|
|
|
|
|
|
|
twitter/prohiphop subscribe: feedblitz |
ProHipHop: Business Hip Hop Press Business Matters Mix Sneakers & Fashion Urban Gossip/Rumors News & Search: World Cypher |
Headlines to Your Site or Blog: Widgetbox ProHipHop Network |
Hip-Hop News Plus Tupac Shakur Info |
I'm just now reading Ethan Brown's piece for the Guardian on the rising murder rate in New Orleans and hit this startling bit regarding news I totally missed at the time:
The mayor, Ray Nagin, has been silent in the face of the sort of mass killing that occurred and often dismissive of it. This summer, he told a group of reporters that the murder rate "keeps the New Orleans brand out there."
I'm speechless with disgust.
May still be in progress. Rizoh has the 411.
I haven't gotten back to my roundup of hip hop support of the Jena 6 [I will] but big ups to everybody that's been pushing this thing. This isn't the end by any means but it's a great example of how online advocates helped build the initial critical mass that encourages folks like Al Sharpton to step up and provide much needed media visibility.
Related Material:
Ethan Brown feels that the "most useful outcome of the Jena 6 protests is the interest in sentencing reform coming from the likes of Barack Obama and Senator Jim Webb" and links through to a related article.
That's an excellent point since sentencing reform is desperately needed nationwide though I would say most immediately and obviously useful.
I think that's just one example of what could come from a sustained campaign for justice in the Deep South. I don't say that out of nostalgia for the Civil Rights movement. I say that from what such movements have taught us.
In one of the calmest yet scariest blog posts I've ever read, Ethan Brown breaks down elements of policing and crime in New Orleans that convincingly lead to the possibility that New Orleans is facing a much bigger catastrophe than Katrina.
In particular Ethan reveals just how fluid the situation remains by adding his own insights to what he's gathered to date on NO policing and criminality:
My sense is that criminals of all kinds–from rapists to car thieves to drug dealers–know that the momentum here is running strongly in their direction. They're well aware that thousands of suspects simply hit the streets soon after being arrested because charges aren't filed in their cases.
Another theory: based on my experience (and from talking to some cops and criminologists down here), the NOPD has retreated from community policing initiatives. In some cases, the cops are just hunkering down in their patrol cars and not even venturing onto the streets
Finally, there's the issue of population density. The population in New Orleans post-Katrina is down significantly (from around 500,000 pre-K to about 250,000-300,000). The result of all this–abandoned houses, lots, even entire blocks–provides big opportunities for criminals, from creating stash houses to unlit areas from which armed robbers can attack.
The criminally minded would have recognized the opportunities in New Orleans immediately. Law enforcement should have as well.
Ethan closes with his devastating prediction:
It is profoundly ironic that under the leadership of a Mayor who proudly proclaimed that New Orleans should be re-built as a "Chocolate City," hundreds of black men will be murdered, a blood-letting worse than what's happening in even apocalyptic urban centers like Compton.
I've only been picking up bits and pieces of what's happening down there but, so far, even the best news doesn't give me any reason to think that Mr. Brown is the least bit wrong.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Ethan Brown Moves to New Orleans
Ethan Brown, author of Queens Reigns Supreme and the upcoming Snitch, has moved to New Orleans and you can tell already that he's going to get a great book out of it if he makes it through:
My fears about New Orleans played out for the rest of the summer: muggings spiked dramatically in the French Quarter and surrounding neighborhoods and, worst of all, homicides spiked wildly around the city (26 people were murdered in New Orleans in August alone, a jaw-dropping statistic given that we’re a city of less than 300,000 people).
Best of luck and watch your back.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Ethan Brown Predicts "Blood-letting" in New Orleans
Ethan Brown on Investigative Hip Hop Journalism
BBC Coverage of the Sept. 20th Protest for the Jena 6
I'm really blown away by response to the situation of the Jena 6 and thought I'd pull together some mainstream sources to get a sense of the visibility of today's protest. I haven't seen official numbers but reports range from thousands to tens of thousands. Lots of protests happened in other places too but the following news items focus on Jena, Louisiana.
