“They wanted them poor niggers out of there.” by Greg Palast

[kpete]

“They wanted them poor niggers out of there.”
Published August 29th, 2007 in Articles
New Orleans two years after
by Greg Palast

“They wanted them poor niggers out of there and they ain’t had no intention to allow it to be reopened to no poor niggers, you know? And that’s just the bottom line.”

It wasn’t a pretty statement. But I wasn’t looking for pretty. I’d taken my investigative team to New Orleans to meet with Malik Rahim. Pretty isn’t Malik’s concern.

....................

For Malik, the emphasis is on “poor.” The racial politics of the Deep South is as ugly as it is in Philadelphia, Pa. But the New Orleans city establishment has no problem with Black folk per se. After all, Mayor Ray Nagin’s parents are African-American.

It’s the Black survivors without the cash that are a problem. So where New Orleans once stood, Mayor Nagin, in connivance with a Bush regime more than happy to keep a quarter million poor folk (i.e. Democrats) out of this swing state, is creating a new city: a tourist town with a French Quarter, loose-spending drunks, hot-sheets hotels and a few Black people to perform the modern version of minstrel shows.

Malik explained, “It’s two cities. You know? There’s the city for the white and the rich. And there’s another city for the poor and Blacks. You know, the city that’s for the white and rich has recovered. They had a Jazz Fest. They had a Mardi Gras. They’re going to have the Saints playing for those who have recovered. But for those who haven’t recovered, there’s nothing.”

much more at:
http://www.gregpalast.com/%e2%80%9cthey-wanted-them-poor-niggers-out-of-there%e2%80%9d/#more-1843

[BlueJazz]

1. Christ..When the hell are people going to realize that skin color is not...

...a condition for "Worthiness".
White DOES NOT equal "Entitlement" any more than wealth means "Good"

I wish the Blacks would march on New Orleans (I'd be there with them) and insist
this Shit-for-brains administration straighten out this mess.

Fuck..Fuck..Fuck!

ON EDIT: Yeah..I'm one of those White Liberals..If anybody doesn't like it..Kiss my White Ass..

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. The incredible dissonance of the Republican party.

They are the unChristian Christians. They resent even one penny of public money being spent on the needy, but have no problem if billions go to the greedy.

[Triana]

9. It's not even so much skin color - it's CLASS - economic class to be exact...

...and the poor don't count. No matter what color they are. What's happened after Katrina in New Orleans is the posterchild for classism mostly, and racism.

[paparush]

15. DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!!!

[EFerrari]

18. They are interwoven. n/t

[TahitiNut]

20. Yep. It's classism ... all else is divide and conquer to oppress people into serve 'ruling elite.'

A narrow minority cannot maintain oppressive economic and social rule without sowing division and antipathy among the masses. It's as old as (social) humanity itself.

[yurbud]

41. that's why poor whites have greatest antipathy for blacks--because they should be allies

but the folks up in the big house set them on each other.

[yurbud]

43. Stowe had this in UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. Simon Legree kept 2 slaves as overseers so they would be

at each others throats in constant competition, and the slaves would always be scheming against one and sucking up to the other--and forget that Legree was the one who set up the whole arrangement.

[Zookeeper]

23. Bingo! Money is always the bottom line. n/t

[Raksha]

42. As I said at the time, the people of New Orleans were expendable

because:

1. They were poor;
2. They were black;
3. They were Democrats;
4. Or any combination of the above.

[Riktor]

48. Race plays its part

While the ruling elite look down on the poor in general, they have created conflict between the poor on racial and sectarian lines, and then go as far as to take sides. The ruling class has convinced the majority that minorities are the cause of their social ills, thus destroying any hope of an ideologically unified lower class. Furthermore, in endearing themselves to poor whites, the ruling class has actually convinced a sizable chunk of this country's poor to vote counterintuitive to their own economic interests.

