Bleak and Bleaker

Two articles grabbed my attention this morning:

• New Orleans since the storm: An American travesty by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• Feeding 18,000 Families Each Month in One Neighborhood in New Orleans: The Right to Return Eighteen Months after Katrina by Bill Quigley

Reading these makes me sad and angry. The mainstream media is bleak enough, but these perspectives from the radical press are beyond bleak. I wish I could say that they are exaggerating, that they go too far, that what they are saying about New Orleans is not true. But I’m afraid they’re telling it like it is.

None of this is news to those of us living here. I only pass these links along in hopes that some more people outside New Orleans will read these articles and get a picture of the enormity of our struggle.

I’m desperate for a glimmer of hope:

Students from sixteen colleges, including Xavier, Tulane, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, San José State, Stanford, and University of Michigan have put out a call to all college campuses to participate in a “National Post-Katrina College Summit” for April 9-14.

The Post-Katrina College Summit will be a nationwide, weeklong effort to raise awareness about the Gulf Coast through documentary showings, speakers, spoken word, teach-ins, rallies, petition drives, and other events. The Summit is an attempt to catapult New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast back into the national consciousness and to promote federal legislation for a New Deal-style program for the Gulf Coast.