Pimp Politics

PIMP POLITICS AND THE LOWER NINTH WARD

Approximately ten weeks remain before the mayoral election occurs in New Orleans.  Voters have a much checking of conscience and gathering of facts to do before they vote early or cast ballots on October 14, 2017.  The gravity of our situation was dramatized on August 5, when the Lower 9th Ward Voters Coalition sponsored a forum at Martin Luther King, Jr. High School, 5300 North Rocheblave Street.  The impressive school building mocks the surrounding  environment.  Although it has been reported that vast sums were allocated for recovery and restoration in the Lower Ninth Ward, the area is still an eye-shocking reminder of the devastation caused in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent breaking of the levees.  It is a visual accusation, an index of race relations and severe inequity in the Crescent City.

Voters who attended this forum may have been scorched  by  justified residual anger.  As one candidate (Troy Henry) put it bluntly, "The Lower Nine has been pimped."  Not one of his fellow mayoral candidate could say in truth that he was lying

There's an invisible line in politics between moral and ethical platitudes (one of which is hope ) and tough assertions about what is actually the case .  The current, mainly African American population in the area is approximately one-third of what it was in July 2005.  That population is threatened by the surge of gentrification.  Keenly aware that the French Quarter, the Central Business District, and other areas where the wealthier citizens live have received special  attention and favored recovery work, one resident of the area said a few years ago he thought "Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could see that.  They ---can see it ---They can see what's going on, and both of those people are blind.  They can see what's going on if it's all black." (Source =  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/nation-july-dec 13-lower9th_12-28 = "Can the Lower Ninth Ward ever recover from Katrina?" )  The question is still waiting for an answer.

New Orleans may yearn to be a creolized Greek tragedy, but it is a common American tragedy of capitalism, greed, class and race. After seeing the lack of recovery in the Lower Ninth Ward, I refuse to bite my tongue.  Voters who reside there should sponsor a major "truth and consequences" debate between the incumbent District E councilman James Gray  and Alicia Plummer Clivens, a candidate who contends  her  "focus, concern and platform is independent and will answer to the constituents of Council District E."  Has Mr. Gray been less than independent in "outing" the City for failure to deal fairly with the extraordinary needs of his constituents?

Those voters should also direct hard questions to the mayoral candidate who agreed to participate in the forum but did not appear and did have the courtesy to send an explanation for her absence.  Dr. Tom Albert, Byron Cole, Brandon Dorrington, Michael Bagneris, LaToya Cantrell, Ed Briski, Troy Henry, Johnese Smith, and Heshim Walters were present and accountable. Matthew Hill was present but apparently not invited to sit on the panel.  It may be the case that Charles Anderson,  Frank Scurlock,  Edward Collins Sr., Tommie Vassel, Patrick Van Hoorebeek, and Derrick O'Brien Martin weren't invited.  Desiree Charbonnet was absent and silent.  Perhaps when a candidate has establishment backing, Creole heritage, and is in possession of a noteworthy war chest, she thinks little of snubbing the dry-long-so voters in the Lower Ninth Ward.  I am not aware that her platform includes any alarm that the Lower Ninth Ward has been pimped, that various non-profit  agencies benefited from the area's continuing plight.

Some Lower Ninth Ward voters may be "grassroot," but they are not to be treated like weeds that blight their Lebensraum.  They are more aware, I suspect, than Garden District voters of what political atrocity is.  They can detect that Ed Bruski's saying "We need to take care of you all" was a psychological slip. They have good reason to think the City Council may approve Mayor Landrieu's proposed 2018 budget without a dedicated review of whether it truly will reduce inequity in their ward; they have even stronger reasons to believe that unfettered discussion of the core causes of their complex problems will either minimized or totally ignored in vapors of political rhetoric.

From my vantage as a fortunate voter in the Seventh Ward, this forum was an omen.  If mayoral candidates do not  embrace and refine the fire I felt in remarks by Johnese Smith,  Byron Cole, and Troy Henry, it is all too possible that they shall fail to condemn the status quo of political pimping in New Orleans.

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.                            August 6, 2017