Community
Organizer VS Corrupt Politician: The December 6 New Orleans
Congressional Election
by
BAR Managing Editor Bruce A. Dixon
The
congressional election in Louisiana's 2nd district was
delayed to due Hurricane Gustav, and will take place on December 6,
2008. What was once an overwhelmingly black district containing most
of New Orleans and a sliver of neighboring Jefferson Parish is
probably still majority black, but with a much thinner margin.
The
Republican is a Vietnamese American who almost never mentions his
party affiliation when campaigning inside New Orleans. The Democrat
is disgraced nine-term incumbent William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson,
under indictment for bribery after the FBI discovered $90,000
stashed in the plastic containers of his home freezer. The Green
Party candidate is longtime community organizer Malik Rahim, a
co-founder of Common Ground Relief Network, a grassroots organization
brought together in the wake of Katrina to open medical clinics,
distribute flood relief supplies and repair and rebuild homes damaged
by the flood. With a projected low turnout, it's shaping up as a
three way race that could go in a surprising direction. “We are
shooting for 30,000 votes here,” a Rahim campaign spokesperson told
BAR, “and we think we can win.”
Hurricane
Katrina along with the series of man-made disasters ethnic
cleansing and wholesale privatizations of the city's school and
health care systems in its wake have changed the face of New Orleans,
and determine the fault lines for its politics even today.
Accordingly, their responses to the Katrina disaster provide us with
a useful and telling contrast between Rep. Dollar Bill Jefferson and
Malik Rahim.
On
the second day after the levees broke, hundreds of starving,
dehydrated New Orleans residents (and some tourists) attempted to
walk out of their drowned city toward the lights of neighboring
Gretna. Their paths were blocked by lines of local law enforcement
officers who menaced them with shotgun fire, cursed them, buzzed them
with helicopters and drove them back into New Orleans. If ever there
was a time when the relative wealth, the connections, the prestige
and authority of a congressman might have done his constituents some
good, this was it. But Dollar Bill Jefferson was not that kind of
congressman.
Malik
Rahim lived in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, one of the
few places that wasn't flooded, and where water supplies were not
compromised. Ignoring orders to evacuate, Rahim was one of many
local residents who remained in New Orleans to save lives and assist
his neighbors, since the authorities would not. He helped other
families evacuate, tried to get white vigilantes to stop shooting
random black people and began organizing shelter and assistance to
the victims of the flood.
While
thousands of his constituents were swimming for their lives, trapped
in attics, on rooftops and expressway overpasses, or penned up in the
Louisiana Superdome, congressman Jefferson commandeered six Louisiana
National Guard MPs and a five ton truck to drive to his home in the
flood zone and linger there for an hour or more while he removed
personal belongings including a laptop computer, suitcases and
several boxes. According to ABC News:
The
Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News the truck became stuck as it
waited for Jefferson to retrieve his belongings.
Two
weeks later, the vehicle's tire tracks were still visible on the
lawn.
The
soldiers signaled to helicopters in the air for aid. Military sources
say a Coast Guard helicopter pilot saw the signal and flew to
Jefferson's home. The chopper was already carrying four rescued New
Orleans residents at the time.
A
rescue diver descended from the helicopter, but the congressman
decided against going up in the helicopter, sources say. The pilot
sent the diver down again, but Jefferson again declined to go up the
helicopter.
After
spending approximately 45 minutes with Jefferson, the helicopter went
on to rescue three additional New Orleans residents before it ran low
on fuel and was forced to end its mission.
"Forty-five
minutes can be an eternity to somebody that is drowning, to somebody
that is sitting in a roof, and it needs to be used its primary
purpose during an emergency," said (ABC News consultant) Hauer.
The
contrast between the personal bahavior of Malik Rahim and Dollar Bill
Jefferson could not be clearer.
In
Katrina's aftermath of homicidal government indifference and
incompetence Republicans saw vast opportunities.
“...Richard
Baker, a prominent Republican Congressman from this city, had told a
group of lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New
Orleans. 'We couldn't do it, but God did.' Joseph Canizaro, one of
New Orleans' wealthiest developers, had just expressed a similar
sentiment: 'I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with
that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities.' All that week
the Louisiana State Legislature in Baton Rouge had been crawling with
corporate lobbyists helping to lock in those big opportunities: lower
taxes, fewer regulations, cheaper workers and a "smaller, safer
city"--which in practice meant plans to level the public housing
projects and replace them with condos...”
