lost everything (it was already known not to trust FEMA or the Red Cross). During our conversation, I asked her if her friends were ok and she told me that there were a bunch of folks she couldn’t get in touch with, but she knew they’d be ok since they’d been in the projects which were some of the sturdiest building in the city being three stories high and brick (a rarity in New Orleans).

[v] Or even celebrated as with the raising of public housing or the mass firing of teachers to break the teachers union and pave the wave for the complete charterization of the New Orleans school system.

[vi] By Jim Crow, I mean the full range of racialized and gendered exploitative violence aimed at containing and controlling the recently freed Black population of the South upon the dismantling of Reconstruction by members of the plantation bloc and New South industrialists alike, buttressed by the support of Northern capitalists: de jure segregation, mass disenfranchisement, criminalization of Black communities and the expansion of the state’s policing and penal power, widespread sexualized violence, dismantling of collective ownership structures, disinvestment in education and other social services, privatization of state services, free trade, and the rise of precarious labor (which in the case of Louisiana included the recruitment of Chinese coolie labor to do the former work of enslaved people). Otherwise the prototype of what we call neoliberalism today. For more on this, everyone should read everything Clyde Woods ever wrote, beginning with Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta.

[vii] I am not trying to imply that everyone who showed up to volunteer was a radical anti-racist activist. That is far from the truth. But something did indeed occur in the scale of response by primarily young folks who identified doing volunteer work as politically important work. This politicized volunteering tapered off as time wore on with less volunteers, and less organizations, framing the rebuilding New Orleans as an anti-racist or Left or social justice project.

[viii] To this day, I wonder how my own participation and advancement of certain political strategies contributed to the drying up of national support for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, particularly amongst the white activist-y Northerners similar to me. At the time it seemed important to emphasize to out of town volunteers that the conditions that gave rise to the disaster were not exceptional to New Orleans but could be found wherever they were from—thus the necessity of them focusing their activism home. And while I still generally agree with this framing, I wonder what could have happened if we had more firmly articulated that doing work at home required sticking with New Orleans for the long haul of what was sure to be a difficult and protracted recovery. This is hitting me particularly hard right now as I’ve realized in the last few weeks that no one I know is aware of any Katrina commemorative events happening outside of the Gulf Coast (I still hope I’m wrong on this front).

[ix] In the fall of 2009, I sat in an urban planning class where the different redevelopment schemes were presented to me of various “revitalization corridors” which include Tulane Ave, Freret Street, St. Claude, OC Haley, and Broad. At the time most of them seemed outlandish and unlikely, and now almost six years later I’ve seen them materialize, if unevenly.

[x] I am forever indebted to Du Bois’s discussion in Black Reconstruction about how white elites created and promoted the myth of Black Republican politicians as corrupt and incompetent in order to justify the ousting of Black political leadership and the reinstatement of white supremacist power during so-called Redemption for helping me articulate this connection. And noting this connection does not mean that I was a fan of everyone who was ousted following the storm, but that we cannot ignore that the targeting of corrupt politicians in the South has more often been about the diminishing of Black political power than about honest and principled politics.

[xi] For a fantastic description of the wide-range of organizing happening in New Orleans today check out Jordan Flaherty’s recent article “A Movement Lab in New Orleans” http://www.thenation.com/article/a-movement-lab-in-new-orleans/

“The science teacher from 2003 who taught you to be proud of your heritage, where are they?” by New Orleans Youth

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 21:07:00 +0000

Note: This article was written by New Orleans young people. See another opinion piece by the students at this link.

Early Friday morning students arrived at their schools only to find that it was no regular morning. Pasted on the walls all around the schools were large black & white posters. But these were not your typical posters. These posters had facts, questions, and statistics regarding New Orleans public charter schools and their inhabitants -- former students, teachers, principals, and CEOs. Some posters had questions on them that referenced the firing of over 7,000 teachers post-Katrina: "The black math teacher from 2004 who lived in your neighborhood, where are they?" And some questioned the salaries of school principals and administrators compared to the quality of the schools they run: “Your principal makes $100,000 a year, but why is your school only a ‘D’ school?” These are only a few of the many posters that were found at several high schools across the New Orleans area, including Lake Area, Sci Academy, Warren Easton, and Landry Walker.

Students at these schools and others had a lot to say about the posters and the questions they posed. Responding to the question, “Your homie from the class of 2013...where are they now?” one high school student answered, “Most of the people I knew in the class of 2013 are currently in college, or didn’t finish and plan to go back this year. That makes me anxious and worry about if I can finish college when I’m ‘supposed’ to and wonder what happened to throw them off track. It makes me feel sad that people go into college unsure of their main drive and because of being rushed into it, they lose track of what they really want.”

Another student nearby answered as well saying, “Most of them are still in college but a few are struggling to have somewhere to stay and are still trying to get into college. They have no choice but to get a job, and their job is weighing on them and keeping them from going to school.”

At another local high school a student responded by saying, “My friend is currently working at Papa John’s, and it’s sad especially because he is now struggling and on the verge of giving up.” One student candidly said, “I don’t know where they are, and I feel some type of way because of their disappearance.” One final student gave a chilling answer, “Probably dead to be honest.”

Over at a high school on the West Bank students responded to several questions that were on posters around their school. Responding to, “How many teachers live in your neighborhood?” A student answered, “None. I feel disappointed because the teachers come from all over and they don’t know what the people from my neighborhood are going through.”

Other questions centered around how students get exposed to black culture in their schools. Two of them included, “The principal who taught you the black national anthem, what happened to them?” and “The science teacher from 2003 who taught you to be proud of your heritage, where are they?”

The first student answered, “It’s like a crime to teach your truth and your history, because if it wasn’t they wouldn’t have been fired and white people wouldn’t be the main ones teaching in our schools. There’s only a certain time for us to talk about black people in schools — February.”

And the other said, “I don’t even know what the Black National Anthem is, which makes me sad because it shows what type of schools I went to. The fact that I live in Louisiana and don’t know the Black National Anthem puts things into perspective for me.”

While the last student responded, “Well, that school doesn’t even have the same name any more. It’s charter school now, everything has changed — new principal, new teachers, new uniforms, new name. I don’t even know what happened to those teachers. When the school changed and those charter people came, they had to go. And that was the only school that I went to where I learned the Black National Anthem.” (The school was George Washington Carver, now it’s Carver Collegiate.)

One student talked in-depth about how the posters forced them to reflect on their place as youth in New Orleans. “After seeing the different posters at my school, it really made me think about how black youth don't really matter to this city, or that we do matter but only for the use of others. Schools and the entire city really just use us to pass off statistics to the rest of the world to say that the city is doing better. It’s like if we’re getting higher scores on tests than New Orleans must be moving forward...but it's not.”

Maybe the point of these posters is to raise questions about where the city really is 10 years after hurricane Katrina. A high school senior from New Orleans East seems to have summed up the feelings of their peers and families regarding the cruel irony of the anniversary festivities. “Our city's leaders are celebrating the anniversary of Katrina, and saying that if not for a terrible storm that killed so many people and hurt so many families we wouldn't have been able to move forward. Which implies that the way the city was before, and the things that happened before Katrina were wrong. All without acknowledging the damage that some of these ‘positive’ changes have caused our city.”

-written by New Orleans Youth

#k10truth4youth

#whywefight

"All McDonough schools were founded by money made directly from slave labor" by New Orleans Youth

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 19:15:00 +0000

Note: This article was written by New Orleans young people. See another opinion piece by the students at this link.

As the ten year commemoration of Hurricane Katrina approaches, the city of New Orleans is filled with high energy from the life-long residents of the city. The New Orlenians that have seen the good and bad that this city has to offer. There has been plenty of conversation in the city about whether or not the people feel like New Orleans has fully recovered from hurricane Katrina. On this Friday morning as students were arriving to school, they were surprised to see a yard full of signs reading:

All McDonough schools were founded by money made directly from slave labor

Your principal makes over $90,000 a year , but why is your school a “F” school?

