Hurricane Katrina: January 2008 Archives

Jefferson and St. Charles Parishes are the western suburbs of New Orleans. The eastern boundary of Jefferson Parish is the city line, at the now-infamous 17th Street Canal, sprawling west to the Louis Armstrong International Airport. The bulk of St. Charles Parish is clustered along the Mississippi River, as a large portion of the northern section of the parish is the location of the Bonnet Carre' Spillway, a flood-control system designed to keep the river from flooding New Orleans.

Jefferson Parish has been gerrymandered to separate black neighborhoods from white. Shrewsbury and South Kenner on the east bank as well as Waggaman, Avondale, Westwego, Harvey/Marrero on the west bank are part of LA-02. That leaves the the northern portion of Kenner, the city of Harahan, and unincorporated Metairie on the East Bank, and the city of Gretna on the west bank as part of LA-01. Of all these areas, Metairie/Kenner is the key.

If Metairie was an incorporated municipality, it would be the largest city in the state. There was never a move for "home rule," because parish government and the parish sheriff's office run Metairie as if it was a city anyway. Metairie was the main white-flight suburb of the 1960s, for one very simple reason: nobody lived there, so there were no black folks at all. With the exception of two mostly-black neighborhoods (Shrewsbury and Bunch Village, both part of LA-02), this was true right up to the storm. Something's changed since the storm, however--black folks have invaded Metairie. Since so many rental units in the city became unavailable after the storm, many residents of the city came out to Metairie to live.

The older portions of Metairie, "Old Metairie," and "Bucktown" are the two of the staunchest Republican areas in the metro area, for two of the most Republican of reasons. Old Metairie is the old money; the folks who live here are indeed "country club" Republicans, since the neighborhood backs up to two of the city's most exclusive country clubs. Other subdivisions in the neighborhood have been extensively gentrified, to the point where home builders would buy a 1800sqft house on a 50x100 lot, tear it down, and build a 3-story, 3000sqft home in its place. Old Metairie and Bucktown make up the 89th state representative district, which has the dubious distinction of being the district that sent KKK leader David Duke to the state legislature. Where Old Metairie was the money neighborhood, bucktown was a working-class area. Originally a fishing village, the neighborhood grew as middle class white-flighters left the city. By far, these are two of the most racist neighborhoods I've ever encountered in my life.

West of Bucktown and Old Metairie is the bulk of Metairie's population. The parish grew out from Metairie Road (which follows the path of old Bayou Metairie), and expanded north as land near the lake was drained and reclaimed. The areas around Metairie Road and close to the lake contain high-value properties, and the vast middle consists of smaller homes and lots of apartment complexes. Prior to the storm, even most of these apartments had majority-white tenants, since the homeowners in the vicinity were hostile to non-whites. Since the storm, however, that's changed. When businesses closed or left the metro area post-storm, that opened up rental units. When you've got a job and your old place was wiped out, you go where you have to. The amount of construction, rebuilding, and remodeling work available in the area has attracted a large Hispanic population, not all of which consists of undocumented workers. Many latinos coming into the area are Texans looking for new opportunities here.

West of Metairie is the city of Kenner. Kenner was originally a rural community with farms growing local produce for the New Orleans markets. The city hit a huge post-WWII boom, when the airport was expanded. Metairie residents looking to flip first homes and build something bigger, as well as out-of-towners who moved to the city during the oil boom of the 1970s fueled growth in the northern part of Kenner. Kenner also has a large hispanic community as well. The southern part of the city, south of Airline Highway (US61), is mostly-black, and part of LA-02.

The portions of St. Charles Parish that are in LA-01 are the communities of Destrehan and St. Rose. The map is deceptive, because the bulk of the land shown is the spillway. Destrehan and St. Rose are river road communities just west of Kenner. These are more established neighborhoods whose residents work primarily at the many petrochemical plants along the river. They are classic "Regan Democrats," conservative/moderate, blue-collar, pro-union. There has been some expansion from the city and East Jefferson to these communities post-storm as well.

The religious makeup of East Jefferson is primarily Catholic, but there are several large evangelical congregations here as well. There are a few mainstream Protestant congregations (Lutheran and Episcopalian). Evangelical congregations here have capitalized with dissatisfaction some have with the Catholic Church. There are also a couple of big Jewish in Metairie near the lake, Congregation Shir Chadash (Orthodox/Conservative) and Congregation Gates of Prayer (Reform).

