Watching New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin join forces with the affluent, and mostly white, residents of the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans against FEMA is disquieting. But it gets to the heart of the Katrina debacle, which is about race more than anything else.
A confrontation over the weekend between Algiers residents protesting housing trailers for displaced Katrina victims in their gated neighborhood, and gun-toting FEMA contractors, led Nagin to suspend future installation of the trailers citywide. He's united with city council member Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, who represents the Algiers district, in demanding local FEMA workers be replaced and trailer placement halted.
The only reason Nagin and Clarkson see eye-to-eye on this issue is because Nagin has an election this November. Many who left New Orleans haven't come back yet, especially most of the poor African-Americans who lived in the Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish. So Nagin, who is black, thinks he has to pander to any potential voters left, which is how he wound up in support with Clarkson's prosperous constitutes.
The selfish, not-in-my-backyard mentality of those protesting is hard to justify. Yes, the Feds dropping trailers wherever they deem fit is unnerving and raises basic property rights questions, but where is the neighborly compassion? A little short-term sacrifice is needed by the "haves" to ensure the "have-nots" can come back.
Let's be honest about Katrina and the aftermath. Most white people got out while most black people did not. White neighborhoods are being rebuilt while black neighborhoods are not. And the current controversy is because white people don't want poor black people living amongst them. The irony is that Nagin's sell-out might allow him to win re-election, thus putting him in position to help his people, who need it the most. And that's a sad indictment on politics in itself.
Higgins' most popular stand
Congressman's short-term regional problem solving eschews long-term picture
Hurrah for Brian Higgins, sort of. His threat to New York State's tollbooth gravy train, otherwise known as the Breckinridge and Ogden street toll barriers, is welcome on every level. The state has double-dipped I-190 commuters' pockets for too long, and Higgins joining the ever-expanding list of public and private interests opposed to the long-controversial tolls bodes well for their ultimate removal.
Federal gasoline taxes are supposed to pay for the maintenance and upgrading of our nation's roadways. I-190, also called the Niagara Thruway, has received $194 million since 1976, which is what Higgins has threatened Pataki with cutting off. Downtown Buffalo is the only part of the NYS thruway system where travelers must pay to enter a city. Those paying the toll are being double taxed, and Higgins is right in opposing the tolls.
Higgins is proving to be a champion for the region. He took on the State Power Authority and got a better deal for area residents. He is leading the way in our waterfront's development that features prominent public space use, and has recently called for knocking down the Skyway to allow for easier waterfront access.
He has, however, been goose-stepping in unison with the White House on issues of national security, having voted to extend the Patriot Act while regurgitating neo-conservative Iraq War talking points whenever possible. And perhaps most importantly to this region, he voted with national banking and credit card lending interests that basically wrote the bankruptcy legislation heavily punishing those declaring bankruptcy today.
Supporting credit card companies as a representative of an economically depressed region such as Western New York is paramount to treason. But, Higgins fights hard for us on local issues that immediately improve our quality of life by fixing Buffalo's long-neglected core. All in all, it makes for a mixed record, but it could be much worse.