How many of your teachers live in your neighborhood?

If you feel like a prisoner in your school, ask your teacher “why”

Your homies from class of 2013. . . where are they now?

The black math teacher from 2004 who lived in your neighborhood, where are they?

The science teacher from 2003 who taught you to be proud of your heritage, where are they?

The principal who taught you the black national anthem, what happened to them?

New Beginnings Schools Foundation runs Lake Area. Their CEO makes $140,000 a year, but why is your school only a “D” school?

At a time like this when the city is highly anticipating the commemoration of Hurricane Katrina, the youth of New Orleans boldly decided to use artful expression to speak up about how they feel. Directly addressing the farce of better schools and improving education in the city of New Orleans that has been portrayed by the media. This is a method that I agree with completely. The youth has been blatantly ignored by the media and by the city of New Orleans when it comes to listening to their opinion of why the crime rate is so high, why there is a lack of opportunity in the city for youth of color and why the city is not better off now than it was ten years ago. In fact the city is worse off than it was ten years ago especially in terms of education.

Before you believe the hype that surrounds the 10^th Anniversary, try to think of the names of all the teachers who were unjustly fired right after the storm. And try to think of the names of all the students who’ve been pushed out of schools because of racist and unfair discipline policies. When you think of what it means to have a real education system that encourages critical thought and self-discovery, try to think of names. Not data points. And if the names don’t come to you, maybe you should ask yourselves why they’ve been erased.

That’s what young people have done with their art. They’re asking questions and demanding answers. This reaction from the youth represents a bold statement in the face of anyone who is now saying that the city of New Orleans has recovered from hurricane Katrina and the corruption that followed in the midst of hurricane Katrina. As the hashtag at the bottom of the posters says, this is #whywefight.

-written by New Orleans Youth

#k10truth4youth

#whywefight

Protest New Orleans' Celebration of White Supremacy

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 18:29:00 +0000

"United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state."

These words are carved into the base of a monument celebrating white supremacy, near the heart of downtown New Orleans. The inscription is covered with a new plaque, but the monument remains.

As civil rights lawyer Mary Howell has noted, this is likely the only monument in the US that celebrates the killing of police officers. However, the New Orleans Police Department has never objected to this monument, perhaps because it celebrates the killing of Black police officers by white supremacists.

A local blog describes the history behind the monument. The full history is worth reading, but here are some highlights:

The “Battle” of Liberty Place was essentially a coup in which the White League of New Orleans deposed the state’s Republican governor by force...the White League in New Orleans organized an impromptu army on the morning of September 14, 1874 to seize the government of Louisiana itself. The battle was reminiscent of the Civil War, with units of the White League engaging a defensive, racially integrated State Militia and Metropolitan Police force. Hours into the fighting, the White League was able to flank their opponents and seize the Cabildo (still the seat of government at the time) and Arsenal. The Republican governor elect, William Pitt Kellogg, and General James Longstreet, commander of the militia and police force in the battle, took refuge in the federal customhouse, a building that the White League was rightfully wary of taking by force. Three days later, federal troops arrived in New Orleans and the White League capitulated. As with the Lost Cause movement’s later reinterpretation of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the White League found a way to interpret their surrender to federal forces as a moral victory.

The monument was erected in 1891, at a time when the gains of reconstruction had been mostly crushed and white supremacists were in power and celebration. The plaque pictured above was added in 1934.

It was not until the 1970s that the city began a push to hide this ugly history, first with the addition of an explanatory plaque, and finally, via the city's first two Black mayors, attempts to take down the monument.

In 1981, Dutch Morial, the city’s first black mayor, ran into opposition in his attempt to have the monument taken down and instead had it surrounded by tall shrubs and the 1934 addition covered with a slab of granite. In 1989, street repairs and the construction of a shopping center forced the monument’s relocation to a storage facility, where many in city government hoped to keep it indefinitely. However, in 1991 a David Duke supporter grew impatient with the city’s lack of energy in seeing the monument reinstalled. Since federal funds had been used in the street improvements, the law stipulated that the historic monument be returned to a historically accurate location.

The 1991 struggle came at a time when New Orleans Mardi Gras was still officially segregated, before the city council voted to force all white Mardi Gras krewes to integrate. At least two krewes, Momus and Comus, chose to stop parading rather than integrate.

Today the monument stands at the corner of Iberville and Badine Street, just a block from Canal and North Peters. Although the words about white supremacy have been covered, the top of the statue still notes that it commemorates the names of members of the White League. The monument has frequently been the target of graffiti, most recently in 2012, when protestors against police violence spraypainted the names of Justin Sipp, Wendell Allen, and Trayvon Martin.

Mayor Landrieu recently said he "believes it is time to look at the symbols in this city to see if they still have relevance to our future." This Sunday, June 28, at 4:00pm, local activists have called for an action called white people against white supremacy (see link for location info). As cities across the US are re-examining their confederate histories, perhaps this monument will finally come down once and for all.

Colonialism, White Liberalism, and Palestine: A Conversation in Gaza with Dr. Haidar Eid

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Fri, 15 May 2015 00:54:00 +0000

Below are two short films based on conversations in Gaza in 2009 with professor Haidar Eid, a leader of the Palestinian movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. The interview was filmed by documentarian Lily Keber, edited by Marin Sander Holzman, with narration by Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah, music by journalist/organizer/musician Stefan Christoff, graphics by Jacob Flom, and directed by Jordan Flaherty. They were released this week on The Laura Flanders Show in commemoration of the 67th anniversary of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were displaced and hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated or destroyed.

The Laura Flanders Show is available in the US on LinkTV and some community access TV stations and internationally on the TeleSUR News Network and the TeleSUR English Network.

Boycott Divestment & Sanctions: An Interview in Gaza with Haidar Eid - Part One

White Liberals and Colonialism: Interview with Haidar Eid - Part Two

Three Correctional Officers at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola Sentenced for Abusing Inmate and Cover-Up

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 20:16:00 +0000

From a press release from the US Department of Justice

Three former correctional officers with the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, were sentenced today before United States District Judge James J. Brady for the Middle District of Louisiana for abusing an inmate and engaging in conduct to cover up the criminal conduct. Mark Sharp, 33, received 73 months. Kevin Groom, 47, was sentenced to one year probation and a $500 fine. Matthew Cody Butler, 29, received two years probation and a $3,000 fine.

According to court documents filed in connection with their guilty pleas, on January 24, 2010, defendants Groom, Sharp and Butler were on duty as correctional officials when they learned that an inmate had escaped from his assigned location. Shortly after the defendants joined the search for the escapee, the inmate surrendered to prison officials. The inmate was handcuffed behind his back and placed in the back of a pick-up truck to be transported to the medical unit. Groom, Butler, and Sharp escorted the inmate on the back of that truck. During the drive to the medical unit, Sharp repeatedly struck the inmate with an baton. During the ensuring investigation of the inmate’s complaint that officers had abused him, Groom and Butler engaged in various conduct to cover up the assault.

Sharp pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of the inmate and to making false statements to the FBI. Groom pleaded guilty to falsifying records in a federal investigation and making false statements to the FBI. Butler pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony.

Another former officer, Jason Giroir, also pleaded guilty on May 29, 2013, to falsifying a report and making a false statement to the FBI. He will be sentenced separately on January 29, 2015.

“The vast majority of American law enforcement officers conduct themselves with honor,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta for the Civil Rights Division. “But when law enforcement officers abuse inmates and attempt to cover-up their misconduct, the Department of Justice stands ready to hold those officers accountable for their conduct.”

“It is unfortunate that the defendants’ criminal activities threaten to overshadow the courageous and outstanding work performed every day by the vast majority of law enforcement officers, both inside and outside the penal system,” said U.S. Attorney J. Walter Green for the Middle District of Louisiana.

“This thorough and patient investigation not only resulted in the full accountability of all correctional officers involved, but also demonstrated unwavering adherence to the procedural rights of the victim and accused,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Anderson of the FBI’s New Orleans Office.