Most of Catholic parishes in East Jefferson operate elementary schools. In spite of this, the public school system in the area is nowhere near as dysfunctional as in the city. Public schools are experiencing serious growth issues in the post-storm era, given the huge population surge. There are a number of private schools in East Jefferson as well., but the huge racial rift that existed in the city's schools doesn't exist here (since there were so few blacks in the area in the first place).

In terms of voter registration, East Jefferson is one of the most Republican areas of the state. The GOP always had a strong presence in the country-club subdivisions. The party pressed their advantage in the early 1980s by encouraging many local pols to switch. For many, the combination of a Republican president and the statewide change to open primaries enabled many to come out of the closet, as it were. It's now at the point where there are very few Democrats left holding office in the area.

The official Democratic party structure in the parish has been a disaster for the last twenty years. Purity trolls on the parish executive committee would regularly attack Democrats who tried to work with Republicans or endorsed Republican candidates, driving even more office-seekers to the GOP. What's left of a party infrastructure is no longer in a position to help a Dem candidate who's running parishwide, much less for Congress.

Still, it's unclear just how strong support for the GOP is in East Jefferson, mainly because there are no alternatives to Republicans. In the recent gubernatorial election, the area overwhelmingly went Republican, because two of the candidates in the open primary were local boys. The negativity of that campaign makes it clear that these Republicans don't respect the "11th Commandment" of St. Ronald of California. If that trend continues, their candidates won't hesitate to take the gloves off early. Some skeletons are likely to start jumping out of closets as well, which will also fuel voter dissatisfaction with these guys. It's quite possible that the combination of Bush/war fatigue, FEMA anger, and the uglieness of a closed Republican primary will disgust a sufficient number of people that a Democratic alternative such as Gilda Reed will be attractive.

This is why We Need Reed, and it's why you need to show her some financial love. The DCCC isn't going to notice her until she can prove she's got a chance, and she needs money to increase visibility. When people get to know Gilda, they like her. They see she's an alternative to upwardly-mobile professional politicians who use their constituents to feather their own nests. They see someone who will vote to end the war and help rebuild New Orleans. They see a candidate committed to their future.

Tomorrow: The North Shore.

If this is what we can expect from your presidency, I'm not interested.

Love,
YatPundit

PS: When I first read this, I let out a rant that would have made Ashley proud, but you're really not fukkin' worth transcribing it here.

PPS: Rep. Triple-J, if you want to help storm survivors, either get together with Sen. Landrieu and Rep. Waters and work for social justice here in New Orleans. Or come down, get a hammer, and help Habitat build a house. Otherwise, STFU.

We've had a lot of football fans down here lately. Last week, it was the folks from University of Georgia and University of Hawaii, whose teams played in the Sugar Bowl. It's New Orleans' turn for the BCS Championship this year, so this weekend, visitors who support Ohio State have been overwhelmed by locals and visitors alike who support the hometown heroes, the Tigers of Louisiana State University. For the visitors staying in downtown or French Quarter hotels, there's not much evidence that anything as cataclysmic as the storm happened here. Those who walk up Canal St. to Claiborne Ave. will see the old green Texaco building, with all its blown-out windows, or maybe they'll look back a block and see the empty housing project that's slated for demolition. For most of the folks cruising the Quarter, the only Hurricane they'll encounter is in a big green cup from Pat O'Brien's.

And we wouldn't want it any other way. New Orleanians are good hosts. As much as many of us are very, very angry about the way we've been treated by the federal government, both in terms of the lies told us that caused the Federal Flood, and BushCo's handling of the entire Gulf Coast region post-storm, we don't want to spoil the party. Those people knocking back "big ass beers" and various rum drinks are important to the city, for the money they leave behind and the good will they carry forward when they return home.

Turn the Janus statue around, however, and there's a totally different face we show. This is the one we put forward to politicians, activists, and folks we know care about the city's survival. We talk about the mess that is still Lakeview, Gentilly, and the Ninth Ward. We're very vocal about anything from the increased crime rate to the "Road Home" program to the demolition of hospitals. We appreciate it when we get attention from national political figures and the MSM, lest "Katrina fatigue" set in and diminish the severity of the problems here.

It's a fine line we walk and talk, in this Janus that is our city. We're happy when Fox News does a positive report on one of our special events, but get angry when we realize that they're doing it because it gives the rest of the country the impression that we're OK. We're OK, but we're not.

