[News] Hurricane Katrina: The Black Nation’s 9/11!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Hurricane Katrina: The Black Nation’s 9/11!

this statement by Saladin Muhammad of Black Workers for Justice

The magnitude of the destruction and human suffering caused by Hurricane 
Katrina to the people and communities of the Gulf Coast Region, while not 
the results of an act of “terror”, is directly a result of a profit driven 
system of capitalist exploitation reinforced by the national oppression of 
African American people in the US South, a region where the majority of 
Black people live and where the conditions of oppression, poverty and 
underdevelopment are most concentrated.

As anti imperialists and activists engage in work to build support for the 
Gulf Coast survivors, we must have an analysis and political context for 
properly understanding the reasons for this crisis and the contradictions 
surrounding its aftermath. The response to this human tragedy must be more 
than a humanitarian response in order to deal with the magnitude and 
complexity of issues, international political ramifications, the legal 
aspects, and the various levels of local, regional, national and 
international coalition and network building and mobilizing that must take 
place to build a powerful movement for social justice.

There is much talk about how to define the main social impact of Katrina: 
Whether it is mainly a major disaster for Black people or for working class 
and poor people in general. This attempt to separate race from class when 
dealing with issues where those workers affected are majority African 
American is no accident. It seeks to divide the character and content of 
the working class responses.

Thus, it is important to define the race and class character of the crisis 
and to call on the larger working class to unite with it’s most oppressed 
section­the African American working class who is also the predominant 
basis of an oppressed nation and nationality historically denied real 
democratic rights and subjugated by US imperialism.

The government’s failure to correct this impending danger known far in 
advance, that led to the continuously unfolding massive human tragedy, 
helps all to see the racist nature of the US capitalist system and how the 
system of African American national oppression is in violation of human 
rights and guilty of crimes against humanity.

African American National Oppression

African American national oppression was/is definitely a major factor 
contributing to the magnitude of the disaster caused by Katrina. National 
oppression takes on more factors than race.  It includes among other 
factors where people live and work­social and political territories and 
institution, and has a working class character represented by the most 
exploited strata of the US working class. Thus African American national 
oppression is at the deepest point of the intersection of race, class and 
gender oppression and exploitation of the US working class.

As more than 90 percent of Black people throughout the US are workers, 
African American national oppression places its primary emphasis on the 
exploitation and oppression of Black workers and their communities. More 
than two-thirds of New Orleans’ inhabitants were African American.  In the 
Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood that was one of the hardest hit, more than 
98% were Black.

The slow US federal and state government responses to natural disasters 
like Hurricanes Katrina and Floyd in North Carolina in September 1999, that 
greatly impacted predominately African American working class communities, 
make clear that the value of Black and working class life is subordinate to 
capitalist property and profits.

The racist economic, social and political policies and practices of the US 
government and capitalist system shape society’s attitudes about the 
reasons for the historical oppression of African Americans. It seeks to 
isolate, criminalize and scapegoat African Americans as social pariahs 
holding back the progress of society.

The characterization of the Black working class in this way is a part of 
the continuous ideological shaping of white supremacy that gives white 
workers a sense of being part of another working class, different from that 
of the Black working class.  This often leads many white workers to act 
against their class interests, discouraging them from uniting with the 
Black working class in struggling to seek common, equal and socially 
transformative resolutions to their class issues.

The media’s different descriptions of acts of desperation and survival by 
Blacks and whites in obtaining food and supplies following 
Katrina­“looting” and “finders” is an example.  The police and National 
Guard were ordered to stop looking for survivors and to stop “lawlessness.” 
Bush’s statements about getting tough on “looters” along with Louisiana 
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, when she said, "These troops are battle-tested – have 
M-16s that are locked and loaded – know how to shoot and kill and I expect 
they will", made clear that New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were becoming 
areas of military occupation.

The refusal by thousands of mainly Black people to leave their homes was 
initially described by the media as the main problem related to the slow 
evacuation efforts­blaming the victims.  Nothing initially mentioned about 
the low wages, level of poverty and high rates of unemployment preventing 
people from leaving.

After it took almost a week for the government evacuation effort to begin, 
leaving people to fend for themselves without electricity, food and water, 
it became shamefully clear and unavoidable for the media to hide, that the 
government had made no provisions for a major evacuation. The acts of 
heroism by the people themselves in rescuing their neighbors, although not 
emphasized by the media, could be seen throughout it’s coverage.

