Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Katrina and Other Catastrophes
24 Aug 2016

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The Lords of Capital learned a great deal from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They learned that the Black Misleadership Class was incapable of organizing resistance to even the most public crimes committed against the Black poor. Not only could African Americans be removed en mass from valuable urban property with no push-back from the Black political class, but many of them would join in celebrating the catastrophe as a “renaissance.”
listenClick the player below to listen to or the mic at left to download this Black Agenda Radio commentary

 

Katrina and Other Catastrophes

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“The New Orleans model has gone national.”

Eleven years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, killing at least 1,200 people – although no one will ever know the actual death toll because most of the victims were Black and poor and, therefore, were never considered important enough to count.

What was important to the rulers of this country, in the aftermath of Katrina, was making sure that as many as possible of the displaced Black residents would not be allowed to return to the city. Before the waters had fully subsided, corporate planners were exulting in the opportunity to build a new New Orleans, a much whiter and richer metropolis. Katrina had ethnically cleansed the city -- permanently exiling 100,000 Blacks -- and the Lords of Capital could not contain their jubilation. What Blacks experienced as catastrophe was celebrated as a renaissance.

Katrina was a godsend for Disaster Capitalism, and provided a model for capitalists to create future disasters for Black people. President Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, said Katrina was “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans" because it allowed school privatizers to fire all of the city’s teachers, 71 percent of them Black, and turn most of the schools into charters. Instead of firing Duncan for his outrageously callous and deeply racist remarks, President Obama joined in praising the so-called “recovery” of a city that had shed about a third of its Black population and was on the way to becoming the nation’s first all-charter school system. Over the next several years, Obama’s Race to the Top program would coerce states to create a “market” for charter schools or face the loss of federal education funds. Katrina paved the way to a catastrophe for public education, nationwide.

Black Caucus Muzzled, Easily

During the last weeks of the summer of 2005, when the magnitude of the disaster became apparent, it seemed that almost every Black community organization responded with some kind of Katrina support program. But, there was no political response from the Congressional Black Caucus, in Washington. The Democratic Party hoped to regain control of the House of Representatives in the 2006 elections, and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t want the Party to appear too pro-Black. She ordered her members to boycott the Republicans’ hearings on Katrina, and Democrats held no hearings of their own. In the face of what was then the greatest Black catastrophe of the 21st century, the Congressional Black Caucus allowed itself to be muzzled.

The Black political class’s abject failure to respond to Katrina guaranteed that there would be more catastrophes for Black folks. The Lords of Capital realized that, if they could get away with massive ethnic cleansing in New Orleans, while the whole world was watching, they could ratchet up the speed of gentrification and Black removal all across the country. Soon, half of the Black citizens of Michigan were disenfranchised by an emergency financial manager regime that took over all of the state’s heavily Black cities. The New Orleans model has gone national, because the rulers of this country know that they don’t need a storm to drive Black folks from the cities – and that there will be no resistance from a selfish, useless Black Misleadership Class.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected]. 



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20160824_gf_KatrinaCatastrophe.mp3

More Stories


  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    UN Group of Experts on DRC Report, June 2025
    09 Jul 2025
    The UN Group of Experts on DRC reports the obvious, that Rwandan President Paul Kagame intends to annex DRC’s Kivu Provinces.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Collaborators Like Al Sharpton Can’t Assist Zohran Mamdani with Circumventing Pigmentation Politics and the Black Misleadership Class…But Principled Black Radical Organizing Can
    09 Jul 2025
    Zohran Mamdani’s victory rattled NYC’s political elite. But to win Black voters and defeat the Democrat machine, he must reject Al Sharpton’s co-optation and align with radical Black organizers.
  • Jon Jeter
    From Cadillac-Driving Welfare Queens to Xbox-Playing Slackers, the Oligarchs Vilify Others for Their Own Larceny
    09 Jul 2025
    America’s ruling class keeps inventing new boogeymen to disguise its endless war on workers, while wealth flows upward and capitalism’s collapse accelerates.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Mali Collins’ Book, “Scrap Theory”
    09 Jul 2025
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Mali Collins. Collins is Assistant Professor of African American and African…
  • Hanna Eid
    Hell is Empty and the Devils Are All Here: AI and Imperialism in the Current Crisis
    09 Jul 2025
    AI is imperialism's newest weapon, automating genocide in Gaza while building a surveillance state domestically.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us