The investigation in this matter was conducted by Special Agent Taneka Harris of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney AeJean Cha and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert W. Piedrahita.

Black Lives Matter in the Best Films of 2014

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 18:32:00 +0000

More than 100 years after the birth of cinema, it sometimes feels like every story has been told. But the best films of 2014 dared to break out of their genres, explore new ways of filmmaking, and inspire viewers. Some of them even provided tools for popular understanding of our current political moment. This year, Selma, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, and Out In The Night all told stories of a criminal justice system harming Black communities, while Dear White People used satire to address racist power structures. Documentaries like The Great Invisible and Citizenfour attacked government and corporate malfeasance, science fiction films like Snowpiercer helped imagine future revolutions, and Pride delivered a lesson in movement solidarity.

Below are my top 14 films of the year. As always, many of them didn’t receive the distribution they deserved, but will no doubt live on as more audiences discover them online.

14 – Dear White People – After months of hype and viral videos, Dear White People had a lot of anticipation to live up to. While the film focused narrowly on life at an elite, mostly white, college, it managed to pull in a wider range of issues and themes. This fresh and original film served notice that writer/director Justin Simien, and his talented young cast, are rising talents to watch.

13 - Whiplash - Damien Chazelle’s Sundance award winner was a tense, brutal drama about a young man and his mentor/teacher. Or, as Barbara Herman called it, the “best homoerotic S&M film about jazz drumming you'll see this year.”

12 – Coherence – This film slipped under most critic’s radar, but filmmaker James Ward Byrkit’s debut about alternate realities is a smart and challenging low-budget sci-fi mind-bender. It’s the kind of film you want to watch again right after it ends, to keep unlocking its puzzles.

11 – The Babadook – Writer/director Jennifer Kent’s debut is the scariest movie I’ve seen in years. In a genre often dominated by male filmmakers and sexist tropes, Kent’s film is a breath of fresh air, and a truly terrifying balance of psychological and supernatural horror that keeps you in the dark, jumping at shadows.

10 – Edge of Tomorrow – It’s not often that a Hollywood blockbuster starring Tom Cruise makes my list, but Doug Liman, director of Bourne Identity and Go, among other films, is a filmmaker who knows how to make an old genre come alive. Edge of Tomorrow is a rare find; a smart and exciting Hollywood sci-fi thriller.

9 – The Great Invisible – So much has been written and filmed about the BP Drilling Disaster of 2010, that it’s shocking to find stories that haven’t been told. But filmmaker Margaret Brown (who also went behind the scenes of Mobile, Alabama’s racially segregated Mardi Gras in 2009’s The Order of Myths) has given this disaster the documentary it deserves, with stunning access to both families on the Gulf Coast, and to men with money and power who work within the oil industry.

8 – Snowpiercer – Reportedly, a clash between Korean director Bong Joon-ho and distributor Harvey Weinstein kept this stunning film from wide release. Snowpiercer is a thrilling allegory of class struggle in a dystopian future that puts The Hunger Games to shame.

7 – Tales of the Grim Sleeper – Before seeing this documentary, I’d never heard of the Grim Sleeper, an alleged serial killer arrested in South Central Los Angeles in 2010. This film presents a case that the race, gender and class of the victims meant the news media and police were not interested in stopping the killer. Over a period of more than two decades, scores of women, almost all of them Black street-based sex workers and/or drug users, were raped and killed while the police and media turned a blind eye. Veteran documentarian Nick Broomfield talks to a coalition of Black women activists in South Central LA who worked to pressure the police and media to pay attention. He also talks to women on the street who encountered (and narrowly escaped) the killer. One woman gave police a sketch of the man, and led officers to his block more than a decade before he was caught, but the LAPD apparently did nothing with the information. Other women Broomfield finds were afraid to even talk to the police. This film is a disturbing and difficult companion to the Black Lives Matter movement.

6 – Out in the Night – The Jersey Four, a group of young African American lesbians who were vilified in the media and aggressively prosecuted after they fought back against a hate crime, is an incredibly important story. And filmmaker blair dorosh-walther has created a powerful and urgent film that captures the lives and families of these young women, and shows a criminal justice system more interested in attacking them than protecting them. This film needs to be widely seen.

5 – Citizenfour – Filmmaker Laura Poitras was already making a film about (and had been a victim of) US government surveillance when Edward Snowden came to her. Long before this film came out, she had already made history by helping bring Snowden’s revelations to a worldwide audience. All this film needed to do to secure its place in history was to be a record of those revelations. But Poitras chose instead to make a film that takes the viewer inside a historical moment, making this not just important for what it tells, but also an example of bold and creative filmmaking.

4 – Selma – Ava DuVernay’s last film, Middle of Nowhere, made my 2012 best-of list with a moving story of families affected by the prison industrial complex. That it’s nearly unprecedented for a Black woman filmmaker to make a big budget Hollywood film shows how far we haven’t come, and this film gives a glimpse of what we’ve been missing. While Selma may not give enough weight to the grassroots activists of SNCC, and (despite the cries of some historians) may be too respectful to President Johnson, ultimately this is a powerful document of an important historical moment.

3 – Pride - If you like uplifting films about inter-movement solidarity and class struggle, this British crowd-pleaser from Matthew Warchus is perfect for you. A moving, funny, charming, film based on a true story of gay activists in the 80s that built an alliance with striking miners in Thatcher’s Britain.

2 – Boyhood – Enough has been written about Richard Linklater’s bold and wise film that there’s no reason to add my praise. But even without the concept of watching actors age over a period of twelve years, this film feels like the culmination of what Linklater has been building towards throughout a career that started with the formal experimentation of Slacker and continued to push against narrative boundaries from Waking Life to A Scanner Darkly, Before Sunrise, and Fast Food Nation.

1 – Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu announced himself as a talent to watch with his debut Amores Perros, but nothing in his career to date comes close to the triumph of this film. Behind the film’s play within a play storyline lies a filmmaking tour de force that succeeds on every technical level and leaves the viewer breathless, with no wasted moment or misstep.

Among other notable films this year: Concerning Violence feels more like a doctoral thesis than a movie, but if you are interested in the history of anti-colonial struggle in Africa, and want to see old footage of Amilcar Cabral and Thomas Sankara, and hear narration based on text by Frantz Fanon read by Lauryn Hill, then this film may be perfect for you. Jodorowski’s Dune, directed by Frank Pavich, documents a brilliant film that almost existed, but even without being made proved itself more influential than most films ever can hope for. Gareth Evan’s The Raid 2 (part one made my 2012 list) continued to beat all of Hollywood action films at their own game. Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler was as creepy as its name, and can be read as a blistering attack on both local TV news and capitalism. David Fincher’s Gone Girl was either built upon misogynist stereotypes, or a comment on stultifying roles of patriarchy. Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the Iranian feminist vampire film, is moody, clever and surprising.

Marcus Jones, Father of Jena Six Student, Killed in Truck Accident

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 02:24:00 +0000

Marcus Jones, father of Mychal Bell, one of the defendants in the Jena Six case, was killed yesterday in a highway accident, according to local news reports.

In 2007, six high school students became an international cause. Tens of thousands of people from around the US descended on Jena, a small town in northern Louisiana, to protest against racial injustice.

Six Black youth facing decades in prison over a school fight involving a white youth who had no serious injuries symbolized an unjust system in some of the same ways that today Ferguson Missouri has come to represent police abuses. The fight occurred not long after white students had left nooses under a tree in what was seen as a warning to Black students. Mychal Bell was the first (and, ultimately, only) of the six youth to face trial, he was convicted and spent nearly ten months in prison before his sentence was overturned.

Marcus Jones was a dedicated, passionate, and outspoken advocate and activist for his son and the other young men, appearing frequently on radio and TV and speaking frankly about racial dimensions of the case, calling the charges a "modern day lynching."