The so-called “looting” and “lawlessness” must be addressed and placed in 
proper context.  When it became clear that there was no emergency 
evacuation plan in place­people waiting up to a week before any major 
evacuation effort began, people were forced to take desperate actions for 
survival, both until they got “rescued” and for their uncertain future as 
refugees with no resources and sources of income. TV’s, appliances, etc, 
become a form of capital and a means for trade during a crisis.

Some survivors were forced to “steal” cars to get their families out of the 
areas. Should this be considered a crime? NO!  Also, when people are 
oppressed, neglected and left to die, they often engage in spontaneous acts 
of rebellion striking out against those who control wealth and power.

This is why the term “racism” without the context of national oppression 
and imperialism is grossly inadequate in describing the scope and depth of 
the impact of the US oppression of African American people. It often fails 
to point out the impact that African American national oppression has on 
influencing the standard of living and social conditions of the general 
working class regardless of race especially in areas where Black workers 
make of a majority or large minority of the population.

US Imperialism on the Domestic Front

Not only did the US federal and state government place the working class of 
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in impending danger, including failing to 
develop a planned emergency response to the crises, it has also refused the 
aid of other countries like Cuba and Venezuela who have offered to send 
hundreds of doctors, tons of medical supplies and fuel to help the people 
in the Gulf Coast Region.

US imperialism has thus decided that it has the sole right to decide if the 
majority African American and working class people and communities in the 
Gulf Coast Region have the human and political right to survive or 
not.  This is clearly an international human rights question where the 
demand for self-determination must be applied as part of the resolution.

Though food, water and transportation trickled in, the government made sure 
the oil industry was taken care of fast. Over 10 major refineries were 
knocked out of commission in the Gulf region, but many of them were back 
operating within the week. Bush released federal oil reserves, but oil 
companies jack up gas prices to a criminal level. Environmental safeguards 
were loosened for gasoline producers to allow more pollution. All this 
while the four largest oil companies had profits of nearly $100 billion in 
the last 18 months. Why isn’t this labeled as corporate “lawlessness?”

The African American working class majority of New Orleans and parts of the 
Gulf Coast have been “evacuated” to other cities several hundred and in 
some cases thousands of miles away from their communities. Many feel that 
their communities will never be restored and that they won’t be returned 
home.

They have good reason to feel this way, as some majority African American 
communities have already begun to experience gentrification­moving Black 
and poor people out of the inner cities and replacing them with more 
affluent and predominantly middle and upper class whites.

Many reports and scientific papers warned that unbridled development along 
the coast had done away with millions of acres of wetlands that buffered 
coastal communities from storms. Thus, this disaster and the racist and 
capitalist circumstances surrounding its occurrence and aftermath, raises 
the issue of “ethnic cleansing.”

The media in some of the cities receiving the “evacuees”, are describing 
them as “the worst of New Orleans' now-notorious lawlessness: looters, 
carjackers and rapists.” This sounds like the racist labels placed on 
working class and poor immigrants and refugees from throughout Latin 
America and the Caribbean who have been forced to leave their countries and 
come to the US for economic and political reasons.

Many African Americans in particular will experience problems related to 
the loss of identification documents in the Flood and fall into a similar 
status as undocumented and immigrant workers that come from Latin America 
and the Caribbean. Their residential and citizenship status will be 
challenged in most cases, when it comes time to get disaster relief 
subsistence.  The racist nature of US capitalism often makes this reality 
of being a refugee and undocumented worker within one’s “own” country a 
unique reality for African Americans and other oppressed nationalities, 
especially during times of natural and social crises.

We should expect the US to use this disaster to increase restrictions on 
forced economic immigration. It is therefore important that African 
Americans and Latinos united in challenging the refusal of survivor’s 
assistance on the basis of the lack of documentation or citizenship status. 
It is important to point out that countries in Latin America have offered 
aid to all without regard of citizenship status and nationality­even though 
the US seeks to overthrow their governments.

Forging this unity is an important part of a larger and more difficult and 
absolutely essential process of building international solidarity and 
working class unity against US imperialism.  This is why it’s so important 
for Black workers and their organizations to play a leading role in shaping 
the class as well as national character of the struggle for justice around 
this disaster.