Great Photos from ABC News:
Jena Six Protests: Race Debate Explodes in Louisiana
NPR:
'Jena Six' Case Prompts Mass Demonstrations
Reuters:
Civil rights protesters converge on Jena
MTV.com
'Jena Six' Rally Draws Supporters From Around The World To Louisiana
Detroit Free Press:
‘We’re a part of history’
All ProHipHop Coverage:
Katrina/Jena 6 Category
The Mixtapeshow.net has dropped Mixtape 88 - The Jena 6. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but here's a bit from Dex Digital:
A few days ago I posted a call for messages from the community on this situation, and got literally dozens of calls, which I’ve also added into the mix. You’ll hear people from California, Chicago, NYC, South Africa, Canada, London, and beyond. Rappers, filmmakers, label presidents, students, and everything in between.
Sorry I slacked off and didn't participate but sounds like there were plenty of folks involved so check it out!
Related Coverage:
Events Around Nation to Coincide With Sept. 20th Rally in Jena, Louisiana
Jena 6: Empowerment Concert, Rally in Jena, David Bowie Donates $10k to Legal Defense
Free The Jena 6 T-Shirt - [I got one & they look good with crisp readable-at-a-distance printing.]
Whoa, this is great! The Jena 6 Empowerment Concert scheduled for September 29th in Birmingham, Alabama will feature Nick Cannon, Lloyd, Baby Boy, Sean P, Twista, Tank, Jagged Edge, Killer Mike, Bobby Brown, DTP's Small World and Hurricane Chris.
The event is designed to raise awareness of the situation of the Jena 6 and will help build nationally following tomorrow's Rally in Jena, LA.
Billboard also reports that David Bowie has donated $10,000 to legal defense for the Jena 6! That cat stays relevant with great ease.
Can't make it to Jena, Louisiana?
Events Around Nation to Coincide With Sept. 20th Rally in Jena
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Please Support the Jena 6 Directly
Jena 6: September 20th March Info & Additional Resources
Related Hip Hop Logic Coverage:
Hip Hop and the Jena 6: Calling All Rappers
Democracy Now Overview of the Jena Six Disaster
Official Sites:
Free The Jena 6
Jena 6 T-Shirt
Dex Digital is working on a Jena 6 Episode of The Mixtape Show and you've got a couple of days to call in and get your thoughts included. Click through to his blog for the number and more info on what you might contribute.
And if you've shown your support for the Jena 6 on your blog or website please let me know so I can include you in ProHipHop and Hip Hop Logic's roundup:
Support the Jena 6 & Get a Link at ProHipHop & Hip Hop Logic
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Please Support the Jena 6 Directly
A lot of money intended for the Jena 6 defense has been going to other organizations.
Currently the only way to be sure your money is getting to them is to send it directly to:
Jena 6 Defense Committee
PO Box 2798
Jena, LA
71342
You can also donate directly online. The Color of Change folks are now working directly with the Jena 6 Defense Committee.
The Defense Committee is made up of parents and supporters of the Jena 6 and the above options are the only way to be sure the money's not diverted to support the organizing efforts of other groups, no matter how worthy they may be.
I would suggest keeping track of whether or not your check gets cashed and email the organizers if it doesn't at:
jena6defense(at)gmail(dot)com
From past experience I know that even Federal postal workers in such settings may get a little too involved in local politics.
Info gathered via Supernegro, Rafi Kam and chartreuse.
Official Site:
freethejena6.org
By the beginning of next week I plan to post a list of hip hop blogs, websites and fellow travelers who are supporting the Jena 6. It will basically be a list of links that will be included in a post that will appear both here and at Hip Hop Logic.
