Solidarity, Not Charity for New Orleans

Image Gallery image by Edel Rodriguez / www.drawger.com/edel

We examine the ethics of solidarity in an episode of the UtneCast at utne.com/Solidarity 

It’s not easy getting a cab to the Lower Ninth Ward. Even now, with most of the former population cleared out, some drivers still won’t cross the Claiborne Avenue Bridge unless it’s to take a carload of gawking tourists. So when the third cab driver stops, it’s with some impatience that I ask if he knows the way.

“Oh sure, sweetie,” he drawls. “Born and raised.”

Norman is a retired firefighter who drives a cab to supplement his pension. Five years ago, after Hurricane Katrina, he patrolled the flooded streets by boat and pulled survivors from rooftops and attic windows. When he learns that my companion and I have come to volunteer with Common Ground Relief, a grassroots rebuilding project, he gets quiet and turns off the meter. “I want to show you something,” he says.

He drives several blocks past our destination, the cab’s headlights occasionally framing the sagging ruin of a house or an exposed foundation, the structure either washed away or bulldozed by the city. Finally he stops at a cheery bungalow, porch light blazing, a tidy oasis of normalcy in the darkness.

“This is my home,” Norman says, voice choked. “Volunteers rebuilt it for me.”

He hopes his return will encourage his neighbors to come back, but with homes and jobs gone, what incentive does anyone have to return? And how much difference can groups of parachuted-in volunteers make when there is such substantial work to be done?

The jarring truth, we soon discover, is that volunteers like us are as much a part of the problem as they are a part of the solution. Real change in New Orleans—the kind that will give Norman’s community a reason to return—will require solidarity of a different kind. It’s not the “thousand points of light” feel-good charity work that George H.W. Bush championed. It’s the rebirth of a civil rights–era approach that will put thousands of activists in direct confrontation with the state.

Since 2005, much of New Orleans has been rebuilt, particularly in the wealthy Garden District and French Quarter. The Lower Ninth Ward, however, remains a wasteland. Of the 19,000 people who lived there when Katrina hit, only 3,600 have come back. Many former residents have been mired in red tape for so long that they can no longer afford the trip home. The city seems to actively discourage resettlement, levying fines against absent homeowners for infractions such as grass length, eventually demolishing offending homes.