Game Over in the First Inning?

Jesse Jackson is right. This is about urban removal:

"Whether we like it or not, New Orleans is not going to be 500,000 people for a long time," [HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson] said. "New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again."

He said he isn't sure that the Ninth Ward, a predominantly black and poor neighborhood devastated by flooding, should be rebuilt at all. If it is, the new construction should be designed to withstand disaster, he said.

In a meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board, the housing secretary, who is black, also criticized the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other black leaders, saying they were stirring up racial animosity in their comments about Katrina.

"I wish that the so-called black leadership would stop running around this country, like Jesse and the rest of them, making this a racial issue," the HUD chief said.

"Race" is a curious word in the American lexicon. It can only mean one thing: unadulterated evil. That is, "racism" is a term that can only be the worst perjorative used, and therefore must be untainted by any other consideration; because Occam's Razor works in reverse here: if racism is involved, no other reason can be invoked. If another cause can be provided, racism is, ipso facto, not a factor.

Call it the purity of absolute evil. But also, call it bullsh*t.

The irony of saying race is not an issue immediately after saying the racial makeup of a city will never be the same, is enough to give you whiplash. As Jackson points out, "white" areas of New Orleans that are as prone to flooding as the 9th Ward, will be rebuilt. And, of course, the areas on higher ground are wealthier, and more expensive, and survived. Class and race are undeniable factors, but let's just deny them, anyway.

This is Dennis Hastert's proposal, by other means. You think I exaggerate? Anyone else recall that residents of the 9th Ward couldn't evacuate, because too few of them had cars? Secretary Jackson's proposal for rebuilding there includes this suggestion: parking garages on the lower floors.

"I told him [NOLA Mayor Nagin] I think it would be a mistake to rebuild the Ninth Ward," he said. "I said I'm not sure what we do with it, or if we decide to build in the Ninth Ward we have to look at different ways of building."

One such possibility would be devoting the lowest parts of all structures to parking garages rather than residences.

As Jesse Jackson points out:

The people of the 9th Ward are the maids and waiters who serve New Orleans tourists. They are the musicians who give the city its blues. They are the cops and government clerks who are struggling to bring the city back. Half of the houses there are owned, not rentals. Many of these workers are dispersed -- dispatched to over 40 states. Many still are in shelters.

No one could figure out why the Bush administration wouldn't give the evacuees housing vouchers to rent housing in and around New Orleans. Instead, FEMA has ordered tens of thousands of trailers and is struggling to build trailer parks -- Bushvilles -- to shelve Katrina's victims.

Now we know. Bush's isn't planning urban renewal, he's planning urban removal. The administration has given the victims of Katrina a one-way ticket out with no plan for their return. Instead, the planners will turn New Orleans into a gentrified theme park. They'll rebuild the white communities -- even those like middle-class Gentilly and wealthy Lakeview that are as prone to severe flooding as the 9th Ward.

Congress should insist that Katrina's victims have a right to return -- and FEMA should develop a plan to make their return possible.

But the fact is, FEMA simply is not doing that. And FEMA doesn't seem to much interested in doing that. At some point, as so many have pointed out, "incompetence" no longer explains what is going on; some malicious will is the only explanation for what is happening. Jesse Jackson is right: the people who made New Orleans run, as well as the people who made New Orleans "New Orleans," lived in places like the 9th Ward. And people will have to live there again. Sheer economic necessity dictates that. To have a HUD Secretary state flatly: "I'm telling you, as HUD secretary and having been a developer and a planner, that's how its going to be," is a scandal. That position is an absolute abdication of his role and his authority. We cannot forcibly relocate New Orleans residents to the 9th Ward, or even into FEMA trailers.

But we cannot declare the game lost, before we have even tried to build a city those people would want to live in.