When your plane touches down at Louis Armstrong International Airport and you take a taxi or shuttle into the city, you pass through Kenner and Metairie, our western suburbs that are 90%+ rebuilt post-storm. By the time you arrive at your downtown hotel, you're ready to party. And there's no better city to show you a good time. Whether you're just down for a personal vacation, or for a big event, the food's hot and spicy, the beer's cold and wet, and the music plays all night. There's the debauchery that is Carnival, or the music of JazzFest. We've got serious sporting events this year, from the Sugar Bowl last week to the NBA All-Star Game just after Mardi Gras.

If you're a cardiologist, gynecologist, chemist, or engineer, you might be coming down for a convention. We still love the librarians for being so supportive by having their ALA convention here in 2006. We don't want you to forget the horrors that you saw on CNN of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in the days right after the storm, but we still want you to come see the facility now and how far we've come in fixing things.

Let's not talk too much about crime in the city. The neighborhood associations in Mid City, Broadmoor, Bywater, and Faubourg St. John all stay on top of NOPD to get action and protection, there's not much a visitor can do about that. The "tourist" areas of the city are well defended. If you're not venturing out to score dope, and you exercise basic Urban Common Sense, you should be fine.

This is our public face. We know that tourism is our number-one industry, and we very much need y'all to come and spend money.

One other thought on the positive side of our Janus--this positive face we put forward to the rest of the world is not just a white one. The Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club has not missed a Mardi Gras. The Essence Festival and the Bayou Classic (Grambling State vs. Southern University) football game both returned home in 2007. There are a lot of black folks who haven't been able to come home yet for one reason or another, but that doesn't stop us from inviting black visitors to town and showing them a good time.

Post-Storm New Orleans

Turn the Janus around, however, and things aren't so pretty. Last month's public housing debate/protest put a very public face on one of many serious issues with which we're still wrestling. The tales of homeowners who are trying to save their houses from unnecessary demolition by the city are incredible. Health care for those who have insurance and/or money has improved and returned, but the working poor still have little to no options.

Our public schools are in the midst of an experiment on a grand scale, charter schools. The only thing that can be said about the current state of public education in Orleans is that it can't be any worse than it was before the storm.

Crime is out of control. NOPD has focused on making sure that tourists don't get involved in or get near violent crimes, but that leaves precious little resources for the rest of the city. Lakeview and Gentilly are still being patrolled in large part by Military Police units of the LA National Guard because there aren't enough NOPD officers to put on those streets. It's like the diaspora didn't have a significant impact on our criminal element. These guys found out it was tough to make a dishonest living on Planet Hooston, so now they've returned, and are killing each other and creating way too much collateral damage.

Let's not forget our "colorful" politics in Louisiana. From Huey Pierce Long to Edwin Edwards to Marc Morial, we've had our share of scoundrels that have large numbers of admirers. A disgraced city councilman reported to federal prison last week after having been convicted of bribery. Federal prosecutors are still cleaning up the mess that was Marc Morial's tenure as mayor, much less dealing with anything that's come up post-storm. Every time a local politician gets caught up in scandal, it gives those brilliant minds at Fox News a chance to deride the city. The cesspool that is the comments section of the Da Paper's blog regularly likes to ignore the whoremongering of our Junior Senator in favor of every miscreant black pol we've had in the city in the last twenty years.

We managed to get through a second post-storm hurricane season safely, no thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers. For a component of the armed forces of this country to generate as many half-truths, distortions, and outright lies as the ACOE has over the last forty years is just incredible. To think that men and women in uniform have forsaken the honor of their oaths to this country and the Constitution in the interests of covering their asses is, well, it's something we'd rather not think about. We don't have any choice than to expose the dishonor that is the Army Corps of Engineers, in the hopes that will they fix what they've lied about here in New Orleans. We also hope that perhaps we can shame these people into coming clean about other projects in other parts of the country that may not be what they've claimed all these years.

We need you to always remember that what happened to New Orleans was not a "natural disaster," but a man-made one.

We want you to think about all these things. We want you to be as angry with the Army and the disrespectful piece of crap who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as we are. We want you to keep on your respective Congresscritters to make sure our situation is not ignored. We want you to help us get our people home.

We also want you to come here for vacation. We want you to come support your football team when they play Tulane, or if they make it to the Sugar Bowl. We want you to take that Caribbean cruise you've been thinking about on a boat whose home port is New Orleans. We want you to eat and drink with us, Cajun dance with us at the Fais Do Do stage at JazzFest and yell "Throw me something, Mister!" at Carnival parades.

This is our Janus, our two faces. Look at the positive one and enjoy it when you come here, but be sure to look closely at the other face when you're heading back to the airport on the way home. Keep those fond memories in your head and heart, but bring the motivation to work for social justice back with you.