According to a report today in the Jena Town Talk:

A Jena man helping a friend move some wooden pallets died Saturday afternoon on La. Highway 8, according to Louisiana State Police. Marcus W. Jones, 43, died in the incident, although troopers aren't sure exactly how yet. Around 5:41 p.m., troopers responded to a crash on La. 8 after a 2007 Chevrolet pickup truck, driven by 22-year-old Brittany N. Walker of Jena, struck Jones, who was lying in the eastbound lane. Walker tried to avoid hitting Jones, who was wearing a black jacket and black pants, reads the release. A friend of Jones' arrived at the scene, telling troopers that Jones had been helping him move wooden pallets. Jones had been standing in the bed of the friend's pickup truck, holding down the pallets, according to the release. The friend said that, when he arrived at his destination, Jones no longer was in the truck. The friend had been retracing his path, searching for Jones, when he came upon the scene.

In the years since the case, the six young men who had been facing life in prison went on to various colleges, including Grambling State, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Southern University, and Hofstra. One of the youth went on to work for Southern Poverty Law Center. Mychal Bell just graduated from Southern University, days before his father's death.

Photos by Jordan Flaherty.

Gulf Coast Communities Join People's Climate March

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 22:24:00 +0000

From our friends at Advocates For Environmental Human Rights:

Groups to Urge a Southern Initiative on Climate Change at People’s Climate March and Summit

From Texas to Maryland, a delegation of students and professors of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), environmental and social justice advocates, leaders of faith-based organizations, and survivors of Hurricane Katrina will join the People’s Climate March and Summit in New York, which precedes the United Nations Climate Summit.

“The painful experiences of Hurricane Katrina compel us to change our thinking that a climate treaty will save the day,” said Dr. Beverly Wright, Executive Director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University. She was displaced for two years from her home and predominantly Africa American neighborhood in New Orleans, which were under eight feet of water during Katrina. “We need a southern initiative on climate change that supports the people who are most vulnerable to hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, and tornadoes and most likely to suffer from racial, social, and economic inequities which set back our ability to be climate resilient,” she said.

Although some of the loudest voices denying climate change in the US Congress and Senate come from southern states, the delegation points to the critical role that the South has in climate change. Much of the fossil fuel energy produced in the United States come at the expense of communities in the South, where there is significant air and water pollution and coastal erosion. In both scale and magnitude, climate-related disasters in the South outnumber those in other regions of the country. In addition, the largest number of people who are less likely to rebound from a climate-related disaster as a result of social and economic disadvantages live in the South.

“A southern initiative is critical to the United States making and keeping a commitment on climate change,” said Dr. Robert Bullard, Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Policy at Texas Southern University in Houston. “The work of people, organizations, and institutions represented in this delegation is about climate action as part of the long fight for human rights and civil rights to bring about racial, gender, environmental, economic, and social justice in this country,” he said.

Members of the delegation have organized teach-ins at Empire State College on Saturday, September 20. The first teach-in focuses on how HBCUs can support communities in being climate resilient and effective advocates for transforming environmental and economic policies. This teach-in is followed by a workshop on the actions being taken by organizations in the south to sustain communities and ecosystems. The delegation will be near the front of the People’s Climate March on Sunday, September 21, where organizers have reserved space for marchers who hail from communities on the frontlines of climate change.

“The People’s Climate March and Summit are about our human rights and how we want to live free from the control that the oil, gas, and coal industries currently have over our laws and economy,” said Monique Harden, who co-directs Advocates for Environmental Human Rights in New Orleans. “This is a critical time as our coastal cities in the South are projected to be under water if we don’t take control,” she said.

Protest Against Police Violence Takes Over French Quarter Police Station

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 02:39:00 +0000

On Thursday, August 14, New Orleans activists held a moment of silence in solidarity with protests in Ferguson, Missouri, at 6:00pm in Lafayette Square. After the silent vigil, hundreds of attendees initiated a spontaneous protest march.

The march grew as it went, as people spontaneously joined and at least 400 people protested in the French Quarter, pausing across from Jackson Square, where speakers included a cousin of Mike Brown, the young man killed by police in Ferguson.

The march then traveled to the NOPD 8th District station, where at least 200 activists occupied the police station and spoke against law enforcement violence.

While news of the takeover of a police station spread across the US on social media, the local media for the most part failed to cover the protests, just as they had ignored the 600 people marching for justice in Palestine two weeks before. This media silence is part of a long history of New Orleans white media companies ignoring struggles led by people of color.

Photos by Abdul Aziz. Videos by Foster Bear Films, So-Called Media, and Jordan Flaherty.

Hundreds in New Orleans Protest Against Israeli War Crimes

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 03:00:00 +0000

At least 600 New Orleanians joined in a protest in support of justice for Palestine. The event, called #AStreetcarNamedGaza, began at the New Orleans streetcar stop at the Carrolton and Canal Street. As nearly five streetcars were filled with activists, organizers made connections between the civil rights history of New Orleans, which involved desegregating the streetcars, and the current fight for human rights in Palestine.

As protestors got off the streetcars at Canal Street and Decatur, they were joined by hundreds more protestors and marched through the French Quarter, ending at Frenchmen Street. The Palestinian community in New Orleans has a long history of standing up for justice.

A Street Car Named Gaza from Alaa Esmail on Vimeo.

Photo by Mohan Ambikaipaker. Video by Alaa Esmail.

Louisiana State Representative Austin Badon Announces He Wants to Engage in Sex Trafficking

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 04:34:00 +0000

Louisiana state representative Austin Badon (a Democrat representing New Orleans East) is the sponsor of House Bill 1158, which he says was written at the direction of local law enforcement, to further penalize solicitation, whether it is panhandling, prostitution, or hitchhiking. According to an article on nola.com, Badon said that police "needed something to be able to stop (prostitutes), question them and find out what they're doing."

The proposed law has already received national attention for the mean-spirited way it targets the poorest people in our communities. The website ThinkProgress noted:

The bill’s author, State Rep. Austin Badon (D), told Post TV that he hoped that banning begging will somehow lead to fewer poor people on the streets. He doubted that many were in actual need, saying, “they’re paying their cell phone bills, they’re paying their computer bills. It’s a racket.” Badon is echoing a familiar trope — that panhandlers are living large from others’ charity. But it’s not based on any actual research. In fact, a major study of panhandlers in San Francisco last year found just the opposite: the vast majority make $25 a day ($9,125 per year) or less. That meager income is largely used to eat. Nearly every beggar — 94 percent — said they used the money they receive for food; less than half used it for drugs or alcohol.

But giving police new tools to harass the poor and desperate is just one aspect of the bill. According to nola.com, Badon also bragged that his bill would allow for sex workers to be "hassled by the cops," forcing them to move to another place or another state.

This statement by Badon that he seeks to force women to cross state lines should cause concern for many reasons. One definition of trafficking is forcing someone to cross state lines to engage in prostitution. From his statement, it seems this is Badon's intention - and that he intends to use the force of the state of Louisiana to back up his scheme.

This is not the first time police have been used to force sex workers to cross state lines. In a famous case in Washington, D.C. in 1989, police rounded up sex workers and forced them to march to the Virginia state line, until a couple of Washington Post reporters spotted them, at which point the police ran off.

A 2008 report called Move Along: Policing Sex Work in Washington, D.C. highlighted the way in which policies like "prostitution free zones" end up harming those already at the margins, and "pose serious threats to health and safety of community members identified or otherwise targeted as sex workers." Louisiana has already become notorious for targeting and harassing sex workers by making them register as sex offenders (a practice that finally ended last year), conducting mass arrests, and increasing criminal penalties.

It seems Rep. Badon has declared this to be "attack and dehumanize women week." He also has been pushing a bill, HB 1274 that, according to one recent article:

Would allow the state to prohibit a family from ending medical treatment for a comatose or incapacitated pregnant woman. Badon's bill would bar the removal of a pregnant woman from life support if the obstetrician examining her “determines that the pregnant woman's life can reasonably be maintained in such a way as to permit the continuing development and live birth of the unborn child.” If it becomes law, this bill would mandate that a brain-dead pregnant woman remain on life support for the rest of her pregnancy, regardless of her family’s wishes or how far along the pregnancy is. This could mean up to 40 weeks of a loved one remaining on life support.

