Thursday, July 31, 2008
Guest blog: "Please forgive me if I don't grab my hangman's noose and storm city hall..."
Posted by Kevin Allman on Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 8:53 PM
(The following is by Gambit guest blogger and New Orleans East resident Clifton Harris, who maintains his own blog, Cliff's Crib. You can read more of his writing there.)
After listening to the radio this week and hearing callers speak about the big NOAH story on WWL, I realized we have a communication problem here in the city. I think black people try to explain what is viewed as support for the mayor and it doesn’t come out the right way. I thought I would take a shot at it.
Black people hate corruption more than any of you can imagine. We don’t show it as much publicly because we don’t know who to be mad with exactly. We usually live in areas where you can visually see the effects of what corruption and lack of funding can do. We have the parks and the schools with inadequate resources. We have the abandoned public buildings. Our quality of life is directly affected by these things. I am certain there is or was big time corruption and patronage in the city. I just get frustrated when the only things we get are Pampy, NOAH and Oliver Thomas. When are the big fish that we have been hearing about as the reason for our conditions going down? You can’t tell me that my community looks the way it does because someone has been dishonest or mismanaging funds but no one gets in trouble for it. When I see billion dollar problems and I get thousand dollar investigations I start thinking someone is playing games and picking on certain people.
I’m not trying to minimize NOAH, Pampy Barre, or Oliver Thomas. I have said in the past that these little things add up to the huge problems the city has had for decades because it discourages people from coming to the city and investing time and money here. If someone did something wrong they should pay the price for it. All I am asking is that the size and scope of the scheme matches the neglect I see. I see how everyone is rallying around this NOAH story but if you added up all the questionable payments on that list it would be a drop in the bucket of the money that has been drained from this city. That’s what I want to find out about.
I want the folks who caused me to have a ten year old 7th grade English book investigated. What about the people who crippled NORD leaving the poor kids of the city with no organized recreation? What happened to all of the money the gambling industry was supposed to bring? Why isn’t Lincoln Beach open yet? Why didn’t any class I sat in from 7th to 12th grade have air conditioning? Where has all the money been going even before Ray Nagin and Marc Morial got in office?
If someone can find out and indict these people regardless of their color we will make them King of Chocolate City. We would welcome that because no one has suffered because of whatever they did or didn’t do more than we have. Until then please forgive me if I don’t grab my hangman’s noose and storm city hall because a contractor got paid to gut a house that he didn’t.
If we can’t find the big fish that everyone keeps saying is out there, the next logical explanation would be discrimination based on race and class. I don’t really want to believe that but no one is showing me otherwise.
Comments (19)
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I think you missed. Your analysis is illogical and the NOAH scandal is exactly that a scandal involving mismanagement and fraud of recovery money and it stands on its own legs independent of your varied excuses and complaints. Nagin isn't responsible for the past but he is responsible for what occurs in his administration. Those complaining are focused on reality and a desire for honest government and a better city they don't really care about your excuses.
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"I see how everyone is rallying around this NOAH story but if you added up all the questionable payments on that list it would be a drop in the bucket of the money that has been drained from this city. That’s what I want to find out about." And that's what we SHOULD all be finding out about.
Sometimes you gotta have bait to catch the big fish. Pampy was bait for the bigger fish. NOAH may or may not be the same thing, but if people don't scream and holler and storm city hall at the relatively small swindling, how will they ever get themselves organized to do anything about the big stuff. As for your school funding disappearing ... here's at least one answer: http://neworleansleftbehind.com/ Great job Cliff. Nice to see you guest blogging over here.
From his article I thought he wanted answers on why Lincoln Beach isn't financially viable, why he didn't have air conditioning in all of his classes and a newer Englsih book, the big stuff really related to corruption. It seems we are getting nice sized fish, Oliver Thomas, Bill Jefferson, Derrick Shepherd, lots of jefferson relatives, Pampe Barre, Bill Schultz and other Morial cronies, the Feds are doing a great job, much of the population is joyed by the success of Jim Letten and the FBI in cleaning up our mess.
