{"id":5313,"date":"2015-08-28T18:39:58","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T18:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5313"},"modified":"2015-08-28T18:39:58","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T18:39:58","slug":"new-orleans-ten-years-past-the-flood-resilience-follies-part-5-barack-and-brownie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/28\/new-orleans-ten-years-past-the-flood-resilience-follies-part-5-barack-and-brownie\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans, Ten Years Past The Flood: Resilience Follies, Part 4 (Barack and Brownie)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"color-katrina-victims-web\"<\/a>
Trumpeter Nicholas Payton used this cartoon for his blog post (see below), and it seemed apt for me, too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nHeadline of the day: \u201cStop Blaming Me For Hurricane Katrina\u201d
\nTen years past disaster, former FEMA head Michael Brown\u2014\u201cBrownie,\u201d as we came to know him\u2014paused to reflect. Here<\/a>\u2019s what he came up with, in Politico:<\/p>\n

“Had I left the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the spring of 2005, my life would be very different today. And I really wish, in retrospect, that I had. But after the 2004 hurricane season, when FEMA\u2019s excellent responses to hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne in Florida were widely praised, White House chief of staff Andy Card persuaded me to stay on as director through the 2005 hurricane season. I didn\u2019t want to disappoint President George W. Bush. We\u2019d developed a good relationship. Heck, he even gave me my own nickname: ‘Brownie.’
\n“By the end of the summer, it was a nickname the whole world would know. I, in turn, would have learned many lessons in how Washington fails\u2014and how it assigns blame. People are still saying now, as they said then, that what went wrong in New Orleans a decade ago was all my fault. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now\u2026.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You just can\u2019t make this stuff up, folks.<\/em>
\nHere\u2019s another headline, from the blog of trumpeter and New Orleans native Nicholas Payton, whose independence and forthrightness with both his music and his words makes him an unconventional but also essential voice in both arenas:
\n\u201cAn Adversarial Katrinaversary And The Delusional Post-Diluvial New Orleans \u2014 A Manmade Disaster<\/a>\u201d
\nPayton effectively captures a sentiment that\u2019s fairly widespread right now in New Orleans:<\/p>\n

“It took a while, but I\u2019m finally convinced. New Orleans will never be what it was. This 10-year Katrinaversary has forever sealed this city\u2019s fate as a shell of an existence. It is destined to be a post-diluvial distortion of the values it once espoused. The Crescent City has successfully become a cable TV version of itself. By the way, what is Treme? We never called it that when I grew up there. To us, it was the 6th Ward\u2026.
\n“I\u2019m also tired of hearing how resilient New Orleans is. No, it is not. That just furthers this lie that somehow the traditions and the values of what made this city great are not on the verge of extinction, and they are. And let\u2019s be honest, they were suffering well before August 29, 2005. We\u2019ve become those \u201cresilient\u201d folks who exorcize away every tragedy with a second line or a pot of red beans.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Payton says the following, he does so from the perspective of having soaked up New Orleans musical tradition from banjoist and bandleader Danny Barker, who founded the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band:<\/p>\n