We hope Badon and the Louisiana legislature will reconsider their plan to make life worse for those already living on the edge.

Protests This Week Show Dissent on New Orleans Criminal Justice System

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 04:56:00 +0000

Two upcoming protest marches have revealed divisions among New Orleanians in their views of police and the criminal justice system. Organizers of an LGBT March and Rally Against Hate and Violence, scheduled for this Wednesday at 8:00pm, and Slutwalk New Orleans, scheduled for this Saturday at 10:30am, have both advertised and embraced a police presence as part of their events, bringing criticism from other activists.

The facebook description of the LGBT March announces that the New Orleans police "will be there to escort us and protect us." The full description reads:

Please join us for a rally and a march to show the presence of the LGBT community in the French Quarter. As I am sure many of you know, there have been several recent anti-gay hate crimes in New Orleans and especially in the French Quarter and the Marigny. There have been many robberies as well. It is time that we start to show our connection to our community. We need people to see that we are united in our commitment to each other. We need them to know that if someone in our community has been victimized that we are there to support each other, either by getting people to report crimes that have been committed or by helping them to report the crimes if they feel that cannot do it on their own. During this march, the NOPD will be there to escort us and protect us. This is a great opportunity to get to know your local police. I encourage signage and your presence to show that we can be united and that it is the responsibility of us all to overcome these crimes in our neighborhood. So please join us on a walk through the French Quarter starting at the entrance to Armstrong Park at the corner of N. Rampart and St Ann.

In response, activists - including members of New Orleans Black & Pink, Critical Resistance, and other local organizations - have organized a rally with a more critical view of the police. They have released a statement that notes the harm done by law enforcement.

Our home is the incarceration capital of the world. One in 86 adult Louisiana residents is in prison. Approximately 5,000 African-American men from New Orleans are in state prisons, compared to 400 white men. Our city jail, Orleans Parish Prison, is a site of rape and violence that a Human Rights Watch report called "a nightmare" for LGBTQ individuals. Incarceration has not made us safer as a community— and in fact does not deter crime. When our community members are locked away, it tears at the social fabric that holds our community together. Children grow up without parents at home, lovers long for their partners, and groups miss their members.

These activists have organized an alternate march and rally, called the LGBTQ March and Rally For Safety In Solidarity, aimed at presenting a different path towards community safety.

Supporting each other in the face of violence does not have to take the form of reporting to police. Community safety comes from solidarity and liberation. It comes from ensuring that all people have access to basic necessities such as food, shelter, employment, and education. We hope that through dialogue we can address concerns of all members of our community and arrive at empowering solutions together.

This division in the LGBTQ community is not new. Writing in the book Captive Genders, Morgan Bassichis, Alexander Lee and Dean Spade discussed the participants in the Stonewall Rebellion, who rioted against police:

Could these groundbreaking and often unsung activists have imagined that only forty years later the "official" gay rights agenda would be largely pro-police, pro-prisons, and pro-war - exactly the forces they worked so hard to resist? Just a few decades later, the most visible and well-funded arms of the "LGBT movement" look much more like a corporate strategizing session than a grassroots social justice movement. There are countless examples of this dramatic shift in priorities. What emerged as a fight against racist, anti-poor, and anti-queer police violence now works hand in hand with local and federal law enforcement agencies, district attorneys are asked to speak at trans rallies, cops march in Gay Pride parades. The agendas of prosecutors - those who lock up our family, friends, and lovers - and many queer and trans organizations are becoming increasingly similar, with sentence- and police-enhancing legislation at the top of the priority list. Hate crimes legislation is tacked onto multi-billion dollar "defense" bills to support US military domination in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Despite the rhetoric of an"LGBT community," transgender and gender-non-conforming people are repeatedly abandoned and marginalized in the agendas and priorities of our "lead" organizations.

Saturday's "Slutwalk"is part of an international movement against rape culture. The movement began in Toronto, in response to statements from police officers that placed blame on women, and their their outfits or behavior, for being raped. Despite its goals and history, the movement has often been criticized for using language that excludes women of color. Shortly after the movement began, Canadian organizer Harsha Walia wrote this analysis:

Slutwalk runs the risk of facilitating the dominant discourse of ‘liberated’ women as only those women wearing mini-skirts and high heels in/on their way to professional jobs. In reality, capitalism mediates the feminist façade of choice by creating an entire industry that commodifies women’s sexuality and links a woman’s self-esteem and self-worth to fashion and beauty. Slutwalk itself consistently refuses any connection to feminism and fixates solely around liberal questions of individual choice – the palatable “I can wear what I want” feminism that is intentionally devoid of an analysis of power dynamics.

The history of Slutwalk as a mostly white movement that excludes women of color is also highlighted by the timing and location of this year's march and rally. The rally begins at Congo Square at 10:30am. At the same place and time, an annual event called the Celebration of the African American Child is scheduled for the park, while just a few blocks away and a half hour earlier is an immigrants' rights march, sponsored by the New Orleans Congress Of Day Laborers.

On March 27, the organizer of New Orleans Slutwalk announced that law enforcement would be part of the event.

I am so super, special, extra excited to announce that representatives from several departments of the ‪#‎NOPD‬, and quite possibly other law enforcement agencies, will be joining us prior to the walk to discuss crime prevention and victims assistance in New Orleans!!!! For those of you who know the history of the SlutWalk movement...this is HUGE! HUGE!!!!!

While no counter protest has been planned for Slutwalk, this announcement brought responses similar to those expressed by critics of the LGBT march and rally. One commentator wrote, "the presence of the NOPD is offensive, threatening and problematic... Feminist politics without a racial/class analysis is not in fact feminist." The NOPD has been criticized in the past year for statements that blame women for sexual assault, and NOPD officers have frequently been charged with committing sexual assaults.

In response to online criticism, the Slutwalk organizer wrote:

I don't need to be "schooled" on feminism or why some might be offended or disturbed by the presence of law enforcement. I am well aware of the distressing behavior and actions of many within the NOPD and other agencies in this city. What I DO know is that as SlutWalk started because law enforcement failed the community, establishing dialogue with the police in this city is a starting point. Do I expect their presence to magically do away with racism, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, or any other issues we have with law enforcement? No. But I do know that without dialogue, none of those issues will ever be addressed.

Solidifying the links between these marches, today the organizer of the Slutwalk march posted a facebook invitation to the LGBT March and Rally Against Hate and Violence.

The conflicts revealed in these demonstrations are not new, but in the context of gentrification and displacement, a culture of police violence and an out of control city jail, they come at a time in our city when these issues evoke particular pain and passion. Organizers of the LGBTQ March and Rally For Safety In Solidarity do not see themselves as protesting the other march, but rather "calling in," to build a safer community without the devastating effects of the prison industrial complex.

Statement From LGBTQ March and Rally For Safety In Solidarity

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 04:51:00 +0000

For more information on the reasons for this statement, see this link.

As members of the LGBTQ community in New Orleans, we support the safety and well-being of our community and of all New Orleanians. We believe that increased police presence and the continuing expansion of the prison-industrial complex is not the way to make our community safer.

The LGBT March and Rally Against Violence to be held Wednesday, April 2 calls for strategies that put our community members at more risk, not less. From Compton's Cafeteria riots and the Stonewall Rebellion in the 1960s to the work of contemporary groups such as INCITE!: Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans People of Color* Against Violence, Critical Resistance, Women with a Vision, BreakOUT!, and Black & Pink, LGBTQ people have taken stands against police violence and harassment. Increasing police involvement in our community threatens the safety of many of us.

We ask that the goals of your march be changed to call for real safety for all of us through solidarity, rather than false solutions of policing and jails. We are also calling for dialogue with the march organizers and the wider LGBTQ community.