Since many activists, both in the streets and in their armchairs, like to play "Rank the Issue", let me explain why I'm giving such a level of support to this particular situation, though I do think that Rank the Issue is a waste of time.
The story of the Jena 6 is quite compelling, especially if one gets past the short version and starts to dig into the stories from folks on the scene. Their stories will help make it clear that this isn't just about those kids but is about the systematic racism that pervades the Deep South and is reflected in the laws and institutions that have emerged since the Civil War and allowed racists to finesse the supposed death of Jim Crow.
I believe this could be a crucial issue in organizing support for poor people and people of color in the Deep South and we should take advantage of it now while folks are receptive. It's also a case that connects the issues raised by the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina and Rita as well as the case of Genarlow Wilson. It also offers many opportunities to educate folks about the realities down there that also connect to realities across the nation.
I could say more and will be doing more, especially at Hip Hop Logic, but you can go ahead and let me know that you have something up in the comments section below.
Special Note to My Fellow White People:
White people need to step up on this one, just as do rich rappers. We white people, in particular, have a difficult challenge ahead in explaining this to other white folks that just don't get it. That means that if you interact with white people regularly, you need to study up on this situation so that you can explain it beyond the superficial, "yeah, they hung some nooses and railroaded those boys."
But despite those challenges, I really do think this is a huge opportunity to educate folks about what's happening. It's touched me very deeply but even if you don't really care, front in a convincing manner on your blog and you can get that link love.
Free The Jena 6 - "A@#holes With Money"
I'm going through a bunch of videos for a series of posts at Hip Hop Logic but I feel the above video from stick187 is a good fit for ProHipHop. stick187 calls out most rappers for not yet supporting the Jena 6, expresses his loss of interest in pop news like Kanye vs. Curtis, big ups David Banner for speaking out and generally demands that the people whose music we've been supporting show they're something more than "A@#holes With Money".
Update:
Rafi Kam points to a related post by NYOil in the comments. NYOil basically talks about what he's doing as a hip hop artist and his take on recent remarks by Al Sharpton apparently criticizing lack of rapper involvment in this struggle.
For my part, I'm not really calling anybody out at this stage because I think awareness of this struggle is just now moving from the Innovator stage of the Innovation Adoption Curve to the Early Adopters stage. For most famous people this stage is probably the earliest they can catch on because they're surrounded by so much noise. But awareness is building to the point that we need them to come in soon to help continue the move towards the Early Majority stage which could still be a long ways off.
Al Sharpton will be a part of that process as well but I'm not that interested in digging into criticisms of hip hop from outside in this particular struggle. The best way to defend hip hop in relationship to the Jena 6 is for people who claim to be a part of hip hop to do the work of supporting the Jena 6.
To be honest I'm more interested in the Innovators on the ground right now and once you get a look I'm sure you'll see why I'm mostly going to be posting at Hip Hop Logic. Besides, I'm going to do some additional posts later today or tomorrow on hip hop marketing and I just can't stomach getting serious about this and then having to follow it with Kanye vs. Curtis or whatever the latest is at the moment.
Innovators in Action in Jena, Louisiana, July 31st
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Know Any Rappers Who Will Support the Jena 6?
Jena 6: September 20th March Info & Additional Resources
I have no ties to well-known artists and no real intentions of developing them but if you do, please get them to support the Jena 6. If you've got the connects this is a good time to use them.
If you can't make it to Jena for the September 20th march please organize locally and wear black on the 20th.
If you are organizing an event, please consider organizing it for the weekend before the 20th. Though the day of sentencing of one of the defendants is the focus of the march, the problem is that sentencing will have already been decided before that day and the judge's position will likely harden in response to the uproar that he will most likely perceive as outsider agitators who have no business in Jena.
I understand the symbolic value and the ability to move people by being there as sentencing happens but the event is unlikely to affect sentencing though news that lots of people are paying attention and heading down will help. However local events all across the nation the weekend before with the promise of the march and media attention to come should amplify the effects of the march itself so please consider that possibility.
