The Black Informant

(dailynews.com) “…Rodney King,” says longtime African-American activist Danny Bakewell, “was merely really the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Bakewell and others say King was the symbol of the two cultures that had historically co-existed in Los Angeles and of the increasingly noticeable inequalities in virtually every aspect of life - inequalities that suddenly could be documented on videotape and evoke human rage when shown over and over again in the new age of the technological revolution.

“The biggest problem we had,” says Bakewell, who today is the publisher and editor of The Sentinel, the city’s largest African-American newspaper, “was how do you lock down the rage so that the community is not completely annihilated in terms of all the burning and the looting?”

The answers did not come easily. The immediate solutions proved wrong.

Corporations pledged $500 million to Rebuild L.A., which was created to help the riot-torn areas recover but which actually spent much of the money elsewhere, according to records archived at Loyola Marymount University.

The Los Angeles Community Development Bank, the other major public-private partnership formed to resurrect riot-torn South Los Angeles, is also history - mired by bad or questionable loans and, according to one report, having seen only 11 percent of the jobs it created going to the people it was supposed to serve.

“All those well-intentioned programs were doomed from the start,” says John Bryant, founder and board chairman of Operation Hope, the nation’s first nonprofit investment banking organization, which was born within days of the riots.

What has resurrected South Los Angeles, say Bakewell, Bryant and other business leaders of the area, has been good old-fashion capitalism.” (more…)

When I read the above article, I could not help but see the similarities between South Central Los Angeles and New Orleans. I remember the outrage many of my Black brothas and sistahs voiced over how these poor and innocent folks were victims of an America that forgot about them–never once including themselves in the blame. While it became popular to heap all the blame on government failure, the self-fueled criminal environment of New Orleans that existed before the storm proved to be too much for “spokespersons of Black pain and poverty”.

This is from the website leftturn.org:

(excerpted, but you can read the whole thing here)

We, the undersigned, represent a wide range of grassroots New Orleans organizers, activists, artists, educators, media makers, health care providers and other community members concerned about the fate of our city. This letter is directed to all those around the world concerned about the fate of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, but is especially intended for US-based nonprofit organizations, foundations, and other institutions with resources and finances that have been, or could be, directed towards the Gulf Coast.

In the days after the storm, there were many promises of support made to the people of New Orleans. Promises from not only the federal government, but also an array of nongovernmental organizations, such as progressive and liberal foundations and nonprofits. Small and large organizations have done fundraising on our behalf, promising to deliver resources and support to the people of New Orleans.

Many organizations and individuals have supported New Orleans-led efforts with time, resources, and advocacy on our behalf, and for this we are very grateful. These organizations followed through on their promises and offered support in a way that was respectful, responsible, and timely.

However, we are writing this letter to tell you that, aside from these very important exceptions, the support we need has not arrived, or has been seriously limited, or has been based upon conditions that become an enormous burden for us.

While we remain in crisis, understaffed, underfunded and in many cases in desperate need of help, we have seen promises go unfulfilled. From the perspective of the poorest and least powerful, it appears that the work of national allies on our behalf has either not happened or if it has happened it has been a failure.

[...]

In 15 months we have hosted visits by countless representatives from an encyclopedic list of prominent organizations and foundations. We have given hundreds of tours of affected areas, and we have assisted in the writing of scores of reports and assessments. We have participated in or assisted in organizing panels and workshops and conferences. We have supplied housing and food and hospitality to hundreds of supporters promising to return with funding and resources, to donate staff and equipment and more. It seems hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised in our name, often using our words, or our stories.

However, just as the government’s promises of assistance, such as the “Road Home” program, remain largely out of reach of most New Orleanians, we have also seen very little money and support from liberal and progressive sources.

Instead of prioritizing efforts led by people who are from the communities most affected, we have seen millions of dollars that was advertised as dedicated towards Gulf Coast residents either remain unspent, or shuttled to well-placed outsiders with at best a cursory knowledge of the realities faced by people here. Instead of reflecting local needs and priorities, many projects funded reflect outside perception of what our priorities should be. We have seen attempts to dictate to us what we should do, instead of a real desire to listen and struggle together. We have heard offers of strategic advice, but there have been very few resources offered to help us carry it out.

Again, this is a Liberal website who has publically acknowledged this contradiction.

Another truth that has somehow vanished out of online discussion regrading New Orleans is how the Federal government did in fact allocate $334 million as of January of this year to that city, but…

…Louisiana had forwarded only $145 million to the city. State officials have said city leaders failed to provide required documentation, which Nagin called cumbersome.

Also, eight months after it was hired, a Virginia-based consulting company in charge of dispensing billions in federal aid to people whose homes were damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita has received 101,000 applications but handed out fewer than 300 grants. (more…)

Listen, vote for whoever you wish. I believe that there are plenty of good Democrats out there who genuinely care about the problems associated with impoverished areas. Unfortunately many of them are too intimidated to speak out against the Liberal undercurrent that has taken over their party–the same undercurrent that has used these communities for personal political gain. Hey, you don’t have to like me or my opinions. All I ask is of you is to look at these two examples (Los Angeles–South Central and New Orleans), look at the political party that has been in charge over these cities FOR YEARS (and if you are into race, look at the race of these politicians) and make up your own mind.

Take a lesson from the “South Central” page of history and stop repeating it.