Policing, surveillance, and imprisonment target specific groups of people: people of color, transgender, genderqueer and gender-nonconforming people, street youth, and sex workers. The state of Louisiana still has a "Crime Against Nature" law on the books, and this law is used against the LGBTQ community, including in Baton Rouge where police were found to be using this law to target gay men. In New Orleans, 82 people have been charged with "Solicitation of a Crime Against Nature" in the last two years, resulting in a felony conviction with required sex offender registration. This law, which unjustly criminalized in large numbers low-income Black women and transgender women of color, was challenged by Women With a Vision and the Center for Constitutional Rights, who won a victory in 2012 that removed approximately 700 individuals from the sex-offender registry.

A 2010 study published in the journal Pediatrics found that in our schools, LGBTQ youth are more likely to be suspended, arrested and imprisoned. The report published by the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, Locked Up & Out: LGBTQ Youth and Louisiana’s Juvenile Justice System, shares the stories of what happened to many of these young people in Louisiana.

A 2012 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that transgender individuals experience three times as much police violence as non-transgender individuals, and those numbers are even higher for transgender people of color. In New Orleans, organizations such as BreakOUT! and Women With A Vision have documented patterns of discrimination from the NOPD against the LGBTQ community, including rampant police profiling and threats of using condoms as evidence of prostitution, especially against transgender women of color.

Here in New Orleans, the US Department of Justice found that the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has discriminatory practices against the LGBTQ community and specifically addressed these issues in the Federal Consent Decree. This followed organizing by LGBTQ youth of BreakOUT! in their campaign, “We Deserve Better.” The campaign also resulted in the adoption of Policy 402 on the 44th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which prohibits the profiling of people on the basis of gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. These victories only came after years of grassroots organizing by LGBTQ youth, and yet with continued police harassment, much more remains to be done.

Our home is the incarceration capital of the world. One in 86 adult Louisiana residents is in prison. Approximately 5,000 African-American men from New Orleans are in state prisons, compared to 400 white men. Our city jail, Orleans Parish Prison, is a site of rape and violence that a Human Rights Watch report called "a nightmare" for LGBTQ individuals. Incarceration has not made us safer as a community— and in fact does not deter crime. When our community members are locked away, it tears at the social fabric that holds our community together. Children grow up without parents at home, lovers long for their partners, and groups miss their members.

Policing and incarceration is also a tool of gentrification and displacement, adding to a hostile environment for working class African-American residents still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. We can look to the examples of the controversies in Chicago's Boys Town neighborhood and New York City's West Village. In Boys Town, perceived increase in violence led to white gay men calling for more police patrols, and in doing so the LGBTQ youth of color who hung out near the community center in the neighborhood were unfairly targeted by the increased police. That effort did not support the unity of the LGBTQ community. A similar situation evolved in the West Village in New York City, where residents, many of whom were white, affluent gay men, responding to incidents of violence, pushed for Quality of Life policies. FIERCE, an LGBTQ youth of color organization, has campaigned against these policies, stating: "To this day, LGBTQ youth who go to the pier have reported sharp increases in police harassment, false arrest and racial and gender profiling - usually for just being in the neighborhood...This emphasis on policing drew massive resources from other social services and education that have the potential to actually address poverty and safety. In fact, under Giuliani and continuing through the years of the Bloomberg administration, the only 'public service' that increased funding was 'criminal justice.'"

Here in New Orleans, we've already begun to see the impact of massive gentrification projects on low-income LGBTQ communities of color. The targeting of transgender women on Tulane Avenue by the NOPD continues to put some of our city's most vulnerable populations at even greater risk for violence and danger. For many LGBTQ communities of color, increased policing and increased use of surveillance equipment means increased risk of harm.

Supporting each other in the face of violence does not have to take the form of reporting to police. Community safety comes from solidarity and liberation. It comes from ensuring that all people have access to basic necessities such as food, shelter, employment, and education. We hope that through dialogue we can address concerns of all members of our community and arrive at empowering solutions together.

Signed:

BreakOUT!

Women With A Vision

Critical Resistance - New Orleans

Black & Pink - New Orleans

Safe Streets Strong Communities

Equality Louisiana

Trystereo - New Orleans Harm Reduction Network

Louisiana Trans Advocates

European Dissent

Queerspiracy
Occupy NOLA

Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition Blocks Jail Entrance - Calls For Urgent Action in Response to Jail Conditions

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 19:00:00 +0000

From a press release from the Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition:

Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition (OPPRC) members and supporters gathered today at 10:00am at the intersection of Tulane & Broad, and marched to the Intake & Processing Center at 730 S. Dupre St. where they partially blocked the jail entrance and called for a moratorium on admissions to a facility where conditions continue to be inhuman, unconstitutional and life-threatening.

OPPRC suggests that the City needs to find other alternatives rather than continuing to house people in an “unsafe and violent jail” and called for urgent steps to be taken in an open letter to Susan Guidry and other members of the City Council's Criminal Justice Committee released on March 13, 2014. In the letter, OPPRC asserts that “We cannot simply continue to expose individuals who are in custody or individuals who work at the jail to these extremely dangerous conditions.” Within ten days of the letter's release another individual died in custody following a fight between prisoners in the jail's temporary housing unit known as "the tents."

OPPRC claims that the consent decree has not resulted in significant improvement in the conditions in the jail, citing the first report of the federal monitoring team which found that inmates in OPP “continue to experience severe problems with shoddy medical care, violence and a general attitude of apathy toward their grievances.”

OPPRC also is renewing its call for Mayor Landrieu to declare the jail to be in a state of emergency, thus triggering the release of persons held for minor, non-violent crimes. “Many of the people currently in OPP pose zero risk to public safety- as evidenced by the fact that they would simply be released under hurricane evacuation conditions. Instead, they are held in OPP, on taxpayer’s money, where they are in danger of being beaten, raped, stabbed, or possibly even killed in the jail,” said Yvette Thierry. “We cannot in good conscience hold people subject to this dehumanizing violence. The City is responsible for their safety. The Mayor has the responsibility to stop this bloodshed.”

There have been 25 in-custody deaths in OPP since 2009, and up to 73 inmates a month are sent to the emergency room.

Workers Protest Dangerous Conditions at Iberville Redevlopment

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:30:00 +0000

Today, dozens of people joined in support of workers at the construction site at the former Iberville public housing development. Two workers from the site spoke of unsafe conditions and low pay at the site.

From The New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice:

Durr Construction has not cared enough about New Orleans to ensure that Choice Neighborhood Initiative workers have the proper equipment to decontaminate themselves from lead, asbestos, and mold before getting on public transit and returning to their families. Workers are not even paid a living wage.

Two brave Choice Neighborhood Initiative workers stood up to report serious heath and safety hazards to the community and to the City of New Orleans. Upon delivering the details of their complaint to the community a delegation of community members marched to Aimee Quirk’s office to deliver a detailed complaint to Aimee Quirk, the Director of the Office of Economic Development for the City of New Orleans. She accepted the letter in person but still has not responded to the explicit request to schedule a meeting with the worker complainants, Stand with Dignity, and Durr Heavy Construction to resolve health and safety violations and full and fair employment standards.

Patrick and Junior are standing up to demand a better deal for New Orleans- they are putting their family’s livelihood on the line to make sure that New Orleans has better opportunities. They need your help to win a better deal for New Orleans, and a better deal for our community’s safety.

"I am a walking hazard - they don't even have a decontamination area to remove the asbestos, lead, and mold I encounter every day. My health and the health of my family is worth far more than $12.75 per hour." - Patrick Delaney, Choice Neighborhood asbestos abatement worker.

"It took me over a year to get this job but the only protection that they provide me is a paper dust mask - even though I encounter mold, lead and asbestos on a daily basis. And for all of these risks I am only paid $10 per hour - and so far only work 32 hours per week - $1,000 per month barely keeps the lights on." - Reginald Junior, Choice Neighborhood demolition worker.