If you have additional resources I'll be posting them at Hip Hop Logic. Please send Jena 6 related links, etc. to:
clyde(at)netweed(dot)com
Here are some resources regarding the Jena 6 who are in the process of having their lives ruined by a racist system full of racist individuals down in Jena, Louisiana. I'll be updating and doing more over at Hip Hop Logic but I want to take advantage of the ProHipHop platform as needed for this one.
March on Jena, LA September 20th:
Basic march details plus additional links
Resources:
Basic Story & Additional Links
Info from ACLU Staffer in Louisiana
Discussion Forum at Minglecity.com
Coverage of the July 31st Rally in Jena:
Photos from the July 31st rally and march in Jena, LA
Jena 6: Voices from the July 31 Rally
Hundreds March in Jena, Louisiana in Support of the Jena Six
If you have additional resources I'll be posting them at Hip Hop Logic. Please send Jena 6 related links, etc. to:
clyde(at)netweed(dot)com
Since I joined so many others in writing about Katrina, I thought I'd share a bit of important news that I'd normally drop at Brand Destruction Research. According to the Associated Press:
The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet President Bush's promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
A rush job to meet a failing President's marketing needs by an Army Corps with problems of its own. Yet another piece of the overwhelming pattern of incompetence at everything but marketing displayed by George W. Bush's regime. Whether sending ideological flackeys without practical experience or knowledge of the Middle East to "rebuild" Iraq and thus ensure its loss or colluding with the Army Corps in criminal activities, every step of the way we've gotten screwed.
Grounds for impeachment? ProHipHop says Yes!
The Showcase has been cancelled in current form due to cyberfraud (fake signups) but will relaunch at a later date.
I wrote about Rockworks in a previous post and totally forgot about the Rockworks Showcase Competition in which you can support Rockworks while, possibly, getting your band into a special showing at the upcoming CMJ Music Marathon.
Check it out: Rockworks Showcase
Gulf Coast Rebuild: Forest Heights, Chapter One
I was recently contacted by Vasu Dudakia of Rockworks about their Gulf Coast [re]Build project which will not simply rebuild a destroyed Boys & Girls Club but is coming back with a "Boys & Girls Club of the Gulf Coast (BGCGC) HOPE Center" designed by Daniel Libeskind who was commissioned to design the 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center site. The HOPE Center will be built in the Forest Heights community of Gulfport, Mississippi, another of the communities severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Now that I've clarified my support, I have to say that Rockworks sounds like a cool thing but I'm not really inspired by the pitch. Check the homepage (which you have to check for everything since the info pops up in a separate window, so you can't link to it and many disabled users will find it problematic, giving it low points on usability). You'll find a video with Demi and Ashton and will.i.am doing the celebrity thing, but wait, they're inspired by roadies so they're not going to raise money, they're going to do the work themselves!
And that's cool. Seeing celebs digging and moving things is always a great photo opportunity, i.e. celebs are good for publicity and raising money. So the, Rockworks theme of "we're inspired by roadies and we're not just being celebrities here" falls a bit flat.
But I'm glad to see folks staying with the post-Katrina rebuilding process, one that has a long ways to go and is about everyday people who most of us would ignore if celebrities didn't get involved. And if the other folks at Rockworks are as persistent in their mission as was Vasu in encouraging my support at a time when I wasn't feeling responsiveness to requests of any kind, then I'm sure they'll accomplish quite a bit in the days ahead.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Rockworks Organizes CMJ Showcase Competition
Though 50 Cent seems to have the rap merchandising and marketing game on lock, he just can't get past the fact that Kanye West can top the charts without displaying a gun or taking his shirt off. While those staples have taken 50 a long way, Kanye's dominance seems to baffle the man who still has time to die while tryin' to get richer.
