[Marxism] Are New Orleans Blacks challenging destruction of their community?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  One thing has become clear: the New Orleans cops are not equal to the
problem of dealing with what has happened in New Orleans. Personally, I
suspect that the governor and mayor got orders from Washington to go
into action against the Blacks -- I mean the "looters" of course -- who
were in the city, because the feds did not want US troops to take on
this job.

  The possibility of a racist slaughter will be posed more sharply as
the troops arrive in the city.

  Another favorable circumstance, one reflecting the overall
relationship of forces in the country, is that the effort to make
"order" and the evil of "looting" the central concern in the crisis
appears to be hitting a rock. There is no hiding that what is going on
in the city,including the stadium, is not the wickedness of individual
Blacks but the failure of the government and society.
This has been deepened by the fact that punishing the Blacks who were
left or stayed behind is proving so far beyond the resources of the
authorities, which is forcing the media to shift their attention
elsewhere.

  Still I think we should examine our assumptions.  I have written about
the Blacks still in New Orleans as those "left behind."  Well, I believe
there is an element of truth in this, but I am beginning to ask another
question.  What if there really are those who stayed behind rather than
those who were simply left behind.

  Note that they -- THEY, the white ruling class of this country (and
that is what it still basically is) -- through their indifference to
human needs -- are now destroying one of the great Black communities of
the history of the United States.  One that existed through slavery,
reconstruction, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement.  A powerful
political, social, religious, cultural force -- the home of Jelly Roll
Morton, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and other greats of modern music.

  And the rulers demand that all this be given up for lost, abandoned --
to be "rebuilt" of course, bigger and better of course, according to the
requirements of the planners, the businessmen, the politicians.

  Well, my natural instinct is that people should get out, and I would
certainly recommend that to any friend down there. Not by way of the
Superdome, but go visit relatives in Raleigh or Philadelphia or Oklahoma
or wherever.

   But then, of course, I am not of the Warsaw Ghetto generation.  There
may be a lot of people in New Orleans who don't want to give that up,
who don't want to leave.  Shouldn't they be accommodated? Comparisons
with total evacuations in Cuba, reasonable as they may be, do not
completely apply here.

  For now, the bloodbath that I feared was inevitable seems to have been
prevented -- among other things, its not the end of the world that
people raided the gun stores.  Good strategy, in effect, whatever the
motivation. The fact that the US is such a heavily armed country is
playing in favor of caution on the part of the rulers -- and that
includes in the stadium, although I don't blame people who are made
anxious by randomly armed individuals or gang members or whatever. This
has limited, not deepened, the barbarism so far.

  But of course the big development are the signs that the attempt to
scapegoat the "looters," the rebels out of necessity in this situation
and those who can't or don't want to give up the Black community of New
Orleans which has been destroyed by hostile social forces that
prioritized profits, not the preservation of the city or their
community. Of course, this has been made possible in part because the
forces of "law and order" so far are unequal to the tasking of crushing
the Black people who remain in the city.

  WE SHOULD DEMAND THAT THOSE WHO WANT TO STAY IN NEW ORLEANS BE
ACCOMMODATED. I am convinced that the Cubans would find a way to do so
if they faced a similar situation.  If they don't, it is because people
know that their community, their culture, their religion, their family
ties, their society will survive the storm or flood or whatever.  These
people have nor reason to believe any of that, and we should OPPOSE
forcing them out of the city.  Why can't they be organized to
participate in rebuilding it.  After all, why should WE care that they
have guns, or whatever the problem Washington will see in it. The real
problem is their conviction that nobody should have any say in the
matter but the ruling rich and their political servants, and that the
city should rebuilt on the base of the same profit motive that destroyed
it.

  If there are people with a desire to preserve this vital and important
Black community, or people who are acting on this without necessarily
thinking it through, they should have our complete support.  We should
be opposed to the compulsory evacuation of New Orleans.
Fred Feldman


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