A Response From The Glambeaux

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 01:05:00 +0000

The letter below is a response to the commentary by Gianna Chachere, Glambeaux: Taking Cultural Appropriation Too Far, published yesterday on this blog.

Gianna,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with the online community. Many of the Glambeaux forwarded me your article, and I feel very strongly that this issue is an opportunity for dialogue and I am glad to address it. I hear your statements and see your perspective. I know that it's impossible to divorce the historical implications from the physical act of just carrying a torch in a parade, and I am aware that there are people in the community who are hurt. I'd like to respond with two ideas, because it appears that there are two issues at stake: whether the tradition should still exist at all because of the nature of its origins, and whether or not any new group of people should be allowed to participate in the tradition. Some of these thoughts have already been expressed in an open letter on the Glambeaux Facebook page, but I’m expanding upon those ideas here.

To address the first issue, I do think that this is an opportunity to question what has evolved over time since the origin of the flambeaux and ask why the tradition still exists. I think that it's possible to reconcile the flambeaux's exploitative origins when we consider the fact that some of the veteran flambeaux carriers today are proud of what they do, have been doing it for years, and sometimes have had family members that have been in the parades for generations. Some of them have made a deliberate choice to view the torch bearing as an art and a skill of which they are proud, and I think they are entitled to own their own story. At times, an exploited group of people can take ownership of something by changing their perspective about it and thus changing the intent and meaning behind their actions. In the case of the flambeaux, this new ownership has been made possible because the context of the march and Mardi Gras has changed; the torches are no longer viewed as a menial labor and are now a form of entertainment, and Mardi Gras is now inclusive of everyone.

Since it is an undeniable fact that some of the traditional flambeaux regard their participation in the parades with pride, we want to pay respect to those men and their perspective. It is because of this respect that we have made some purposeful choices from the beginning to honor the traditional flambeaux. The Glambeaux are only marching in one all-female parade, and Muses is still retaining the traditional flambeaux in the parade as well. Muses has also chosen to place the traditional flambeaux ahead of us in the parade line-up because we understand that they came first and we want to honor that.

The women in my group have not taken on this job lightly. We have been training for this march for two months, because we do understand that it’s a responsibility as well as a privilege. We have been introduced as a group to four traditional flambeaux carriers who spent some time teaching us some of their signature moves and giving us safety tips. At the end of our meeting we applauded these men and they applauded us back. The spirit of the meeting was one of mutual admiration, respect, and collaboration.

When I had the idea to form this group, I did a lot of research on the history of the flambeaux. I was prepared that this conversation about cultural appropriation and entitlement was going to happen and I am glad to participate in the dialogue. What I hoped people would see, though, is that the conversation I wanted to have first was about how a group of women taking on this task, regardless of their race, makes people uncomfortable. I wanted to open the conversation with a discussion about female empowerment as the lens through which to view the other elements of the issue.

We have encountered some very serious resistance from older New Orleanians about the idea that we, as women, are physically unable to carry the torches. We have also been told that we are going to be more of a danger than the men are. Maybe it will come as a surprise to some that we are encountering this kind of gender discrimination. I wonder if some New Orleanians' perspectives are going to be dramatically shifted when they look at this group of women flambeaux and for the first time are forced to confront the question of why our community still expects to see only African American men in the role when virtually every other aspect of Mardi Gras has been integrated. If the problem is that the role of the flambeaux reminds us of an uglier period in history, then shouldn't we want to revise the tradition to reflect the standards of society today? When an old white woman tells me I can't carry the torch, is she saying that because she's used to seeing a black man stooping over to pick a coin up off the ground? If that's the case, then I am more than happy to challenge that person's view of the world. I want a person like that to see me on the parade route and feel uncomfortable and realize that there is institutionalized racism still happening in our city. In this respect, I hope you will agree that what we're doing has the potential to be a catalyst for positive change and greater awareness, and that a statement about feminism can be used as a tool to shed light on other issues in a helpful way.

Cultural appropriation is an emotional topic. I do understand where people are coming from, because I see what their fears are and fear is a powerful emotion. They fear that they will be forgotten or not given the credit that they are due. They fear that we are mocking their history or being disrespectful. They fear that we are new kids in town who don't understand New Orleans. On that note, I’d like to take the opportunity to broadcast a more accurate picture of who the women are in this group.

We are made up of social workers, dedicated social justice activists, professionals, artists, creators, healers, mothers, teachers, volunteers, and strong leaders in our chosen careers and our community. We all care deeply about this city and our place here. Some of the Glambeaux are native New Orleanians, and many of us, myself included, have lived here for many years and consider this to be our chosen home. We are friends with our neighbors, we dance at second lines, we open our homes during festivals, and we volunteer our time for causes that are dear to our hearts. We are not a group of hipsters taking something out of its cultural context, nor are we trying to be ironic.

Mardi Gras traditions have evolved and changed a lot over time, the way that all things in life are wont to do. Our statement is about feminism, though I do realize that it cannot be divorced from the cultural, racial, and class issues that are wrapped up in the history of flambeaux as well. That's why there has been some pushback. Change is hard, but it can be less hurtful if there is a respectful dialogue. We know that we are coming from a place of love and female empowerment. Some members of the community may need some time to understand that. Some of them may never understand it.

The flambeaux have existed for over 150 years and are part of the complex cultural legacy of New Orleans. I think the question that's really on the table is how can we, as a community, come to a consensus about going forward with a perspective that is just and inclusive for everyone? In an ideal world, where real healing can happen, we can acknowledge and respect the gravity of the past, mourn for the wrong that has been done, and then make some decisions about how to work on our issues together to determine how we want to feel in the future. At the end of the day, I think it’s important to remember that the spirit of Mardi Gras today is about celebration, joy, and togetherness in the community. There is room for everyone in the Mardi Gras tradition. Let's not forget that historically, Mardi Gras itself came to us from another culture, and our expressions of Carnival in New Orleans are different than the ways it's celebrated in other parts of the world. Mardi Gras, by design, is a living and breathing phenomenon that incorporates and absorbs new twists on old traditions every year.

Thank you again for your letter. I hope that even if you cannot agree with my position that at least you may be able to see that our group takes this issue very seriously and endeavors to treat it with the consideration it deserves.

Respectfully,

Dani Johnson
Founder of the Glambeaux

Photo by Bart Everson, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Rest In Power, Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, 1947 - 2014

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:52:00 +0000

Chokwe Lumumba, a leader of the Republic of New Afrika and recently elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, has died.

Mayor Lumumba was a lifetime civil rights activist, and active in post-Katrina struggles in New Orleans, through the People's Hurricane Relief Fund. As a human rights lawyer, he represented many high-profile clients, including both Assata Shakur and Tupac Shakur. Although only mayor for about a year, he had excited progressives around the world, as an unapologetic revolutionary elected to a capital city in the US south. Below is an Al Jazeera news profile of Mayor Lumumba from shortly after his election.

Chokwe Lumumba from Jazeera Clips on Vimeo.

Below are edited excerpts from Mayor Lumumba's campaign website:

Chokwe Lumumba, Esq. was born August 2, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Lumumba later finished 1st in his Law School freshman class before graduating cum laude from Wayne State University Law School.

Since 1968 Chokwe Lumumba crisscrossed the globe fighting for “Human Rights for Human Beings.” Lumumba is known for his work in support of the survivors of Katrina, by serving on the Board of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, by organizing other activists to form the Mississippi Disaster Relief Coalition, and by co-organizing the Gulf Coast Survivors Assembly.

Mayor Lumumba’s work as a community activist has spanned over four decades. He worked with organizations such as Jackson Human Rights Coalition to help pressure the State to retry the person who murdered Medgar Evers. He worked for over 20 years organizing, directing, coaching, and mentoring youth through programs such as the Jackson Panthers Basketball Organization. Lumumba was also a co-founder and member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Mayor Lumumba was a nationally renowned attorney, who represented clients in over 16 jurisdictions, including Canada and the Choctaw Court. He worked in high profile cases such as the representation of the late Tupac Shakur. He helped win the release of the Scott Sisters in 2011 who had served 16 years of double life prison sentences for an $11.00 (eleven-dollar) robbery which they did not commit. He successfully represented Lance Parker who was falsely accused of assault during the 1992 LA uprising which followed the brutal beating of Rodney King.