It is for this reason I am reluctant to pigeonhole this as merely classism, because the Republican party thrives on the southern white vote. After all, George H. Bush took a severe hit in the electoral gonads when he was put on the chopping block for mishandling relief after Hurricane Andrew. George W. may be stupid, but his entourage is not. I am inclined to believe that all white neighborhoods, poor or not, received more attention than poor black neighborhoods, in order to maintain political capitol.

Look at it like this: The ruling whites whisper sweet nothings into poor whites' ears about "black criminals", that these people are primarily responsible for New Orleans' social ills (violent crime was rampant there long before Katrina came through). After the storm, blacks are depicted as looters (while whites are depicted as survivors) and blacks are shown as ten times more violent in the post Katrina lawlessness. Finally, the biggest blow, after the public donates millions in charity to help out, the only people shown complaining about progress are... you guess it, poor blacks, made to look ungrateful, ever the "welfare mothers". So, to pay special attention to the poor black neighborhoods would negate all the propaganda espoused by the elite, forcing them to reconcile "letting the criminals and free loaders back in", while good ol' fashioned, "law abiding", conservative whites wait patiently for their check to come. However, if they leave these poor black neighborhoods in disrepair, attitudes will invariably become more desperate within, which invariably leads to criminality and violence, which confirms the propaganda espoused by the elite.

[tkmorris]

49. An excellent analysis

I think you are spot on, and welcome home. Good to see you here.

:beer:

[Riktor]

59. Thanks

Thanks for the welcome, I appreciate the hospitality.

Nice avatar, by the way. Joe Strummer left this world all too soon.

[Triana]

57. I did not write that it was ONLY classism or that that was all it was...

....Why does everyone ASSume I did? Y Kant (some of) DU *READ*?

EXCELLENT analysis, of course -- but I am additionally responding herein to the other posts which claim that I wrote that it was ONLY classism at work in N.O. or in regards to the poor and I wrote no such thing. It was ASSumed.

I believe it is a combo of both classism and racism with classism being at the top - with racism as an additional subdivision in the issue.

"What's happened after Katrina in New Orleans is the posterchild for classism mostly, and racism" --Triana

[Riktor]

60. My apologies

With the way these forums are set up, I have had some difficulty keeping track of who says what. I shall try to be more attentive in the future, and I apologize if I misrepresented what you said.

[Bullet1987]

13. How do you KNOW it's not about skin color?

I hear a lot of people saying this with no justification. The fact that all (or the vast majority) of the poor ARE Black sets it up for an argument about race and class.

[BlooInBloo]

34. Because to white folks, it's NEVER about skin color. It's in the manual.

[slowry]

40. I need to order a new one; misplaced it at the last rally :( n/t

[djjimz]

45. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Pucker up!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
I'm a white liberal too.
So pucker up twice!

Thanks Bluejazz
Well stated!
:headbang:

[bigtree]

3. that word should not be posted in a headline.

It's offensive, and there's absolutely no need to post it here.

[Subdivisions]

5. It is very hard to see that word in the title, but...

it very efficiently conveys the context in which it is used. To understand why the black folks of New Orleans are being left behind you have to understand the mindset of the people running things and handing out the recovery funds.

I happen to think that that is exactly the way they think of African-Americans. And it sucks.

[bigtree]

6. I think the word 'conveys' ignorance and should not be perpetuated

just to make a point. I'm alright with using the abbreviation, 'N-word', to represent the slur if it's necessary to make certain points, but I don't think it should be repeated in its full offensive form unless there is a specific discussion about it's propriety. Even then, I would use the abbreviated form.

[THUNDER HANDS]

7. how can you be okay with "N-word" but not the word itself?

it's the same thing. Everyone knows what you're talking about. Might as well just use it.

We're all adults here, anyway. Not using the word yourself, or being exposed to it, isn't going to make it go away.

[bigtree]

8. Did you read my post. I think it is only alright to use it when discussing it's appropriateness

or to highlight an offender.