“The Real New Orleans of old would never have a second line as a 10-year commemoration for a flood. Today marks the 50th \u201canniversary\u201d of Betsy. I don\u2019t see no second lines for that. I guess Betsy wasn\u2019t as sexy of a hurricane as Katrina.
\n“The Real New Orleans would boycott and\/or picket this second line. This Katrinaversary is all media hype. It\u2019s sick and twisted thinking. Disaster capitalism is alive and kickin\u2019. A second line to honor the dead used to be a solemn occasion. It was respectful to the deceased and their families. The first line used to be the family. The second line was those who came to pay homage. They should call this Katrinaversary parade a third line in honor of all the carpetbaggers we\u2019ve turned this city over to, thus making a caricaturization of this once sacred land.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"photo-25\"<\/a>By early afternoon on Thursday, I was seated among the press corps, awaiting the arrival of President Obama at the Lower Ninth Ward\u2019s Andrew P. Sanchez Community Center\u2014a $20 million, 65,000 square foot facility that includes an indoor swimming pool, senior center, health clinic and NOPD sub-station, and that opened three months ago.
\nWhite House pool reporters tracking Obama\u2019s moves arrived with fried chicken in take-out boxes from Dooky Chase\u2019s, the Trem\u00e9 restaurant that is de rigueur for visiting statesmen, and where Obama lunched (he apparently has either a hearty appetite or a savvy media planner: he also stopped at Willa Mae\u2019s Scotch House, a Seventh Ward restaurant whose fame is based on its fried chicken recipe).
\nBefore the president took the stage, before the introductory speakers, came student musicians from Roots of Music<\/a>, a nonprofit program co-founded by Rebirth Brass Band snare drummer Derrick Tabb that offers music education, academic support and mentorship to children in need. It\u2019s one of the homegrown, bright-light examples of recovery\u2014resilience, if you must\u2014that addresses cultural continuity in a context of community empowerment.
\nThe Roots of Music musicians played the \u201cStar Spangled Banner\u201d as well as a medley that included \u201cAin\u2019t Misbehavin.\u2019\u201d Markell Montgomery, a senior at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, who also attended Warren Easton High School, stepped up to the podium, which was yet to have the president\u2019s seal affixed. He described how Roots of Music \u201chelped us cope with Katrina\u201d and how it offered \u201cstrength and discipline and a sense of character to our lives.\u201d
\nMarc Morial, former New Orleans mayor and current CEO of the National Urban League, described this moment in late August as \u201chalftime\u201d\u2014New Orleans being the football city it is. \u201cThe game is far from over,\u201d he said of recovery, \u201cthis is a day of continuation and commitment.\u201d
\nIn introducing Obama, Congressman Cedric Richmond said, \u201cThis president has been better to the state of Louisiana than the state of Louisiana has been to him.\u201d Mayor Mitch Landrieu praised Obama for \u201cputting his shoulder to the wheel\u201d regarding aid to New Orleans. \u201cHe loved us, and we are going to love him back.\u201d
\nAs we waited for the president in a rec center, with a half-dozen backboards and basketball hoops stood retracted, at half-mast, a soundtrack of local music played. I caught the Eureka Brass Band in there, and Trombone Shorty. I saw Irma Thomas, seated in the front row, mouthing along with her 1964 recording of \u201cTime Is On My Side.\u201d
\nI wondered not how Obama\u2019s speech would play to the national media, but whether the locals filling the makeshift orchestra seats really did feel like, at last, time and circumstance were going to swing their way.
\nI\u2019d covered Obama\u2019s visit to New Orleans in 2007, when he spoke from the Essence Festival main stage at the Superdome, for Salon<\/a>. Then a senator and presidential candidate, Obama said:<\/p>\n