First 50 claims responsibility for Kanye West's success because, after wearing out the general public with his intensity, 50 failed to oversaturate the market with product for a month or two. Now, he's getting all political and alerting us to the fact that gangsta rappers are, in many ways, closely aligned with gangster Republicans.
The latest oddity is 50's lack of understanding of Kanye's attack on Bush as the Katrina disaster unfolded. Stating:
"I think people responded to it the best way they can . . . What Kanye West was saying, I don't know where that came from."
Instead, 50 blamed an otherwise unidentified figure who is often discussed but rarely seen:
"The New Orleans disaster was meant to happen. It was an act of God."
Predestination aside, one wonders if 50 Cent actually reads the news when it doesn't refer to 50 Cent, Kanye West or 50's employee/rappers. In addition to widespread revelations of government ineptitude from the beginning, recent reports have added to the damning case against both the current and past administrations, for example:
Brown Discussed His Clothes During Katrina
Or maybe 50's just upset because his single Window Shopper entered the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at no. 82. Though it was the highest debut of the week, Kanye is still riding that thing as well as holding the top spot on the Pop 100 and the Hot Ringtones charts with his single Gold Digger featuring Jamie Foxx.
Is it envy or is 50 worried that Kanye's starting to mess with his money? In any case, while we're talking about charts, I should tell you that the Black Eyed Peas' My Humps remains at no. 3 on the Hot 100 while Young Jeezy's Soul Survivor featuring Akon takes the 4 spot and Bow Wow's Like You featuring Ciara drops to no. 7.
Although I want to come back and look at some money angles related to the rebuilding of New Orleans, there's an article from MarketingSherpa.com that I want to mention because it's only freely viewable through October 6th, after which it goes behind a paid barrier.
Guerilla Marketing to Aid Katrina Victims looks at how a group of marketers who decided to help survivors of the Katrina disaster find housing marketed their website KatrinaHousing.org using a variety of techniques including reaching out to bloggers and starting a blog.
I'm also going to be running an ad soon for Architecture for Humanity, a group that mobilizes architects to design low cost housing and other structures and then seeks to get them built. In addition to helping survivors of Katrina, they continue to help with recovery from the South Asian tsunami that occurred in December (remember that?). Recently a project by an architect/member won an award for a design for a South African youth center that will also emphasize health outreach and A.I.D.S. education. Construction should begin later this year.
I don't think it was planned this way, but this Billboard article on tonight's telethons clued me in to the fact that Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast features mostly white artists and celebs while BET's S.O.S. (Saving Ourselves): The BET Relief Telethon features pretty much all black artists. That feels kind of weird to me, especially since BET's telethon gets downplayed in the article and, I think, elsewhere as well.
While BET announced S.O.S. in an August 31st press release, the earliest mention I can find of Shelter From the Storm is on September 2nd. You'll notice in the comments section of the A+E Interactive post that Ifè Oshun, About.com's Rap and Hip-hop Guide was already raising this issue by September 3rd and pointing to a lack of media coverage of the BET announcement. Good looking out, Ifè.
Obviously the BET telethon and the combined MTV, VH1, and CMT telethon on Saturday aren't in conflict because they're all owned by the same company, Viacom, Inc. So the scheduling issue could simply be about competing businesses not checking in though a lot of people must have been in the loop for Shelter From the Storm. But it also means that the telethon featuring black performers related to a disaster featuring black survivors seems to be getting downplayed.
I think it's great that a lot's happening but, given the tensions around who got abandoned in the Katrina disaster, it feels kind of insensitive. Am I offbase on this, dear readers? Let me know.
By the way, SIRIUS Satellite Radio is dealing with the conflict by promoting and broadcasting all three live, a real indication of their strength and flexibility in the media wars.
Update: I just went back to the A+E Interactive blog mentioned above and found this post, Katrina telethons for the weekend:
"A quick note that two major telethons will air this weekend to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina."
Guess which of this weekend's three telethons wasn't mentioned?