Maybe there is no "big fish," just thousands of little ones like what's going on with NOAH. Perhaps Mr. Harris would prefer that we just shrug our shoulders at all the corruption we discover. "Ah, that's nothing. Wake me when you find the Big Fish," we could say. That's no way to make the city better. You need to make it a place where it's hard to get away with corruption. You do that by stamping it out when and where you find it, no matter the size.
I never said we should shrug our shoulders. I actually say in the third paragraph that any corruption is bad. I'm saying that after living here all my life and watching things fall apart, a few mismanaged payments after Katrina doesn't move me in the same way. It's perfectly legit to investigate all discrepancies but bloggers and other people are carrying on like we just explained the last twenty years of neglect.
NOAH isn't about the list that counts. NOAH is about the lists that don't count.
I am not sure there are big fishes, but rather schools of fish. Congratulations on your Guest Blogging.
Once again, Cliff is the master of asking the hard questions, and should be invited back often. (Check out the Sitting On My Porch posts on his own blog). The difficulty with this is we have to deal with the demons that torment us now. The demons of the Morial era are getting their due, but that doen't help us much now. Before that Landrieu was pretty clean, and did more than anyone before or after to try to lift up and empower everyone in this city. You go too much further back, and you would have to go into exhuming the suspects for trail. What most concerns me is the willingness of both sides to use racial antagonism to advance their agendas in this city. I think I pretty much made my own views clear here in 2006, and they haven't changed much: http://wetbankguide.blogspot.com/2006/11/white-devils-1-mau-maus-0.html What we need is to focus on the people in office now who prevent us from rectifying decades of mistakes, from replacing those textbooks and rebuilding NORD and having a competent police force. If we can't resist the temptation to protect "our own" on either side, we are pretty much doomed.
Congrats Cliff! I see exactly what you're saying and I think you've articulated a very legitimate attitude that a lot of white progressives have a hard time relating to. But I think Karen's characterization of the systems in play is helpful. It isn't about the small fish getting taken down, it's about understanding how schools of fish operate. The problems here are structural, and not problems related to transparency and corruption. There is structural racism, structural poverty, structural problems with the criminal justice system and with housing policy. Ray Nagin, Warren Riley, whether they're to be called big fish or small fish in schools are in powerful positions where they have the ability to shine a light on the structural problems that have contributed to unjust conditions in certain communities, if not begin to correct them. I want to get the guys that made urban public schools abominable too. This is a step in that direction. To win that war all the way, we need progressive grassroots political reforms at the local level. That means going after people that get in the way of good governance and people that get in the way of progressive structural change. (Nagin gets in the way of both) This NOAH scandal has really galvanized the blogosphere because it was uncovered by the blogosphere. It demonstrates very concretely our power as a constituency and as a journalistic force. I don't think anyone is saying that it really "changes" anything in terms of the conditions facing everyday people in the city. But we need to deconstruct these systems in order to understand what kinds of changes need to be made. We have a talk radio problem in this city Cliff. One hypocrisy that makes me very uncomfortable is the way that racists/conservatives jump all over the NOAH scandal but do everything in their power to otherwise keep systemic racism and poverty in place. That this scandal gets co-opted by conservatives with their own agenda is unfortunate but the bottom line is that talk radio callers do not speak for the majority of white or blacks in this or any other city.
Hi Test - Not sure what the problem is - there are no comments being held (I believe the only ones that go to auto-moderation are somehow triggering the blog's spam trap). Since this one went through, something must be working OK. Could you look over the comment you wanted to leave and see if it has "Viagra" or some other spam-type word in it? Or just try again. I'll mention the problem to the tech guru, too.
Schroeder, the problem should be fixed now. I reloaded the page and can see your posts -- you should be able to as well. Sorry about the technoconfusion.
Cliff, sorry I didn't respond earlier, but I'm in Montana and have been struggling to get hi-speed Internet connections. Just read your piece and it was great. Thanks for contributing to our blog. It's an honor to carry writers as thoughtful as you.
