Katrina

So I’m thinking about New Orleans, Louisiana, and hurricane Katrina. I wrote a song on the subject a couple days ago, but at the time I was thinking mostly about global warming and how to convey to people that that shit is going to start happening all over the world more and more as global warming and environmental degradation progress. Which is true, and a point that I think people absolutely have to come to grips with as soon as possible while there’s still a chance to fucking DO SOMETHING to at least slow down the process (it’s already too late to stop global warming, the best we can hope for now is harm reduction). As I’m reading the news, however, there are a lot of other issues my song left basically unaddressed that are pretty fucking important.

First of all, if anyone had any doubts or illusions on the subject, the government response (or rather lack of response) highlighted pretty clearly the fact that America is still fundamentally an Apartheid state. Our schools tell us black people are free because government-sanctioned social segregation is no longer overtly in force, but the fact is that in every way that matters America is still racially segregated. Black people (and increasingly Chicano’s as well) are far more likely to live in high-poverty areas with high crime rates, substandard schools and social services, and a profound lack of economic opportunities. Black folks are still discriminated against in hiring and firing, in access to basic economic benefits like home ownership loans, and far less likely to attend college – both because substandard schools generate substandard test scores and because college is so ridiculously expensive. I’m a student at ultra-liberal “we have the oldest ethnic studies program in the country and named our student center after Malcolm X” San Francisco State, and I can count on my fingers the number of black people in my classes. If the Bay Area is the lefty/progressive multicultural capital of the country, what does that say about the rest of America? I could keep going for days about the shit that I’ve seen, and I’m WHITE, I don’t even have to bear the brunt of it, I just see it happening around me and try to do what I can to make a difference.

In New Orleans our segregated societies response was to call for evacuation but not provide any means for people who don’t drive and didn’t have any place to evacuate too. FEMA actually declined offers of assistance from Amtrack when they offered to help bus people out. After the storm hit – when government relief completely failed to materialize and people were left with no food or water – poor black folks who went looking for food in the abandoned stores were deemed looters, and the National Guard deployed units freshly returned from Iraq to shoot anyone caught looting on sight. And don’t talk to me about how this is a human failure, this is the direct result of human negligence and apathy. The President stayed on vacation for two full days after the storm hit playing golf while people starved to death. His mother, Barbara Bush, the former first Lady remarked upon seeing the evacuees in the superdome that they were all poor anyway so “this is working out well for them”, and laughed about it. Thousands of people crowded onto tiny cots in a massive building piled high with garbage and human waste with no light and armed guards at the doors - and she says that this is “working out well”. I’m reminded of a queen from another era who responded to the cries of the poor that they had no bread to eat by saying “then let them eat cake”. In that era – an era before mass media and public education had brainwashed people into believing that they had something in common with the rulers – her remark helped spark a revolution that cost the old bitch her head. I just wish it were that easy now.

This is what I’m talking about when I say we’re living in a class war and that the police and the army are the enemies of poor people. They are not there to fucking protect us, they’re there to protect property – to make sure that people starving to death after a massive natural disaster are unable to obtain the food and water they need to survive because doing so would violate the “property rights” of the capitalists who own the stores. Even though the food is all going to rot if left in the stores, even though the government which takes money out of every paycheck we earn with the promise that it will “protect” us had completely failed to provide anything even remotely resembling security, even though preventing people from getting the food they need to feed their families is an act of murder just as much as it would be to shoot them in the head (the national guard did both). The real looters – Bechtel, Halliburton, etc who are taking literally billions of dollars worth of no-bid government contracts (can you say “corporate welfare”?) are in no danger of being confronted by the national guard, on the contrary they’re the ones giving orders to the national guard. It’s funny how that works now isn’t it?

And please, don’t tell me that having a democrat in office would have made things any better. As they themselves would tell you, the democrats are every bit as dedicated to preserving “sacred” property rights. The party is irrelevant – the issue is power, and the fact that the bastards who have it don’t have to suffer the consequences of the decisions they make. If you have ever had any illusions about the role of the State in our society you had better get that shit straight NOW. The plain fact of the matter is that in America the only rights that the State gives a damn about are property rights, every other “right” we have in this country exists because ordinary people have organized and fought to assert it, and the moment we stop asserting them they will disappear. The constitution and the bill of rights are irrelevant – they are pleasant sounding words designed to lull people into a false sense of security and nothing more. If you seriously believe that the government gives a flying fuck about your “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” go down to New Orleans and ask the National Guard about it. Just be careful you don’t have too much melanin when you go, cuz you might not come back alive.

One of the great “strengths” of representative democracy is that – since the majority can do anything it damn well pleases – a politician who can get 51% of voters to support them can pursue ay policy they want, up to and including genocide, with no fear of reprisals. Anyone who’s studied America’s campaigns of genocide against Native Americans or who remembers that in our “democratic” system Slavery and Jim Crow segregation thrived should know that. But somehow or other, in blind defiance of their own history and all the available data, Americans continue to insist that their “democracy” makes them free and guarantees their human rights. Kayne West – who I find myself having a newfound respect for – got on national TV and said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Which is true. Bush doesn’t give a damn about poor people period – and most black people are poor. And he can get away with his reckless disregard for the wellbeing and safety of poor people – and especially poor people who are members of a racial minority – BECAUSE America is a Democracy and he knows damn well that in a Democracy minorities have no power unless they can get the majority to care about their issues. Anyone who tries to spin it otherwise is deluded, stupid, or lying. The sick reality is that in a segregated society like this one where the only contact that the majority of white people have with black folks is through the Mass media (which, lets face it, doesn’t usually have very nice things to say about black people), it’s a pretty safe bet that the majority of white folks don’t give a damn or are too concerned with their own issues to put a lot of energy into advocating for people they don’t know and who frankly scare them. It’s not so much that white America is even actively hostile at this point – they’re just busy trying to deal with their own issues. And that’s all it takes – the modern system of white supremacy doesn’t even require active hostility, just indifference. And as long as that deadly indifference remains in place George Bush – and every other politician – can continue to not care about black people without fear of reprisals.  I'd like to think that that indifference is cracking and changing, I know there are a whole hell of a lot of white folks that DO give a damn and are working for change and our numbers are growing, but for now at least it's pretty clear that the bulk of white america has "other priorities."

The second thing I want to say about what’s going on down there is that I am tremendously proud of all the people - black, white, and otherwise - who are NOT indifferent and who are working together to build something better and not relying on the State to do it. I’m talking about Food Not Bombs, the Rainbow Family, the Common Ground Collective, and the hundreds of people who’ve gone down to volunteer their time and energy to help meet the basic human needs our government has so consistently ignored. The mainstream media has – as expected – been virtually silent about this, they’ll rant about anarchists when someone smashes a window at a protest but refuses to acknowledge our existence or involvement when we’re feeding hungry people; but it’s happening no less. If any of ya’ll are planning to contribute money to the relief efforts please direct it to those folks. We’ve been saying for a long time that a better world is possible and that if people want peace and freedom it starts by working with your neighbors, and right now you can see that philosophy in action more clearly then ever before. I challenge anyone who still has doubts about the viability and effectiveness of non-hierarchal organizations on a large scale to look at what the US Govt. – with all of its tremendous resources – has done to provide security and safety and compare that with what the our movement – with it’s stunning lack of financial resources – has accomplished. The difference is clear and apparent to anyone with eyes to see. This is how we make revolution, by feeding hungry people, by working to build our communities, and by demonstrating to ourselves and to the world that when “we the people” decide to act we can accomplish anything.