Here are some of the better sources for news and analysis related to Hurricane Katrina. If you've got other favorites, please add them in the comments section.
A timeline of government response to Hurricane Katrina is a resource that you can help build. It's exactly the sort of thing I think we'll need as the battle over responsibility for official failings heats up. And it will heat up.
Oliver Wang's doing great work over at Poplicks.com. I love it when he's on his game.
Democracy Now! does an excellent radio/tv show with a left/lib perspective and they eventually post the transcripts as well.
I think Yahoo News does a great job of aggregating articles from mainstream news sources such as the Associated Press from which so many news articles are built.
The New York Times also tends to be a decent mainstream news source on this kind of thing and after an initially slow response has gotten reporters on the job.
Wired News gets into the technosocial aspects and is doing a decent job with Katrina, though nowhere near as good as the work they did on 9/11.
I'll get back with a hip hop and the hurricane roundup later in the week.
During a recent tour of the Houston Astrodome, Barbara Bush expressed her feeling that the evacuees lives will improve in Houston:
"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston." Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
Have you noticed how everybody's stepping up to help the survivors of Katrina from U.S. citizens to foreign governments, yet the folks positioned to provide the immediate aid that was needed still aren't up to the task and don't really seem that concerned or clued in?
Katrina was a Level 4 hurricane but the Corps of Engineers only built for a Level 3 and funding for that was never fully provided. In fact, local, state and federal agencies simply planned for moderate disasters, leaving serious disasters off the table.
Ray Nagin didn't really focus on evacuating the poor till after the disaster and had been against using the Superdome during a prior hurricane.
Early in the disaster President Bush focused on saying nice things rather than deploying troops and, at some point, suggested that the whole idea of the levees breaching was totally unanticipated while Pentagon lawyers spent their time creating arguments against deploying U.S. troops to help.
FEMA officials found multiple ways to screw things up according to "Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, south of New Orleans" on Meet The Press:
"When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said."
Louisiana officials blocked the deployment of an emergency medical convoy from North Carolina a few miles outside of New Orleans.
I know there's more but I'm starting to obsess over future disasters and the fact that the Bay Area is not prepared for the very real possibility of a major earthquake.
I think we should all start calling for the resignation of people like Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This piece at CNN (found via Slate article in previous post) does an excellent job of contrasting their misinformed bs and the word from people on the scene. Here are transcripts of a related CNN segment that includes some of Mayor Ray Nagin's pleas and confusion as to why the government wasn't responding.
I would strongly suggest that if this situation concerns you, that you gather materials as they appear that show how incompetent these folks were. As time passes the press and much of the public will move on. You'll want a record to remind you of the details, especially if you become an advocate for demanding their removal from their positions.
And we should demand nothing less than the resignations of Chertoff and Brown for starters.
Slate's Jack Shafer has been doing some great work on the media's response to Katrina including this piece published Friday about tv journalists going off when confronting bs from politicians and other officials. Usually they just play nice and I'm glad to see some of them stepping up.
For example, CNN's Anderson Cooper responded to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. after she went on and on about all the help being offered by government officials:
"Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard that, because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. . . there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated. And when they hear politicians slap—you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours. And there's not enough facilities to take her up."
NPR's Robert Siegel took on Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who I have to say is the biggest weasel I've listened to in quite a while:
"Siegel kept asking Chertoff how long it would take to serve or rescue these people, and a couple times Chertoff answered that the government was doing a great job at the Superdome. When he cautioned Siegel about the danger of relying on "anecdotal" "rumors" of people in dire straits, Siegel said, no—these are facts presented by reporters who have covered war zones. There are 2,000 people at the convention center in need, he said. Having finally broken through the steel plate that is Chertoff's skull, the secretary confessed he hadn't heard those reports—reports that the television networks were documenting, live, with their cameras. Chertoff promised he'd look into the matter."
