Ethnic Cleansing of New Orleans

The New York Times has an article about the recent elections in New Orleans which have led to the first white majority in the City Council in twenty years. This is only a political manifestation of the ethnic cleansing that has occurred in New Orleans since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita provided the impetus for policies and practice that flagrantly violates the right to return of poor African (Black) people of the city and surrounding areas.

Ethnic cleansing is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as “the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups.” While Katrina arguably devastated New Orleans indiscriminately, the systematic and widespread violations of human rights by the US government and its agencies during and in the aftermath of the hurricane have been directed primarily at the poor African community in the attempted creation of an “ethnically homogenous” New Orleans. The Peoples’ Hurricane Relief Fund set up an International Tribunal to expose these continued crimes.

What’s interesting to me is that the corporate media, such as this New York Times article, continue to rationalize the situation as if it were merely the forces of free market fluctuation. As if racism, economic exploitation and political disenfranchisement play no role in the whitening of New Orleans. As if the hurricane didn’t merely provide an opportunity for what the elite of the city and the government had been hoping to achieve for some time. As if the “undesirable” population of New Orleans chose not to return and the white population merely shrugged their shoulders and got on with the business (muli-million dollar business) of rebuilding “their” city.

Though I bemoan the denial and hypocrisy of the European system, I also believe that our responsibility as Africans globally must be to act in unity against these crimes wherever and whenever they occur.

Black Power to the Maori

“We will not have you tell us how we will respond to the issues that concern us. We will decide how we respond. We are not going away. If you find our response unreasonable, illogical, perhaps it is because we have been reasonable and logical for far too long.” Allan Hawea, Maori Community Worker.

Having read John Henley’s report in the Guardian Weekly about continued Maori resistance to colonialism and white domination. It struck me how similar the liberation struggles across the Black world have been in resisting European domination and exploitation. Just as in the African struggles of the Mau Mau in Kenya, the Shona in Zimbabwe and New Afrikans in the united states, the Maori place land at the center of their struggle: “And yes, I can see a day we will go back to our land and reclaim it. There will not be military action, because that is not our way, but we will go on to the state-owned farms, into the forests, to the wild places where very few people live, and we will say: ‘This is ours, now try and stop us taking it. We’ve been patient, we’ve believed your fine words, for too long. We know what is right.” (Professor Margaret Mutu, University of Auckland).

In addition, the tactics of the Europeans was similar. John Henley writes about the deception and use of the church to subjugate the indigenous people of Aotearoa (known by the Europeans as New Zealand). The same strategy of purposely writing different treaty texts in the European language than in the language of the non-Europeans was used in Aotearoa by the British as it was used in Ethiopia by the Italians.

Today, the same issues of land grabbing under the guise of gentrification, massive unemployment, police brutality and mass incarceration are among the social, economic and political ills that face Black communities throughout the globe. In the 60’s and 70’s the call for Black Power first emerging in the united states was met with echoes throughout youth culture and popular movements globally including among the Aboriginal people of Australia and the Maori of Aotearoa. A similar call for unity in struggle is long overdue.

Black Power to the continued resistance of the Maori!

Start with a Smile

This is my first entry so I thought we should start with a smile.  Check out this video of Queen Latifah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S_0n5BlpD0