Chokwe Lumumba was a devoted husband and father. His wife Nubia A. Lumumba passed away in 2003. Chokwe leaves behind three children - Kambon Mutope, Rukia Kai and Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

We send our love to his family and to the people of Jackson.

Glambeaux: Taking Cultural Appropriation Too Far, by Gianna Chachere

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 04:46:00 +0000

Every day New Orleans is faced with crime, racist activity and the never-ending gentrification debate. But there is something about Glambeaux, the new all-female flambeaux troupe marching in Thursday’s Muses parade, that forces me to speak. I’ve had enough with the appropriation of my culture/home by those desperate to be seen, to be hip, and be ironic.

The cultural appropriation of New Orleans has a very long pre- Katrina history but it has accelerated quickly in the last few years. After the storm, the acculturation by the “New” New Orleanians has zigzagged its way into every facet of New Orleans culture and identity. “Natives” and "Non-Natives” alike, desperate to revive the economy and speed recovery, have relied on the city’s unique cultural life to bring the city back from the brink of extinction. For example, Mayor Mitch Landrieu invited Mardi Gras Indians and the Rebirth Brass Band to perform at his inauguration.

What’s clear and disturbing is that this cultural appropriation won't end anytime soon and that the damage caused seeps into every aspect of daily life. The city’s cultural landscape is saturated with new incarnations of rituals and events that have morphed into meaningless trends, giving them a significance that is completely different and less nuanced than its original intent. In particular, the traditions that originated and existed in the African-American community are suddenly receiving praise and attention - but not for its originators.

This occurs at a time when the city continues to enforce restrictions on cultural activity in African American communities while neglecting to bring social and economic progress to all the city’s citizens. New Orleans has long been a patchwork of different cities, each new wave of immigration attached on top of the still visible last, incorporating the intricacies of local traditions and culture. Within these neighborhoods, there existed invisible boundaries and a general respect for the traditions/culture held within. New Orleans has always resisted a “curated” urban space representing a single-minded expression. That resistance has allowed the city to flourish and entice new comers with a unique cultural landscape. Far from suggesting that we resist new traditions and rituals, I ask those engaged in these new trends to consider the history behind these traditions/rituals and understand that using someone else’s cultural symbols to satisfy one’s own personal need for self-expression is a selfish exercise in privilege and entitlement.

Have the Glambeaux krewe done any basic research on the history of the flambeaux? After a 30-second search on the Internet, I found the following: ”The original flambeau carriers were slaves of the wealthy that organized the parades. After the abolition of slavery, the carriers continued to be all African-Americans and it is only until very recently (and still very rarely) that other races participate in the tradition. For their work, carriers are paid a small fee by the parading krewe but the bulk of the money made from the evening comes in the form of coins or dollars thrown from the crowd. Twirling and general clowning are expected from the carriers, which brings more money raining down.”

Of course the Glambeaux have a right to do whatever they choose to do. Many argue that the Mardi Gras’ motto of “do what ya wanna” allows total artistic expression to exist and flourish but I feel that there should be recognition of what came before and an acknowledgement of those who created these traditions. And why would you want to glamorize something rooted so deeply in desperation and racism?

As a very young girl in the 1970’s, watching the flambeau made me feel uncomfortable. Neglecting to consider the history behind this tradition is insensitive and disrespectful. I don’t think we should uphold the flambeau tradition as something sacred. In fact, it should be abolished as a demeaning and sad part of American history.

The recent proliferation of young white folks who wear skull and bones costumes or better known as “skeleton gangs” that roam the streets of New Orleans on Mardi Gras is another example. Wearing a skull and bones costume is an “experience” for a white person to enjoy for a short time and discard later without a consideration for the history behind the mask. There should be some element of mutual understanding, equality, and respect for it to be a true cultural exchange – otherwise it is just taking. The Glambeaux krewe doesn’t wear their gear in a vacuum and there are many social and historical implications to treating this tradition merely as costumes. African Americans created their own Mardi Gras traditions because they were in effect shut out of white Catholic and Protestant celebrations (with the exception of Flambeau carrying).

Costuming for Mardi Gras Indians and skeleton gangs historically derived from a deep desire to perform and contribute and has never been a profit making entity. In fact, the tradition has continued due to the economic sacrifice of those involved, which appears to be lost on those currently mimicking the tradition.

As a tenth-generation New Orleanian, I am also a “New” New Orleanian. I moved back to the city after 16 years, purchased a home and look forward to enjoying my community of family and friends. What angers me is that through conversation, I realize my family’s personal history, historical knowledge and childhood memories, are registered as irrelevant to those intent on ignoring and disrespecting the social and historical complexity of this city. At 2013 Super Sunday, I saw a young man walk backward while furiously taking photos of Mardi Gras Indians. His “documenting” blocked the Indians’ ability to walk forward and impeded others from enjoying the spectacle. When I mentioned to the young man that he was obstructing everyone there to enjoy the day, he said, “don’t be a hater” and “mind my own business.” Respect, understanding and general good manners ARE my business and should be the business of everyone in the community. I’m fed up that this behavior is acceptable and lauded but also I’m fed up that my feelings of pain over the current state of culture and community in New Orleans is ridiculed. There is a profound loss and for those who recognize it – we should not be made to feel negative or hyperbolic about preserving the city’s history and culture.

People get defensive when you call them on culture appropriation because it threatens their sense of entitlement. Recently I hosted musicians from Toulouse, France and administrators from a New York-based foundation that supports programming in New Orleans. Both groups asked me the same question, how can the appropriation of New Orleans culture be so rampant and why are people not furious about the level of disrespect and entitlement forced upon the community by this behavior. People say you had to be in Paris in the ’20s or New York in the ’80s or New Orleans pre-Katrina. The disappointing truth is that you no longer need to be anywhere in particular anymore - ignorance and tastelessness is everywhere and has been taken to a whole new level.

Photo credit: New Orleans Mardi Gras: Flambeaux carriers, Krewe of Orpheus night parade, photo by Derek Bridges, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Call To Support Hunger Striker Outside Miami Immigration Detention Center

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 19:09:00 +0000

Activists from American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Florida have alerted us to this story:

A young woman named Jenny Aguilar is on day five of a hunger strike outside the Krome Detention Center, an immigration facility near where the city of Miami meets the Everglades. She has been on a water-only fast since January 25, and has pledged to not eat until her husband Jesus Barrera is freed. Jesus was arrested at their home on January 16 by the Miami police and turned over immigration, and has also been on hunger strike since shortly after his arrest.

Jenny has pledged that she will not move until Jesus is freed. She asks supporters to call the Krome Detention Center at 305 207 2001, and ask them to free Jesus Barrera.

Hundreds of Musicians and Their Supporters Storm City Hall in Protest of Noise Ordinance

noreply@blogger.com (jordan flaherty) — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 22:40:00 +0000

In one of the largest protests seen in New Orleans in the past decade, hundreds of musicians, club owners, and other supporters of live music protested outside, then inside, New Orleans City Hall today.

The protest was originally called because a noise ordinance was scheduled to be discussed in City Council meeting today. However, after the size of local dissent became clear, the discussion was postponed by Housing and Human Needs Committee co-chairs Stacy Head and Kristin Gisleson Palmer, who announced that "the current ordinance will be withdrawn," but their work to change the law will continue. Despite the cancellation of the hearing, the protest went on as scheduled. After more than an hour, including speeches and live music, the protest moved indoors. A line of dozens of musicians, led by Glen David Andrews, marched in to City Hall.

Inside City Council chambers, only one council member was present: LaToya Cantrell, who responded by encouraging protesters to line up and speak.