The future of New Orleans in particular in terms of the reconstruction of 
the historical communities, but at a higher quality of social conditions 
and standard of living will be decided by the US corporate class, the white 
power structure, unless there is an organized and combined African American 
and working class struggle led by the African American working class 
majority in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Such a struggle must take the 
popular form of a combined struggle for African American self-determination 
and workers power, and must have an international component.

Katrina Disaster Exposes Impact of Unjust US War and Occupation against Iraq

The Katrina disaster exposes how US imperialist war in Iraq and throughout 
the Middle East, including billions in support for Israel’s occupation of 
Palestine is directly connected to the human tragedy in the Gulf Coast 
Region.

Vital resources that had been allocated by the Bush administration to fix 
the substandard levees in New Orleans and the erosion of marshlands along 
the coast that caused the Region to experience such enormous flooding and 
massive loss of lives were cut and shifted to the war budget.

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have consciously refused to 
adequately maintain or strengthen the levees that protect New Orleans. 
Hurricane and flood control has received the steepest federal funding 
reductions in New Orleans history­down 44.2% since 2001.  The emergency 
management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told The Times-Picayune 
in June 2004: “It appears that the money has been moved in the President’s 
budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that 
is the price we pay.”  Requests for an additional $250 million for Army 
Corps of Engineers levee work in the delta went unmet.

There were over 15,000 National Guard from the Gulf Coast Region in 
Afghanistan and Iraq fighting unjust wars.  Their equipment, including 
generators, water purification systems and
other needed life support and disaster preparedness supplies were overseas 
as well. Precious hours and days were lost as the bureaucratic machinery 
slowly moved equipment from other parts of the country that could have 
helped save lives of thousands who are expected to die.

As was the case during every war engaged in by this country, African 
Americans and working people were sent to fight, kill and die to bring 
about so-called “freedom” while they and their communities are denied 
freedom from hunger, imminent dangers, racial violence, gender oppression 
and state repression.

As was also the case during the Vietnam and Korean wars, the US tried to 
conceal the racist treatment of African Americans on the home front.  In 
both of these wars, the racist treatment of African Americans in the US led 
to rebellions in the military and drew many former veterans into the civil 
rights and African American liberation movement when they returned home.

It is important that this connection be raised and exposed to help African 
Americans better understand the more immediate relationship to the wars 
abroad and the national and working class oppression of African Americans 
in the US. This will not only serve to strengthen the current US anti war 
movement, it will strengthen the US and international anti imperialist 
movement.

Lessons From North Carolina’s Hurricane Floyd

The coalitions and movement that develops to aid the survivors of this 
disaster must understand the magnitude and how it differs from other 
disasters throughout the US history.  When one analyzes the conditions and 
responses to Hurricane Floyd label the “Flood of the Century” that impacted 
30 counties in Eastern North Carolina in September 1999, we see at least 
one major difference that defines how people’s aid must be organized.

With Floyd, the evacuation of thousands of survivors to far away distant 
cities and states did not occur.  People were moved and went on their own 
to neighboring towns and communities, thus making it easier to build a 
survivor’s organization and movement in the area made up of representatives 
of the various towns and communities that were impacted.

There was a decision to define people as survivors and not “victims” as one 
way of helping to empower them and to discourage a “victim’s consciousness” 
which made many feel they had no right to challenge the abuses of FEMA and 
the state.  The children were teased at schools that their close and food 
were “hand outs” from charity. Many begin to deny they were survivors of 
the hurricane.

There were also strong religious pronouncements in the Black communities 
about the reasons for the disaster­that God was unpleased with African 
Americans “social decay”, falling away from the church, that God was 
punishing America for its sins.  All of this had some affect of taking 
people’s focus off of the neglect and failures of the system to protect the 
safety, lives and communities of African American working class majorities.

There was the need to establish a survivor’s slogan­Social Justice, Not 
Charity­to promote that aid is a human right the actions of the people 
themselves in surviving the disaster was an expression of courage, heroism 
and dignity. This is why it’s so important that this movement have a strong 
cultural component.

The largest camp housing Floyd survivors was set up on a toxic waste dump 
which had not been inspected ahead of time and was located behind a women’s 
prison.  Survivor’s felt they had no right to complain and also feared that 
if they did, they would be put out of the FEMA camp with no place else to go.

The Survivor’s organization was not a “support” or emergency “relief” 
organization per say; even though it participated in “relief” 
activities­worked in food and clothing distribution centers set up by 
community forces and supporters.

