Posted on 05/31/2009 9:21:01 AM PDT by thecodont
Reporting from New Orleans -- Nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina, it is the worry that will not fade, complicating the rebuilding of New Orleans and defining and reflecting this fragile city's racial divisions.
Call it the fear of a shrunken city.
Immediately after the storm, many residents, often African Americans, worried that low-lying flood-ravaged neighborhoods would be left unbuilt and turned into wetlands. Though that possibility has diminished, one fear won't dissipate: that those same areas may wither as a result of restrictive zoning changes or a waning commitment to rebuilding in certain parts of town.
It's the issue that tugs at New Orleans resident R.C. Brock, 68, more than the threat of another flood, even with the rapid approach of hurricane season. Brock is building a replacement home on a Lower 9th Ward block where water once covered the rooftops.
"We ask the question all the time: 'What are y'all doing for us in this neck of the woods?' " said Brock, whose new four-bedroom cottage is being erected in a battered landscape of empty lots and empty, flooded-out houses. "We can't get streetlights down here. We got holes in the street."
The sentiment is echoed across the city in neighborhoods that have yet to see the return of schools, parks and other government services. And though it is not felt solely by blacks, the issue has taken on a distinct racial dimension.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Why did I know from just reading the headline it was going to be another minority-victimization story?
I asked if she missed N.O. and if she wanted to go back. She said as long as that mayor is still in office she will never go back. She blamed the Gov. and the mayor for the peoples suffering at the time of Katrina. She was from the 4th ward and did visit where old home used to be and she said they should not be rebuilding because there never should have been building homes there to begin with....
I told here how I felt sorry the people of NO until they reelected him back into office and I asked her why they would do that ? “ignorance” she said.......how true......
That lady sounds like she has some good common sense.
Not all do.
From the article:
“The acceptance of the pre-storm status quo [Since 2000, the percentage of whites in the city has increased about 4%, to 30.7%. The percentage of blacks has fallen from 66.7% to 60.7%, according to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.] was evident last month when the National Academy of Engineers released a report recommending the relocation of vulnerable neighborhoods. In some quarters, it was received as more of an annoyance than a dire warning.
‘’I’m not sure what it accomplishes, other than rehashing a debate that’s already been decided,’ said Merrill, the mayoral policy director.
“The report warned that vulnerable areas could never be fully protected by levees and flood walls. Rebuilding there, the scientists wrote, would position the city for ‘additional, Katrina-like disasters.’
“But poll numbers released around the same time demonstrated that the issue was far from settled among everyday New Orleanians. The poll of voters by Tulane University and the nonprofit Democracy Corps found that 64% of white respondents agreed that ‘some areas of New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina should not be rebuilt as residential areas again.’
“Of blacks polled, 74% disagreed with the statement.”
“What are y’all doing for us in this neck of the woods?”
That statement says it all.
Go next door to the gulf coast of Mississippi, where many areas remain in as much need of rebuilding as New Orleans’ worse neighborhoods, and in spite of those rebuilding issues you find much more of a spirit THAT THEY WILL OVERCOME those issues - THEY, the people that live there.
The real failure in New Orleans, during Katrina, was not FEMA, it was the culture of New Orleans.
I should add that we are not in Harris County where things might be more like NO.
“though it is not felt solely by blacks, the issue has taken on a distinct racial dimension.”
Even when someone is just trying to help them avoid future negative consequences, it’s seen by them as racism.
Exactly. It is a failed city run by African-Americans where 47% of the residents can't read or write..."give me all your 'White stuff' but don't expect me to learn any of your 'White stuff" (like read and write).
A day or so ago Duh Won stated that emergency preparedness was the responsibility of the locals, the city, and the state in that order. My memory may not be what it used to be, but I don’t remember the democrat party supporting that sequence of responsibilities after Katrina ...
It is not a black-white culture issue.
New Orleans was a politically and culturally dysfunctional place before blacks became a voting majority there.
What happened when they did realize that majority in a political way was their leaders simply took over the corrupt crony system that was already in place, and made it their own.
They were the early Obama’s of NO - the change that is not change.
And, being Dims, they had already signed onto the government plantation mentality with which guilty white liberals keep blacks on their political plantation; where the PRIMARY purpose of government money is to purchase votes of as many people as possible - welfare and crony-capitalism.
Haven't we done enough for ya'll already?
Your city, and especially your neighborhood, is a crime-ridden, drug-infested cesspool run by liberals with the sole purpose of maintaining power by giving ya'll OPM (other peoples money).
If ya'll had an ounce of sense, ya'll would have taken the opportunity to climb out of that sewer when ya'll had the chance.
Ya'll bees on ya'lls own!
Well big-cranking-deal!
They worry about the frail racial politics of New Orleans being maintained while still over 60% of the city is black.
If this had been whites worrying about the makeup of the city, it would be portrayed as racist. Here it is sympathetic! I say its pathetic!
Yep,
Whitey trying to kick the poor uneducated negro from his dwelling.
Same old b.s.
Probably Christian conservative gun owning ex military type extremists.
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