And, there are PLENTY terms which could be used here on this board which have been determined out of bounds. It has nothing at all to do with being 'adult.' I happen to think that intelligent people can always avoid using the term, and should.

[Tansy_Gold]

14. And I think it's entirely appropriate, because it DOES highlight the offender

The headline and title of the article is a quote, and the quote was made to highlight the classism and racism of the administration that let the Katrina disaster happen.

There are many, many people who still see nothing whatsoever wrong with the word and use it quite casually. In some cases it's because they are from a generation in which that was the accepted term to denote persons of African-American descent. But then there are those for whom it is an appropriate term to designate their own superiority -- in race, in class, in education, in social standing, in power -- over others.

That is not, of course, a justification for keeping the word in common conversation; it's not an "excuse," but an "explanation."

When it is quoted, having first been used (or even implied) in its most racist context, to highlight the racism exhibited by others, then I think it is absolutely appropriate.

Tansy Gold, another white-skinned liberal

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. I think saying it shouldn't be there conveys ignorance.

It ignores both the context of the quote and the message of the quote itself.

That sort of ignorance shouldn't be perpetuated.

[bigtree]

21. great. I'm offended by the display of the word and I'M ignorant?

did I insult you? If so, it wasn't deliberate and I apologize.

[superkia]

16. I agree, I think it is meant to represent how the people are being looked at.

I think he was trying to get feelings of the damage being done across to people with words and sometimes people just don't get it when you sugar coat it for them. I think it brings up some angry feelings when people read it but people should be angry at what is happening to all the poor people stuck in that horrible situation. The messenger of bad things is always looked at as the bad guy instead of the actual culprits? The more we sugar coat, the more people continue to think that racism isn't a huge part of our country when it is!

[XOKCowboy]

22. Why would Greg or the OP edit a direct quote?

I've got a feeling Malik feels the same as you about "the word" but used it in the context of the situation he's facing. It sounds just like the racists I knew back in rural Oklahoma.

I actually think that it's use here is entirely appropriate. Would Malik have gotten the same reaction if he'd been PC and used a less offensive term like black people? Would that have conveyed the vile racism that he's experienced trying to rebuild NOLA? I don't think so.

[Karenina]

25. Genau.

Danke Dir.

[XOKCowboy]

38. Bitte

If I read your reply right. My German is terrible.

[frustrated_lefty]

29. If that's the take home message you get from the piece,

I think you might be missing something.

[ProudDad]

37. It's a quote

from this man's lips:



The statement adequately and completely conveys his meaning...

get a grip.

[rox63]

4. I wish the media would pay attention to the real reason the victims of Katrina were left for dead

The * admin wanted an "ethnic cleansing" of New Orleans. And they are still keeping poor people of color from returning, using their Blackwater mercenary army.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

10. Yesterday, I reposted a thread that was started right after Katrina hit. It was how Northern Command

had been waiting for Shrub's directive to go in and help. They had been on alert days before Katrina hit. Someone asked me on yesterday's thread why I thought it was LIHOP and 2 words... "Urban Renewal".

Years ago I lived in Yonkers, NY on the west, Hudson River side of that city. Yonkers is about a half hour from NYC, so uninhabited property was/is exceptionally valuable. The amount of fires that took place in that riverfront area, which was inhabited by the very poor, mostly black, was mind boggling. Everytime I heard sirens, my first thought was "Urban Renewal".

My thread from yesterday\
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1688823

[razors edge]

44. Eminent domain,

without the lawyers and judges.

I would bet anything the * admin spent more effort controlling the press in the immediate aftermath than controlling the death toll from their ineptitude and negligence.

[ronnie624]

58. Those who own and control 'the media'

are in complete agreement with everything the Bush administration stands for. Wars, oppression and spying and such mean big profits for high tech corporations.

