Catching Fire

26th March 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor

Greetings from New Johannes­burg. Down here in District 12, where the cops show residents no mercy or respect and it’s sudden death to let the Watchers see you even stop to catch your breath, it’s getting kind of hectic, y’all.

Temperatures and unemployment rates are rising, while justice, truth and democracy are hard to come by these days. You got cops still getting away with murder, urban plantations popping up all over the city and 12 years a slave sounding like an attractive alternative to a lifetime of servitude and low-income wages in the tourism industry.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that everything that is being done in New Orleans is being done by design. He who controls major sports and entertainment events controls the flow of both information and dinero in the Crescent City. He who controls the media controls the issues that get major coverage. He who controls the individuals elected to lead us out of this burning house control their votes on critical issues and the city and state’s goals and priorities. He who controls the economy controls the life chances and the upward mobility of the masses. He who controls the pastors and churches controls the faith, hope, courage and commitment of the masses to fight their way out of this repressive furnace. And he who controls the schools controls the school contracts, the minds of the masses educated in public schools and the future itself.

What do you control?

You can start by taking control of your bad habits and making a conscious effort to read African-centered books, expose yourself to conscious leaders and engage in meaningful conversations about the State of Black People in 2-14.

Let’s jump into a round of questions by and about us.

• Why do so many God-fearing conservatives talk incessantly about the “culture of poverty” that has besieged America but often vehemently oppose raising the national minimum wage and other efforts to help poor and working-class individuals lift themselves out of poverty?

• When are wealthy and powerful U.S. companies that ship jobs and opportunities overseas going to be held accountable for the damage they are doing to America’s economy and future?

• How many people who have had a family member impacted by Gov. Piyush Jindal’s relocation of a former New Orleans mental health care facility, his attacks on funding for higher education, his refusal to accept Medicaid expansion and his alleged misuse of funds earmarked to provide services for the state’s elderly residents would vote for him if he ran for dog-catcher after his current term expires?

• If Gov. Piyush Jindal was once such a great whiz kid and manager of statewide health care services, why is Louisiana’s health outlook so gloomy?

• With so many people in New Orleans still struggling to rebuild their lives and homes nine years after Hurricane Katrina, how surprised are you that residents gave the middle finger to a tax milliage that would have provided funds for the expansion and renovation of Audubon Zoo?

• How many of former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s investigators and staff members still work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana?

• Why does the Robert E. Lee Blvd. bridge over the London Avenue Canal still look as jacked-up and raggedy as it did before Hurricane Katrina?

• Why hasn’t anyone been sent to jail or at least been kicked out of office for neglecting the residents of eastern New Orleans and the Lower Ninth Ward and failing to provide these residents with city services commensurate with the property taxes they pay?

• If the City of New Orleans is serious about trimming the fat from the budget and getting the most for its money, why hasn’t it considered utilizing the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board’s engineers who have been known to complain about being underutilized by higher-up who pass out ridiculously high contracts to firms from surrounding parishes that do the same work S&WB’s engineers are willing and capable of doing?

• What will become of the efforts of Caribbean nations to get reparations from the Western Powers for their various roles in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?

• What do you make of Louisiana Gov. Piyush Jindal’s editorial attack on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in the New York Post?

• If not supporting charter schools makes NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio a “petulant tyrant holding low-income kids hostage” in the eyes of the La. governor, what does blocking the expansion of badly needed Medicaid dollars, attacking teachers, opposing a raise in the minimum wage, cutting college spending and spending funds earmarked for the care of Louisiana’s elderly peculation for other things make Piyush Jindal in the eyes of the people most affected by these decisions?

• Should we view it as sheer coincidence that former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a huge supporter of charter schools, sent money down to Louisiana to support pro-charter school candidates and doesn’t mind sending a “charter school missionary” our way every now and then?

• If the local schools are doing so well, why are so many children — especially young Black males — doing so bad in New Orleans schools?

• What is it going to take for the idea of liberation to “catch fire” in the hearts and minds of Black New Orleanians?

• What are you doing as a constituent, responsible adult and civic-minded resident to address issues like chronic unemployment, underemployment, classism, homelessness, poverty, a lack of affordable housing, discrimination against minority contractors and taxation without representation in this city?

This article originally published in the March 24, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.