A survivor’s committees were organized in 15 sites throughout Eastern, NC 
and a survivor’s summit was organized to bring survivor communities 
together to hammer out a survivor’s manifesto of demands to serve as their 
program for recovery and reconstruction.

The state of NC had established a Floyd Relief fund that had several 
hundred million dollars of federal money and private “donations.” The 
survivor’s organization demanded that the fund address key needs and ensure 
that the cut off period did not leave survivors to fall through the cracks.

The Survivor’s organization and support coalitions in the areas organized 
reconstruction brigades of people who came in from other cities to help 
repair and rebuild damaged homes.  Progressive lawyers and legal clinics 
were set up to deal with the massive insurance fraud, and real estate 
speculators who were trying to get people to sell their homes for little or 
nothing to get desperately needed money. Volunteer doctors and medical 
people set up screening and emergency support clinics that wrote 
subscriptions for medicine, and college students and educators set up 
schools and day care in the camp areas. A people’s transportation service 
was set up to take people to work, to look for work and to shop for clothes 
and other items.  There were discussions about setting up survivor worker 
run businesses to help create employment­such as paint crews, home repair 
and survivor taxi service, but they never materialized.

The postal workers union local led by a member of Black Workers For Justice 
that was part of the Survivor’s support organization brought mail transfer 
forms and workers to assist survivors in getting their mail rerouted.  The 
scope of this work was based on he level of participants that were drawn 
into this social justice work.  This is a main reason why it’s very 
important to build a broad network tying together activists groups with 
allies.

It is very important to draw the trade unions into this movement, the Gulf 
Coast wide coalition and national support network.  They should be 
encouraged to contribute directly to the a survivor’s and people driven 
support coalition in the region, not to the red cross or government 
agencies.  The identity of the working class efforts will not be projected 
by the contributions made to these agencies.

It is important that workers see that trade unions have a broader concern 
and commitment to the needs of the working class and not just their 
immediate members. The employers will certainly ask the workers where the 
unions were during the disaster when they try to organize.

They can play an important role in supporting those evacuated to their 
cities, especially outside of the South.  The unions can help in adopting 
families and shelters in their areas. They must also play a leading role in 
helping to combat the racist attempts by the media, white supremacists, 
religious right and others to alienate those evacuated to their cities by 
educating their members and getting them actively involved in support efforts.

Distribution centers were designated by FEMA and state crises agencies. The 
Black Workers For Justice set up a distribution center at its Workers 
Center in Rocky Mount, NC, but had to struggle to demand it be recognized 
as an official center so that it could receive food and supplies from 
distribution warehouses that were set up in the areas by FEMA.

Most of the FEMA designated distribution centers were the big white area 
churches, some Black churches, YMCA’s and OIC’s. The white paternalistic 
and missionary character of a major portion of the establishment designated 
“formal” relief efforts was overwhelming.


Disaster Relief Efforts Must be Carried Out as a Political Struggle

Yes, it’s important that organizing be done around the humanitarian aspects 
of this crisis and recovery. It must not try and substitute for the 
obligation that the US government has to fully address the problems. A 
“full” recovery requires some political and economic changes and pressure 
by a mass movement.

We learned that during times of disasters, the state and federal government 
declarations of a “state of emergency”, allows local governmental powers to 
be suspended or place under the direct demand of the state 
government.  During Floyd, survivors particularly from the Town of 
Princeville, the oldest historically Black town in North Carolina and some 
say in the US, were organized to demand that their city council convene 
itself, even though the town had been destroyed.

This was a struggle for self-determination within the context of the 
struggle for reconstruction. The Princeville city council held weekly open 
meeting where activists organized transportation to take survivors by cars 
and church buses to have input into the decisions and town government 
struggle for reconstruction.

The movement in the Gulf Coast Region has major concerns that require the 
organization, politics and leadership of the African American liberation as 
a central component to help unite a broad, multi-national, multi-racial and 
international campaign for social justice and reconstruction.

The dispersed masses from the region has to be organized and reconnected by 
a representative body that acts as a kind of provisional government to deal 
with questions regarding the future of their communities, the blatant 
neglect of the US government in placing them in imminent danger, the 
failure of the government to have a planned and speedy evacuation, the 
denial of the government to allow aid from other countries and the use of 
the police and National Guard as military occupation forces, among other 
concerns.