[NMMNG]

11. Utterly vile

:grr:

[lonestarnot]

12. Despicable!

:thumbsdown:

[EFerrari]

17. And we watched it, the whole world did. K&R

[OneBlueSky]

24. Cyril Neville wears a t-shirt that sums it all up rather succinctly . . .

(this may not be the exact shirt that Cyril wears, but the message is identical) . . .

[in_cog_ni_to]

28. That's exactly what it was/is. GENOCIDE. There's no other word to descibe what they have done.

:cry:

[David Zephyr]

36. It is genocide.

And it is happening right in front of our eyes.

[omega minimo]

33. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1694760&mesg_id=1694760

[porphyrian]

26. That's fucked up. - n/t

[Jed Dilligan]

27. So predictable

Every time a disaster wipes out the shitty housing of the black and the poor, developers start drooling on their silk shirts.

[in_cog_ni_to]

30. Did anyone see the report yesterday about the elderly black lady in NOLA who told the authorities

that she would not allow her home to be destroyed? They had slated her home for demolition. She called several agencies and told them she was moving back home and was going to repair her home and they were not to demolish it. ALL the agencies told her her home would not be demolished. She returned home and GUESS WHAT??? THE FUCKERS HAD DEMOLISHED HER HOME!!! It was a very nice home and looked like it was in repairable condition, but the rat bastards tore it down!

It has been so obvious to me what they've been doing. Had to get rid of all those poor people so they could build their Casinos on the Gulf Coast. They'll have beach front multi-million dollar homes and condos with the Southern Las Vegas to play in.

G-d I hate these people.

[ooglymoogly]

31. IMO they are aiming for a Disneyland ride with whistle clean

facades on the outside and a well oiled whirring pug factory behind the curtain churning out tourist trinkets, Madeiras beads and margaritas that makes as much money as the step and fetchets can make them with as little or no drag (social services for the poor) as possible; all a pleasant subserviant backdrop for draining the delta of the people of New Orlan's offshore oil.

[BlooInBloo]

32. Duh. No matter how much white folks try to deny that anything is racism.

[ProudDad]

35. Now I hate the bushies...

"So where are they now? The sobbing woman and her kids are gone: back to Texas, or wherever. But they will not be allowed back into Lafitte. Ever.

And Patricia Thomas? Patricia found work sweeping up tourists’ vomit and beer each morning at a French Quarter karioke joint. Not much pay, no health insurance, of course. A few months ago, Patricia died - in a city bereft of health care. New Orleans has closed all its public hospitals but for one “charity” make-shift emergency ward in an abandoned department store.

And the one bright star, Malik’s housing project? The tenants’ work was done this past December. By Christmastime, they received their eviction notices - and all were carried out of their rebuilt homes by marshals right after the New Year, including a paraplegic resident who’d lived in the Algiers building for decades.

Hurricane recovery is class war by other means. And in this war of the powerful against the powerless, Mr. Bush can rightly land his fighter plane in Louisiana and declare that, unlike the war in Iraq, it is, indeed, “Mission Accomplished.”

-------------

I HATE what they stand for...

I HATE the corporate capitalist masters who engineered this and profit from it...

And I don't take too kindly anyone who defends those fucks and their dirty system...

[ProudDad]

39. Kanye West was right...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIUzLpO1kxI

[suffragette]

47. Yep, as was Legendary KO's song based on what Kanye said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOu_zIiihPI

[DianaForRussFeingold]

46. SAD! Trying To Wash Us Away

"The river rose all day, the river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood,
some people got away alright
The river has busted through clear down to Plackermine
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
Oh Louisiana, oh Louisiana
They're trying to wash us away,
they're trying to wash us away
Oh Louisiana, oh Louisiana
They're trying to wash us away,
they're trying to wash us away
President Coolidge come down, in a railroad train
Little fat man with a note pad in his hand
President say little fat man, oh isn't it a shame,
What the river has done to this poor people's land
Oh Louisiana, oh Louisiana
They're trying to wash us away,
you're trying to wash us away
Oh Louisiana, Louisiana
They're trying to wash us away,
they're trying to wash us away
They're trying to wash us away,
they're trying to wash us away"
--- This song still makes me cry! Made For the end of a Baton Rouge Newscast days after Katrina Struck Aaron Neville "Louisiana"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSOOEgAvL7U

