INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is stunned by the catastrophe
and tragic loss in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans and in many
other communities along the Gulf, people are experiencing unimaginable devastating
conditions. We are especially alarmed for the people who have the fewest
resources, who were unable to evacuate New Orleans because of poverty, who
were – and in some cases still are - trapped without food, water, and medical
attention. Because of racism and classism, these people are also overwhelming
folks of color, and because of sexism, they are overwhelmingly women of color
- low income and poor women, single mothers, pregnant women, women with disabilities,
older women and women who are caregivers to family and community members
who were unable to leave the city. Women living at the intersections of systems
of oppressions are paying the price for militarism, the abandonment of their
communities, and ongoing racial and gender disparities in employment, income,
and access to resources and supports.
As you know, the Historic Treme Community in New Orleans recently hosted
INCITE!'s Color of Violence III conference this past March. Treme is the
first free community established by Black people in the U.S. and is currently
home to hundreds of Black women and their families, many of whom are poor.
We are deeply hurting for the families and communities that graciously hosted
us and who are now facing profoundly tragic circumstances.
We have heard word from most of the sistas who are part of the New Orleans
INCITE! chapter, many of whom were able to evacuate. We also received word
that one of the COV 3 volunteers had a mother and sister trapped on the 8th
floor of New Orleans City Hall at some point - we sincerely hope that they
have reached relative safety at this time. An early letter from Shana Griffin,
member of the New Orleans INCITE! chapter and the national INCITE! steering
committee, is below. Our hearts and prayers go out to them and we want to
provide them with as much support and as many resources as we can so that
they can mourn this horrible loss, re-connect with those that are missing,
and, eventually, rebuild the rich and vital communities that have been devastated.
Our thoughts and prayers are also with INCITE! chapters, members, COV III
participants and supporters in other areas affected by the hurricane in the
Gulf States.
Many of you have thoughtfully written and asked how you can help. At this
time, we are asking for donations from our supporters so that we can send
money to our New Orleans chapter members who will use it to help people who
need it most. We have not given up on our sisters and brothers in New Orleans
and other places that have been hit. We are dedicated to pooling our resources
and using those resources to continue to organize plans for survival, safety,
and justice in New Orleans.
Please organize fundraisers in your hometowns and communities and send your
donations to the following address:
Nada Elia
13112 - 184th Ave. NE
Redmond, WA 98052
(Nada Elia is a member of INCITE!’s national steering committee and will
be organizing the donations to make sure the resources get to New Orleans.)
Please make checks out to INCITE and put “New Orleans” in the memo line.
Thank you very, very much for your generous support.
***
That said, we’d like to take this opportunity to express our deep outrage
at the federal government’s shamefully slow and pathetic response to this
disaster. It is clear that the lack of rapid and effective response is based
on a racist assessment of the value of the 150,000 mostly Black and poor
people - a disproportionate number of whom are women - left behind in New
Orleans. Further, INCITE! lays the blame of this disaster squarely at the
feet of the U.S. government and particularly with George W. Bush for the
following reasons:
1. GLOBAL WARMING
The Bush Administration’s willful denial of the existence of global warming
has kept this country from taking seriously global warming’s dangerous consequences,
one of which is an increase in the severity of hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina,
for example, began as a relatively small hurricane off south Florida, but
it was intensified to a level five hurricane – the highest level a hurricane
can reach – because of the unusually blistering sea surface temperatures
in the Gulf of Mexico caused in large part by global warming. (Ross Gelbspan,
The Boston Globe, 8/30/05) However, the Bush Administration, leveraged by
the coal and oil industries, relegated global warming to a myth rather than
the emergency environmental crisis that it is. Because the impact of Hurricane
Katrina had an exceedingly disproportionate impact of devastation on people
of color, Bush’s failure at addressing global warming is a catastrophic example
of environmental racism.
