Bush and Nagin to Black New Orleans Dispossessed: Merry Xmas! Now Get Lost.
A short video by film maker the Coalition to Stop Demolition
Over the last two years, public housing residents, renters and their allies have mounted an amazing campaign
to get the housing reopened, including direct actions in which
residents and their supporters have broken into the projects to clean
them and start living in them again. Rep. Maxine Waters (D. CA) and some other House members held hearings on the situation, and Waters introduced a bill
to reopen the housing, to guarantee a right to return
for public housing residents, to provide housing assistance
to New Orleans and Gulf Coast renters, and other good changes to post-Katrina housing policy. This legislation passed in the House and now awaits approval in the U.S. Senate.
There, Senate rules have allowed a lone Republican Senator, Vitter of
Louisiana to completely block its consideration, preventing the Senate from voting on it. Meanwhile, a judge refused to stop HUD from
starting to demolish public housing, and the destruction of these perfectly sound units of decent and affordable housing could begin as early as
December 18th.
We at Black Agenda Report urge you to click
here, in order to add your name and voice to the chorus for justice and against the class and ethnic cleansing of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We here ask that you take this moment to send a brief, polite but cogent note indicating your concern for the dispossessed of the Gulf Coast and expressing your hope that the Senate will consider and pass the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007 (HR 1227 / S.
1668)
Be sure to pass this video on to someone else, either by using the "email" link on this page, or directly from its YouTube page.
We take this opportunity to thank the good people at
Color of Change for bringing this video to our attention.
Dr. Jemima Pierre is a professor in the African American Studies and Anthropology Departments at UCLA.
Johanna Miller is Director of Education Policy at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
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