~Randy Newman A Concert for Hurricane Relief, September 2, 2005. Aaron Neville performing "Louisiana 1927"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ZgqBSD5Pw

[toughboy]

50. I just returned from New Orleans

I was gently escorted by police away from certain areas. However, I spoke at length with many people. This article speaks truth to power. It's NOT just about class.

Kpete just gave me hope that real people may start talking about what is actually going on in this country without the filters that seem to be firmly in place in the media and in many campaaign's war rooms. It's definitely about class. And it's definitely about race. And Democrats should start demanding the resignation of David Vitter and prevent the stampede to oust Craig because he is hated by conservatives because of his immigration stance more than his typical hypocritical Republican "attack gays but go down on your local police officer in an airport bathroom stall" attitude. And because he exposes a reality that family value people of all races and classes don't want to accept. Not just straight black men on the DL (down low) have sex with other men. It happens. Blacks men are called sociopathic disease vectors from the hood. White men are called CEOs and bankers who get ticketed and get off very easily.

Like the police officer said, "I'd expect this from someone from the 'hood" Bet there's a lot of Republican "family values" guys who think he's one handsome studly police officer right about now. Vitter will probably end up getting some awards for his actions. Now that's really sick.

[Swamp Rat]

51. !

[bananarepublican]

52. So they can create gated communities of rich white f*ckers! n/t

[bluerum]

53. loose-spending drunks attract grifters - NOLA is NOLA no matter how

they try to purge it.

[happygoluckytoyou]

54. TONY SNOW HERE------>

I have spoken to President Bush, had to interupt him and "the big Guy" (God) as they were in conference.

King George the Third said that he was glad that so many blacks were able to escape the floodwaters, and that he didn't really have a preference HOW they left.... Row Versus Wade, it didn't matter to him.

So this rich white guy in Newer Orleans was telling me how the rebuilding is going-- and he said it is going swimmingly.
The black guy next to him said something ungrateful about how the lack of National Guard troops, including his son, made it difficult when the storm hit. I told him "our president needed him in Desert Storm and to quit complaining.

If we keep worrying about the poor guy--- the terrorists will win. And we can't let that happen.
Alberto said it best, when he said "I'm not resigning--- for the children." How can you argue with that?

"Browne, you're doing a heck of a job." <-------my bosses best quote ever

Thank you

[happygoluckytoyou]

55. -------AND DID I MENTION

Amy Goodman in NOLA this morning. Prepare to be really angry
"The Red Cross Has Basically Stolen Money From Victims in New Orleans" - People's Hurricane Relief Fund Blasts Katrina Aid Program

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/145...

New Orleans Hit By Another "Hurricane of Racism, Greed and Corruption" - Community Activist Malik Rahim

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/145...

The Privatization of Education: How New Orleans Went From a Public School System to a Charter-School City

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/145...


ANY PERSON STUPID ENOUGH TO VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2008, OR WHO DOES NOT DRAG THEIR ADULT CHILDREN TO THE VOTING BOOTH,
OR WHO DOES NOT APPLY FOR ABSENTEE BALLOTS IN TIME TO VOTE, OR...... DESERVES WHAT THEY GET

IT IS YOUR GOVERNMENT.... TRY NOT TO FRAG THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY... A GOOD SHIFT TO THE LEFT...
HILLERY WOULD NEVER DESERT NEW ORLEANS OR BE HIDING IN SOME UNDISCLOSED LOCATION...
MORE BALLS THAN CONDI... MORE BRAINS THAN BUSH... A BIGGER HEART THAN CHENEY

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

56. Kick. eom