If
Republicans saw opportunities in Katrina's wake Nancy Pelosi, the
leader of Dollar Bill Jefferson's Democratic party in Congress saw a
trap. She wanted to blame Republicans, but she feared holding
hearings to expose the homicidal incompetence and indifference of
government would tie congressional Democrats to the cause of black
New Orleans in the minds of voters nationwide. Better, from her
point of view, to leave that alone. So Nancy Pelosi, the leader of
Democrats in Congress forbade even members of the Congressional Black
Caucus from speaking up publicly on the unfolding spectacle of
racially selective displacement on the Gulf Coast. Amazingly, the
entire Congressional Black Caucus silenced themselves on Katrina and
refused to call for congressional hearings, with the exception of
Georgia's Rep. Cynthia McKinney.
A
fifth term representative, McKinney had just returned to Congress
after a two year absence. Instead of restoring her seniority and
committee assignments as is the rule in such cases, Pelosi
unceremoniously stripped McKinney of her seniority, leaving Rep.
McKinney freer than usual to reach across the aisle and do what not a
single one of more than three dozen of her black congressional
colleagues would do --- hold
hearings on Katrina.
In
the days following the Katrina disaster, Malik Rahim did what
experienced community organizers do --- he talked to his neighbors,
he helped bring like-minded local residents together with volunteers
from around the country and funders to create the Common Ground
Relief Network. Common Ground distributed relief supplies,
generators, food, fuel and tools to begin gutting houses and
rebuilding. Malik Rahim and Common Ground solicited medical supplies
and qualified personnel and opened up free medical centers in
devastated New Orleans. He rallied volunteers and raised money for
grassroots efforts with churches and others to get done on the ground
what government officials like Jefferson could not or would not do.
Under the leadership of Common Ground and Malik Rahim, some 13,000
volunteers have gutted roughly 3,000 homes to prepare them for
occupancy in New Orleans.
That's
community. That's organizing. That's leadership. That's Malik
Rahim, and that's the choice before the voters of New Orleans on
December 6. They can reward Republicans and Democrats for engaging
in the same old politics of cronyism, privatization and avoidance of
responsibility. Or they can send a community organizer to Congress.
This
is a choice between a deceitful "minority" Republican, a brazenly
corrupt Democrat, and an honest to goodness community organizer with a
history that stretches back to his co-founding of the New Orleans
branch of the Black Panther Party back in 1970.
In
the wired and interconnected environment of the early 21st
century it's no longer the exclusive choice of voters and activists
in New Orleans. In some measure, this choice up to all of us who
want a piece of it. This will be a three way race, and an extremely
low turnout election, so it's anybody's game. There's even a chance, if the turnout is low enough, that the Republican can win. It's not a chance we chose. It's a chance that leaders of the Democratic party, nationally and in Louisiana forced upon us, secure in their belief that black and progressive voters in New Orleans would have no place else to go. But they do.
Here's
what you can do.
You
can click
here to donate to Malik Rahim's media fund THIS WEEK to ensure
that he can air radio commercials in the final days before the
election.
You
can click here to volunteer your energy and phone minutes phone banking to New Orleans voters.
You'll be guided through a polite, well thought-out online script that
informs undecided voters of the clear choice before them. You don't need to live in Louisiana to phone bank for Malik Rahim.
Is
there a chance that supporting the Green candidate could lead to a
Republican temporarily assuming the seat in New Orleans? Honestly
yes, there is that chance. It would not be possible of Louisiana's
lazy and hollow Democratic party had bothered to come up with an honest and viable
Democrat to represent hundreds of thousands of New Orleans voters.
But they didn't. And they won't. There is also a chance of sending a real community organizer to congress. One choice was forced upon us. The other is ours to make, and to take.
It's
anybody's contest in New Orleans December 6. We hope that our
readers will do the right thing. Forward the link to this page, and to Malik Rahim's web site to all your friends, family and associates. Give generously to put Malik Rahim's radio commercials in play, to get him parity with the fat cats who contribute to his Republican and Democratic opponents. And participate in the phone bank that reminds New Orleans voters of the December 6 election.
In a low turnout environment like this a few votes, a modest contribution of money or time can make a big difference. If you want a change, be that change.
Atlanta-based Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
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