“After Katrina hit, we had to realize that we were no longer the America we had hoped to be. All the hurricane did was lay bare the fact that we had not dealt with the problems of racism and poverty. The biggest tragedy was that desperate hardship was known here before the hurricane. Poverty double the national average was here before the storm. But here’s the good news: America was ashamed and shocked. Our conscience was awakened. We realized that our politics were broken. Suddenly, the curtain was pulled aside to reveal all that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, as a second-term president nearing his administration\u2019s end, Obama played to the locals, opening with a \u201cWhere y\u2019at?\u201d and making quick references to po\u2019 boy sandwiches from Parkway Bakery, the Rebirth Brass Band\u2019s weekly gig at the Maple Leaf Bar, and that fried chicken at Willa Mae\u2019s.
\nHe took an interesting tack to his opening comments, one that might well have lost the locals thirsting for answers to their neighborhood needs and kudos for their hometown accomplishments. He attempted to fold the \u201cresilience and recovery\u201d narrative of this week into a context (and a bit of a stump speech) about a larger national recovery.\u00a0He touted statistics attesting to a robust economy and to job growth. \u201cWe recovered faster and more steadily than just about any economy after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,\u201d he said. \u201cThe United States of America, for all its challenges continues to have the best cards. We just have to play \u2018em right.\u201d Then came a direct appeal to Congress to \u201cprotect our momentum, not kill it\u201d with another government shutdown scare over budgets. \u201cDo not cut us off at the knees with mindless austerity.\u201d
\nDown the street from the Sanchez Center, and in many pockets of New Orleans, people now know and have known something I suppose we might call mindful austerity, for its inevitability as a direct result of policies of the lack thereof.
\nObama got to all that, sort of.
\nHe didn\u2019t offer what Harry Shearer had asked for in his Advocate ad<\/a>\u2014specifically \u201cown up to the culpability of an agency under his control (The Army Corps of Engineers).\u201d In fact, he again failed to acknowledge that culpability. Yet he did address the fault and responsibility of local, state and federal agencies for ongoing suffering.
\n\u201cWe came to realize,\u201d he said, \u201cthat what started out as a natural disaster became a manmade disaster due to the failure of government to look out for its citizens. Like a body undernourished, when the storm hit there were no resources to fall back on.\u201d
\n\u201cThe progress you\u2019ve made is remarkable,\u201d he said. \u201cThat gives us hope. But that doesn\u2019t allow for complacency. It doesn\u2019t mean we can rest.\u201d
\nWhen someone deep in the audience shouted out something about \u201c\u2026mental health!\u201d Obama said, \u201cI\u2019ll get to that.\u201d
\nHe didn\u2019t, but he did cite some specific needs and troubling realities. \u201cOur work here won\u2019t be done when over 40% of children live in poverty,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen a typical black household earns half what a typical white household does. When too many African American men can\u2019t find a job\u2026. New Orleans has for too long been plagued by structural inequality.\u201d
\nThose words, coming from the country\u2019s first black president, hold meaning. And yet, just as a decade ago, there was no specific talk of a jobs program targeted at that population and aimed at the continuing work of recovery. I wondered why.
\nSoon enough, Obama was back to familiar themes and to, well, resilience. \u201cThere\u2019s something in you guys that\u2019s irrepressible,\u201d he said. You know the sun comes out after every storm. You\u2019ve got hope.\u201d
\nThat played well to the locals, who mostly smiled and cheered.
\nI\u2019d love to meet the staffer who decided that, while Obama shook hands and posed for photos, the PA should blare Bruce Springsteen\u2019s \u201cLand of Hope and Dreams.\u201d Sure, it\u2019s full of uplifting lyrics and maybe even appropriate references: \u201cThis train carries saints and sinners\/this train carries losers and winners\/this train carries whores and gamblers\/ this train carries lost souls\u2026\u201d But still, there\u2019s a boatload of local music that says such things better and with a New Orleans beat. In a music city, one clinging with ever more passion and a hint of fear to its local legacy, that was a tin-eared move.
\nOutside the Sanchez Center, two elderly black men pounded out a rhythm on cowbell and djembe drum for a half-dozen others who sang \u201cHelp us, Obama\u201d to the tune of a Mardi Gras Indian anthem, \u201cShallow Water, Oh Mama.\u201d
\nLater that evening, I was back in the 9th Ward, at St. Maurice Church, a wondrous building in a semi-glorious state of disrepair that might be considered another flood casualty: It was deconsecrated and shut down in 2008, 151 years after its construction. For two nights, the church served as venue for a \u201c9th Ward Improv Opera,\u201d one of the many performances and presentations meant to represent and interpret the post-Katrina experience. This one, produced by Jeanne Nathan for the Creative Alliance of New Orleans<\/a>, was, according to a program note, meant to \u201crelive the terrifying moments of the levee breaks, but more so the grinding horror or the days, months and years after the breaks, when citizens fought to return to the place where they belonged.
\n

\"9th<\/a>
9th Ward Improv Opera\/ photo: Kelsey Scult<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe acoustics were loud and echo-laden, thus blurring the contributions of a truly stellar band\u2014including tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan and his son, trumpeter Marlon Jordan\u2014as well as the deft spoken-word poetry of Chuck Perkins and the soulful singing of Lonell Simmons. For all of the show\u2019s interpretive dance and inventive theatrics, its most riveting moments arrived when via residents who rose from audience seats from time to time to tell straightforward tales\u2014banks cards that didn\u2019t work, strangers that lent a hand to safety. One man, wearing a suit and a tie laden with happy-face logos ended his testimony by saying, \u201cthrough it all, god was smilin on us.\u201d Similarly affecting was a trio of OperaCr\u00e9ole Singers, who walked the aisles singing refrains that became all too common during the past decade: \u201cYou don\u2019t have your paperwork\u201d; \u201cWe don\u2019t have a program yet for rental properties\u201d; \u201cYour contractor took your money and ran.\u201d This was the libretto of the so-called recovery for many, and there was a beauty beyond irony to hearing these lines sung in pure and rounded tones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Headline of the day: \u201cStop Blaming Me For Hurricane Katrina\u201d Ten years past disaster, former FEMA head Michael Brown\u2014\u201cBrownie,\u201d as we came to know him\u2014paused to reflect. Here\u2019s what he came up with, in Politico: “Had I left the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the spring of 2005, my life would be very different today. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “New Orleans, Ten Years Past The Flood: Resilience Follies, Part 4 (Barack and Brownie)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[320,321,25,11,12,313,314,14,61,81],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}