What's also needed here is the insight of journalists who have seen a lot of really difficult situations. I'm sure many of the people covering New Orleans know a lot more about disasters than does Chertoff (that f*cking weasel).
Journalists who cover this thing also have a good sense of how quickly the government is responding compared to other disasters in the U.S.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough was reporting from Biloxi and had this to say about the government's efforts in New Orleans:
"It is amateur hour, and it has been amateur hour over the past four or five days. This is completely different, friends, from the way the crises were handled in Florida last year, four hurricanes, two of them major, it was handled with ruthless efficiency. I know. I was there. That is not happening tonight in New Orleans."
And speaking of official incompetence, as CNN's Soledad O'Brien stated to FEMA director Michael Brown:
"How is it possible that we're getting better intel than you're getting? . . . FEMA has been on the ground for four days, going into the fifth day. Why no massive airdrop of food and water? In Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, they got food dropped two days after the tsunami struck."
How many people would be alive today if a food and water drop had occurred? How many people who will always be traumatized by events that occurred after the city was flooded could have been spared if officials had acted?
Shafer does a nice job of rounding up journalists' response to such incompetence. He also was early to point out that tv journalists were ignoring issues of race and class or, at least, not pointing out the obvious when discussing folks left behind in the disaster. I'm going to keep looking for this guy's byline.
I can't find the story that explained this particular situation, but an owner or employee of an ISP or Internet company of some sort in New Orleans has turned his or her personal blog into an account of what s/he's observing on an ongoing basis:
Survival of New Orleans
Update: Here's the story from Wired.
I'm giving into the inevitable and adding a Katrina category. While I do want to focus a lot on the effects on hip hop, I'll also add links to particularly insightful news items.
I feel a little better about being slow to catch on to how big an issue Katrina had become after reading comments from hip hop blogger Hashim Warren and VC blogger Brad Feld.
What's interesting is that they both note their lack of tv viewing as a reason that they hadn't really taken in what had happened and that's part of what happened for me as well. At home I don't watch tv, I watch rented dvds, so I don't even have cable. Mostly that's a good thing but it's interesting to realize that, though tv coverage can be pretty weird, it also puts a lot of people in the same space about big events even if they interpret things differently.
But it's also a matter of finding a personal connection that draws people in. Hashim said the weight of Katrina finally hit him when he read a piece at SOHH about the losses of New Orleans' rappers, in particular Choppa, who lost some of his friends.
For me, it was talking to Adisa Banjoko about his feelings of abandonment and outrage, both for the people of New Orleans and black people more generally. Reading accounts of what happened in the Louisiana Superdome and in the New Orleans Convention Center was the other part that really brought things home.
When 9/11 occurred I was staying at my folks house and spent the day watching tv. I was totally blown away, as were so many people, but it was a couple of days before I felt it on a deep emotional level. What finally touched me and opened me up to the enormity of that tragedy was reading of the firefighters who died in the collapse of one of the towers while they were attempting to save people in the building. Of course, as in this disaster, that wasn't where it ended for me but, rather, where it began.
You know, Katrina's been hard for me to take in and I keep writing things that just don't do it justice but, really, who can? I also tend to be slow to feel the effects of big disasters I'm not in and this one's still happening but it seems like a good time to share some of my concerns.
A big concern of mine is what this will do to race relations in the U.S. I'm worried that a lot of white people won't be able to understand why black people not in New Orleans feel that this was an abandonment and betrayal not just of the people of New Orleans, but also of black people more generally.
The New Orleans disaster at first struck me as a combination of a nation's unwillingness to prepare for possibilities that may or may not occur, the misdirection and mismanagement of the so-called Dept. of Homeland Security and our general disregard for poor people. But, while a major disaster in the Appalachians might fill the screen with desperate white faces, this disaster filled it with desperate black faces.
It shouldn't surprise white folks that when black folks see such scenes it reminds them of the long history of oppression they've faced both personally and as a people. But for so many reasons that's a connection that's difficult for many white people to understand. My feeling is that, once we get past the immediate disaster, we'll face not only a ruined New Orleans but a deepening of already existing divisions along racial lines.