Some of the demands that must be included in this movement include:
    * The right to return of the people of the Gulf Coast Region,

    * Open up area military bases for no cost temporary housing to begin 
moving survivors back into the region,

    * Extended unemployment and emergency financial relief based on a 
living wage until people are returned to their homes and jobs,

    * A People’s referendum on all decisions affecting the politic and 
residential issues of the Gulf Coast survivors,

    * Establish a public workers program funded by the federal government 
and the big corporation to rebuild New Orleans and the affected Gulf Coast 
Region,

    * Employ the survivors at a living wage as required by the David Bacon 
Act to work on clean up and reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf 
Coast, with the right to organize unions,

    * That major contracts fro clean up and reconstruction of New Orleans 
Black and working class communities be allocated to Black contractors,

    * That the US immediately allow other countries to provide aid to the 
survivors,

    * That the United Nations conduct an investigation into the 
circumstances surround the Katrina disaster to determine if the US is 
guilty of human rights violations,

    * That everyone suffering property damaged and destruction, dislocated, 
death and illness, including emotional and psychological, receive 
reparations from the US government as victims of a racist act of placing 
people and communities in imminent dander because they are Black and poor.

    * Issue a massive bankruptcy executive order for Gulf Coast survivors 
forging all debt of property lost or destroyed by the disaster,

    * Cut the US military budget and reallocate finances to deal with state 
and local programs to address social and environmental needs which threaten 
the lives, safety, health and communities of African American and other 
working class populations.

    * End the wars and occupation in the Middle East, bring the US troops 
home now,
    * The immediate impeachment of George Bush for his role in the US 
government in placing people’s lives in imminent danger and thereby 
committing crimes against humanity.


The political movement must be organized nationally.  The progressive 
organizations of every political tendency and humanitarian expression 
should be able to support this movement.  However, it is very important and 
political necessary to give it its proper anti imperialist character, that 
it be led by a national Black united front, in terms of shaping and putting 
forward its main political demands and representing it at the national and 
international levels.

We must be careful while insuring the presence, politics and leadership of 
the African American working class and liberation movement forces, not to 
narrow the scope and content of the struggle around to try and fit a 
particular ideological perspective.  A mass movement must be built that the 
African American liberation movement must work inside of and influence in a 
more conscious anti imperialist direction.

There will be multiple responses from progressive forces representing 
various classes, ideological, political and religious tendencies and social 
movements.  Many will be small groups seeking foundation grants to help in 
the effort.  Progressives in these groups must be careful not to allow 
competition for funding to create tensions among themselves.  Differences 
among the progressive and genuinely humanitarian forces and the methods of 
struggle around these differences should be mainly non-antagonist. This 
requires close relations to be built between revolutionary political forces 
active within this effort.

As opposed to abstract and sectarian polemics and arguments at mass 
meetings, there must be an effort to isolate and out organize opportunist 
elements who see using this disaster to win favor and reposition themselves 
within the Democratic and Republican Parties or with sections of the 
corporate class by promoting their image as being savors.

This means discouraging efforts to create sole dependence on cult of the 
personality savior’s or liberal and paternalist dominated groups however 
well meaning, to solve the problems for the people or to speak on their 
behalf.  This is also why it’s so important to have Black working class 
leadership at the national and local levels of the anti war and Millions 
More Movements.

We must work to make this tragedy and the struggle for Gulf Coast justice a 
major projection of the anti war movement and demonstrations, not only in 
the US but internationally. Survivors must speak at anti war demonstrations 
and activities in other countries.

Likewise, the major African American and working class mobilizations like 
the upcoming Millions More Movement must project this disaster and struggle 
for justice as a major demand for the African American liberation movement. 
The US Congressional Black Caucus must help to make this struggle a 
congressional centerpiece for measuring the treatment of African American 
majority and working class communities, including immigrant workers.

The main strategic anti imperialist political tasks of the Gulf Coast 
struggle for justice, should be to isolate and indict US imperialism and to 
gain concrete international support and ongoing recognition for the plight 
of the African American people to bring mass and international pressure on 
the US to win justice for the Gulf Coast survivors, and to force US 
imperialism to retreat in its war on the Middle East. The African American 
liberation movement and anti imperialist forces must take up the main tasks 
to carry out this strategy.  9/5/05



The Freedom Archives
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