2. WAR ON IRAQ & TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY
Bush’s illegal, imperialist, and racist war on and occupation of Iraq - ironically,
to enable consumption of more oil, aggravating global warming - as well as
tax cuts to wealthy Americans, directly pulled resources away from levee
construction and emergency management in New Orleans, as well as from programs
and entitlements which could have provided much needed support to poor people
and communities in New Orleans. In 2003, as hurricane activity in the area
increased and the levees continued to subside, federal funding was specifically
redirected away from addressing these problems because of spending pressures
of the war on Iraq. In early 2004, as the cost of the war on Iraq soared,
President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what was needed
for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004 article in New Orleans
CityBusiness. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and
2005 specifically cite the cost of the war on Iraq as a reason for the lack
of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. (Will Bunch, Editor & Publisher,
8/30/05) The lack of resources to prepare for a disaster like Hurricane Katrina
is a tragic example of how imperialism not only devastates communities of
color abroad, but also communities of color here at home. This criminal neglect
on the part of the government is responsible for thousands more deaths than
the 9/11 attacks—deaths that could have been prevented with adequate funding.
3. STATE-SPONSORED VIOLENCE
It is unconscionable that, while thousands of people are suffering from horrible
and deadly circumstances, the media continues to harp on the so-called “looting”
in New Orleans. The constant media coverage of so-called “criminal behavior”
instead of the outrageous and criminal lack of response from the federal
government is racist and disgraceful.
Though we are also very distressed about reports of violence- including sexual
and physical violence against women and children - in the area caused largely
by widespread chaos and desperation, we condemn the current mass militarization
of the area. There have been numerous accounts of vicious police brutality
experienced by men and women who have survived untold horrors only to be
subjected to abuse by the law enforcement officials sent to "save" them.
Thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Marines and Army are currently in New
Orleans to enforce evacuation orders and bring about “law and order.” In
response to violence in the area, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco shockingly
remarked, “I have one message for these hoodlums. These troops know how to
shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary." Besides
the fact that it is against the law for federal troops to engage in domestic
law enforcement, a militarized response is another piece of a racist pattern
of de-humanizing poor people of color. Instead of seeing poor Black people
driven desperate by the appallingly weak and unacceptably slow response of
the federal government, the media and the government frame these primary
victims as criminals or blame them for bringing the circumstances on themselves
by "disobeying" mandatory evacuation orders when they had no means to comply.
We demand that there be no further criminalization of survivors of the hurricane
as rescue, recovery, and rebuilding efforts go forward. We are particularly
concerned about the creation of temporary accommodations - expected to serve
as "home" to evacuees for up to six months which are akin to detention facilities,
surrounded by barbed wire, in isolated parts of Utah, Oklahoma and other
areas, from which inhabitants will be prohibited from leaving without a "pass"
and in which they will be housed in gender segregated housing and prohibited
from preparing their own meals. The prison-like conditions of such facilities
have been justified by the soldiers guarding them as follows "do you know
what kind of people we have coming here?"
We are also concerned about the adequate provision of medication, supplies,
and child care to women with disabilities, HIV/AIDS, as well as mothers and
elderly women. We are calling for support for survivor-led, women of color
driven formations within evacuation facilities and for their demands. We
are also calling for support of women's individual and collective efforts
to ensure their safety from physical and sexual violence within evacuation
facilities while submitting that the existence of such violence is no justification
for violent repression of evacuee communities.
We call for support and safety for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
survivors of the hurricane, and for respect for the integrity of their families
and of their needs in evacuation facilities. We are also deeply concerned
for immigrant, and particularly undocumented women, who fear seeking assistance
for fear of adverse immigration consequences and deportation. We call for
efforts to connect incarcerated women, men, and children with their families,
many of whom do not know the location of those dear to them, and for authorities
to ensure conditions of confinement that meet international human rights
standards. We are asking for charges against those who took food, water,
and supplies in an effort to survive be immediately dropped. Finally, we
are calling for support of domestic violence survivors who were displaced
from shelters, support systems, and places of safety by the storm and may
be at greater risk of violence from their abusers under current circumstances.
We demand an organized, rapid, and just response to save the survivors of
Hurricane Katrina. We demand a comprehensive plan that is respectful of the
value of the people who have been abandoned and responsive to their actual
needs for survival and safety. We want immediate action operating from a
vision of justice and hope.
We have pulled together a number of analyses of Hurricane Katrina and its
aftermath, information about critical organizing and mobilization of poor
people and people of color, letters from sistas from INCITE!, and other ways
to help. Please contact us if you have questions, concerns, or resources.
Our e-mail is incite_national@yahoo.com and our phone number is 484.932.3166.
In Solidarity,
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
FOR A LIST OF COLLECTED ANALYSES AND WAYS TO HELP, PLEASE GO TO INCITE'S
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