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A quiet revolution: ‘Not Meant to Live Like This: Weathering the storm of our lives in New Orleans’
March 4, 2013
One morning after Mass at the Poor Claire Monastery, Maria Victoire, a volunteer with the Fourth World Movement, broached the idea of a collaborative book written by extremely poor New Orleaneans scattered to the winds after Hurricane Katrina. She was asking my opinion as an author about what to do with the 50 or so interviews she had conducted and how to get them published as a book.
Eighth Annual Citgo-Venezuela Heating Oil Program launched
February 2, 2013
On Jan. 31 CITGO Petroleum Corp. President and CEO Alejandro Granado and Citizens Energy Corp. Chairman Joseph P. Kennedy II launched the eighth annual CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program with the first heating oil delivery of this winter’s initiative. The program has become a humanitarian symbol of unity between the people of Venezuela and those in need in the United States.
New Orleans police conviction vacated
January 29, 2013
A federal appeals court in New Orleans has overturned the conviction of former New Orleans police officer David Warren, one of the former cops tried and convicted of an assortment of charges related to the murder of Henry Glover, who was shot by police and later burned in an abandoned car by cops just days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans more than seven years ago.
Wanda’s Picks for September 2012
September 7, 2012
With the storm approaching New Orleans, I spoke to Dwight Henry, co-star in the film, “Beasts of a Southern Wild,” currently in Bay Area theaters. I spoke to three men who are riding the storm out: Parnell Herbert, Angola 3 activist and playwright, Mwalimu Johnson, community organizer and prison abolitionist, and Malik Rahim, former Black Panther.
Seven years after Katrina, a divided city
August 30, 2012
New Orleans has become a national laboratory for government reforms. But the process through which those experiments have been carried out rarely has been transparent or democratic. The results have been divisive, pitting new residents against those who grew up here, rich against poor, and white against Black.
Food for thought
July 19, 2012
The red carpet at the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities was teeming with elegant, poised, radiant young HBO stars, ready to introduce the film about them, The Rethinkers, and discuss it. Inside it was standing room only, and barely that. “The Great Cafeteria Takeover” was premiering this night as part of the HBO series, “The Weight of the Nation.”
Solitary confinement on trial: an interview with law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell
June 18, 2012
On the morning of Tuesday, June 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights is having an important public hearing on “Reassessing Solitary Confinement.” This Senate hearing comes on the heels of widespread prisoner hunger strikes that have made the use of solitary confinement a central issue.
Jungleland? New Orleans community activist rejects NY Times depiction of 9th Ward
June 17, 2012
The New York Times Magazine recently ran a story on my home, the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, a place one of the most powerful newspapers in the world insensitively dubbed a “Jungleland.” Contrary to the article, residents don’t live in an untamed mess of overgrowth or in a forgotten wasteland. We are not resigned to anything; we are fighting to revive our community.
Two years after the BP drilling disaster, Gulf residents fear for the future
May 7, 2012
On April 20, 2010, a reckless attitude towards the safety of the Gulf Coast by BP caused a well to blow out 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. “People should be aware that the oil is still there,” says Wilma Subra, a chemist who travels widely across the Gulf. The reality she is seeing on the ground contrasts sharply with the image painted by BP.
Katrina Pain Index 2011: Race, gender, poverty
September 7, 2011
Six years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. The impact of Katrina and government bungling continue to inflict major pain on the people left behind. It is impossible to understand what happened and what still remains without considering race, gender and poverty. The following offer some hints of what remains.
Blacks win Katrina suit
August 17, 2011
New Orleans – Black homeowners and two civil rights organizations announced July 7 a settlement in a post-Hurricane Katrina housing discrimination lawsuit brought against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the state of Louisiana regarding the “Road Home” program.
London liberators must be praised
August 12, 2011
Since the beginning of the seizure of police stations and army depots by the “peaceful” protesters in Libya, Africa, in February, who were then armed to the teeth and terrorized the population of many cities in Libya, the British government has supported them, calling them “rebels,” and even in the last few days recognize them as the “official government of Libya.”
‘In tha Wind’: an interview wit’ Memphis based rapper Powwah
July 12, 2011
Powwah and his family are some of the people that I check in with when I am in the Memphis area. Besides being one of the most politically educated entrepreneurs that I know, Powwah makes music. His new album, “In tha Wind,” is Southern conscious rap at its finest with precise lyrical content and the type of production that we traditionally think of when we think of bar-b-cues and Southern Comfort.
Judge hands out tough sentences in post-Katrina killing by police
April 4, 2011
On March 31, a federal judge sentenced two former New Orleans police officers for killing Henry Glover and incinerating his body during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One got 25 years for shooting Glover with an assault rifle and the other got 17 years for torching the man’s corpse.
A conversation with the MOI JR, author of ‘Block Reportin’’
March 13, 2011
Bay Area journalist JR Valrey, the voice behind Block Report Radio on KPFA and associate editor of SF Bay View, known as the Minister of Information, reports vital news about the struggle against oppression. In the 31 interviews in his new book, “Block Reportin’,” he shows what he calls the “big gap between what is going on in the world and what is being reported. I want to inspire people to become their own media and to truly speak on behalf of the people.” Meet JR at his first book signing Saturday, March 19, 6:30 p.m., at Marcus Books, 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland.
New Orleans Council votes to shrink city’s jail size
March 10, 2011
On Feb. 3 the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to pass an ordinance authorizing the construction of a new jail that’s much smaller than what had previously been planned, marking a major effort to downsize the city’s swelling prison population.
One year after Haiti earthquake, corporations profit while people suffer
January 12, 2011
One year after an earthquake devastated Haiti, much of the promised relief and reconstruction aid has not reached those most in need. Less than 2% of the $267 million spent so far has gone to Haitian firms, the rest to “masters of disaster,” big U.S. firms that hire Haitians to do the back-breaking work for $5 a day.
Learning from shattered Haiti’s year of struggle
January 12, 2011
A year ago this month, Haiti was flattened by a seismic catastrophe. It was hardly the only tragedy that the tiny nation has faced in its 220-year history as the first republic born of a slave revolt.
Disaster capitalism – in Haiti, Congo, Pakistan and New Orleans
November 24, 2010
A series of disasters has displaced and killed millions of people. Distinguished panelists who are not afraid to voice radical viewpoints give us an update on the current situation in Haiti, the DR Congo, Pakistan and New Orleans. Two of these advocates, Ezili Danto of Haiti and Kambale Musavuli of the Congo, are well known to Bay View readers. Ezili (longtime readers will remember her as Marguerite Laurent) emphasizes the economic disparity in Haiti: Half of 1 percent of Haitians own 98 percent of the wealth.
Beyond protest: Rethinkers’ music conveys solutions
October 11, 2010
The Rethinkers, a group of motivated middle school students from New Orleans, are creating their own revolution within the resurgent New Orleans schools and are attracting broad press attention as they do so, including recent coverage by ABC-TV News and The Huffington Post.