I'm not sure what I can contribute to this situation. Although I don't think individuals can ever speak for groups, as a white man I certainly can't speak for black people. And the white people I tend to deal with are the kinds of folks willing to try to understand why black people are enraged. Still, I offer my insights where I can and I keep listening so that those insights aren't just my own.
More importantly, I can keep building ProHipHop and related projects as work that goes beyond my own need for productive employment. In earlier years, I would have laughed at the idea that business activities could do anything positive for race relations. But in all my years of left political activity in North Carolina and San Francisco I never established the kinds of working relationships that I'm developing with black people as those that I'm starting to build through ProHipHop.
It's actually kind of a trip. Instead of trying to help black people or organize black people or follow black people, I'm simply working with black people because that's who I encounter doing hip hop related business. And instead of my understanding, limited though it may be, of what black people are going through being used as a badge of left righteousness, that understanding simply keeps me from getting defensive when black people express a rage that has plenty of justification.
I feel like I'm starting to pat myself on the back or something and that's just not the point, so I'll stop here. I may go into some deeper stuff over at Hip Hop Logic or I may simply cover Katrina news here as it affects hip hop business, which it has and will because so many hip hop artists had their homes and studios in New Orleans and Mississippi and wherever else this thing hit (sadly I couldn't really tell you at the moment).
And, although I don't want this to be a Katrina blog, I will occassionally link to online pieces that illuminate some important aspect of the disaster, like these pieces from Dex Digital on finding vs. looting, which manages to make meaningful comedy out of tragedy and also includes an audio link from Adisa Banjoko who's been sharing his rage, and on Kanye's recent comments. On that note, whoever expected such things from Kanye? He may have a big ego but he's also a brave man. Most entertainers are socially neutered when they depend on album sales to maintain their credibility.
AllHipHop.com has a roundup of responses, primarily from the hip hop community, to the Katrina disaster. I particularly appreciate the comments from Chris Rock and Master P. You know, there should have been an immediate mobilization beyond the National Guard. I know different branches of the military have different missions but this isn't a time for "that's not my job."
I can tell I'm going to be writing about this issue more because of the hip hop angle, but also because of the racial issues. Though I do think that class is a huge part of this situation, once pictures of black people hit the media, a lot of it has become racial. I'll talk more about what I mean by that soon and try to address some of my understanding as a white man of why many white people will misunderstand much of what's happening in the streets/canals of New Orleans.
I have a lot of thoughts on the Katrina disaster but I'm not really sure what to say. I tend not to post about such events because there's so much coverage already. And I've mostly retreated from political organizing, in part, due to addressing my own survival issues.
But I do want to say that the situation in New Orleans is a strong example of something that did not have to be so disastrous. From the destruction of the salt marshes that increased New Orleans' vulnerability to the lack of preparation of a government more interested in searching bags on subways than preparing for and averting known hazards to the acceptance of poverty that birthed a volatile underclass, our nation must accept responsibility for a situation we have created.
While I believe that the abandonment of so many people in New Orleans may say more about class than about race, the two are deeply intertwined and this tragedy will only deepen the already deep racial divides in this country, leading to further troubles ahead. I also believe that the response to similar disasters waiting to happen will be as negligible as the response to earlier warnings about New Orleans. And I believe that the people of Mississippi will be forgotten as the situation in New Orleans continues to capture media attention.
It's interesting to watch rappers take the traditional path of raising charitable funds. Let's hope some remember to address the underlying issues that made this tragedy possible.
Diddy, Jay-Z, Cage Donate to Aid Relief
BET, National Urban League, American Red Cross to Announce Prime Time Telethon to Benefit Hurricane Katrina Victims
MTV, VH1, and CMT Launch Hurricane Katrina Relief Campaign
|
Recent Comments