Houston activist Quanell X
Posted on 09/09/2006 10:12:24 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
Seething at what they consider racist slurs against African-Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina, activists here Friday took verbal aim at gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman and west Houston residents who last week urged city officials to send evacuees back home.
"The nerve of the white man to talk about shipping anyone anywhere," Houston activist Quanell X told a small group of reporters and the public Friday at a Texas Southern University news conference. "This is disgraceful."
His comments came as local and New Orleans activists gathered in Houston to craft a response to the comments, which they said smeared the estimated 100,000-plus former Louisianians now in the city.
Earlier this week, Friedman, a musician, novelist and magazine columnist who is challenging Republican incumbent Rick Perry in a four-way contest for the governor's seat, told reporters, "The musicians mostly have moved back to New Orleans now. The crackheads and the thugs have decided to stay here. They want to stay here. I think they got their hustle on, and we need to get ours."
Friedman later acknowledged many of the evacuees in Houston are good people. He also admitted his own former cocaine use. "I have empathy for these people," he said of drug users. "I know how they think."
Speakers urged New Orleanians who are registered to vote in Texas to vote against Friedman.
On Aug. 30, as many as 1,700 west Houston residents packed a meeting with Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt to voice concerns about evacuee crime.
During that session, some urged officials to stop government benefits to evacuees and send them to New Orleans.
"This is a black-and-white thing," said Parnell Herbert of the Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond.
Herbert, who had asked Quanell X and others to the Friday strategy session, said his organization, which has about eight offices nationwide, is a "multiracial, undoing racism organization" that battles "institutional racism."
Herbert suggested west Houston residents who protested evacuee crime simply felt uncomfortable with blacks in their neighborhoods.
Jeannie Bollinger, president and CEO of the West Houston Chamber of Commerce, later responded in an interview that most residents in west Houston neighborhoods relish diversity.
But, she said, crime recently has increased.
"I'm not sure who's responsible for that," she said. "But we're seeing prostitutes on the street and panhandlers, and we didn't have that before. Policemen have told some to lock their doors, and that hurts business."
Bollinger, who attended the Aug. 30 meeting, said some residents were merely expressing frustration that their concerns had not been heard. The chamber president said she found some comments "appalling."
Herbert, who is relocating to Houston, charged that some crimes attributed to evacuees are sensationalized.
"It used to be five words: The black man did it," he said. "Now it's: The New Orleanian did it."
He cited a televised case of an apartment "trashed" by Katrina evacuees.
Upon investigating, he said, he learned that the occupants had been drug addicts, some of them evacuees and some of them Houstonians.
"It was a crack house," he said. "When they were evicted, they left it torn up. I visited with a neighbor, a New Orleans evacuee, and her apartment was as nice and well-kept as any."
The morning news conference was held in tandem with a daylong Katrina Survivors Reunion, which featured a variety of spoken-word and musical entertainment.
Quanell X, occasionally interrupted by expressions of support from his audience, told those gathered for the press briefing that gang members and other criminals from Houston partially were responsible for crime problems in New Orleans.
He noted that it was inevitable that criminals would have joined the more than 250,000 New Orleanians who initially fled to Houston after the storm.
Evacuees, Quanell X said, are U.S. citizens with the right to reside wherever they choose.
But, she said, crime recently has increased.
"I'm not sure who's responsible for that," she said.
Perhaps Houston residents saw this an an opportunity to commit more crime to try to make it look like criminals came here from New Orleans.
I have to hand it to Kinky for not being PC.
Oh, I agree. I sometimes just don't get the swooning over untried and unelected third party candidates who talk good but have never actually been tested in office.
Facts are funny things. They voted earlier this year to re-elect Mayor Nagin and now they are "residing" in Houston so they get to vote in our local elections.
Voting twice in the same year. Gotta be Democrats we are talking about.
Now Houston is responsible for New Orleans crime?
Actually Mayor White (and Mayor Brown before him) have done NOTHING about already increasing violent crime rates in Houston. The focus has been on revenue generating tickets.
Especially with the foul ups at the HPD Crime Lab in examing (and losing) evidence.
Violent crime was up for 2004. A year and a half before Katrina.
Still doesn't mean that we want to deal with a swell of 100,000 evacuees who've not found a job in over a year despite many opportunities and special offers and consideration being given.
On the West Side it can be Asian gangs as well. Certainly were for some of the drive-by shootings in Houston's history. It is where the "new China town" was established (although it is comprised of Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Indians).
They're already making Kinky pay, and every other Texas taxpayer. They just switched taxpayers from Louisiana to Texas. They deserve to have their lazy butts kicked out after a year of doing nothing.
I'm more than a little _issed off at these teat suckers. They can't find enough labor to rebuild New Orleans, and they still want to suck everything they can out of Houston. Screw them.
Houston neighborhoods relish diversity
Yeah, a few criminals, a few druggies, some law abiding citizens, just to pay the taxes for the others, oh yeah, diversity
"Violent crime was up for 2004. A year and a half before Katrina."
My bet is that the increase isnt comparable to the Katrina effect, which best as I can tell is swept under the rug or whitewashed.
"He's the son of Quanell IX."
And Quanelly?
Houston activist Quanell X
Kinky does want to shore up the borders...thats good.
However Kinky wants to have Casinos built in Tx. plus wants to appoint Willie Nelson to a post as well. Rick Perry has some serious flaws but no way this Texan will vote for the Kinky one.
*snicker*
Pic doesnt show.... looterguy? lol
"Houston police believe the evacuees are partly responsible for a nearly 17.5 percent increase in homicides so far this year over the same period in 2005."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1683526/posts?page=101,16
Kinky Friedman pissing off Quanell X is a score for Kinky in my book.
"This is a black-and-white thing," said Parnell Herbert of the Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond. "
Is this like the "Church of What's Happening Now"?
I here applying a bit of Quanell-X is good for rashes and itchy buttocks.
No, he is the son of Quanell W.
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