Remembering New Orleans

August 27, 2006... Tuesday marks the first anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina near New Orleans. More than 1,800 people died and hundreds of thousands more were forced from their homes because of the storm. A full year later, less than half of New Orleans' pre-Katrina population has returned.

At the time, I looked on in disbelief at the images of the people left behind in the Crescent City without water, food or proper shelter. And, like many observors, I found myself wondering if America would have so neglected so many of its own people if they weren't poor and black. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Canada is any better in this respect. Troll the net for references to "Kashechewan," if you ain't believe me...

Anyway, in the aftermath of Katrina, I went on a bit of a New Orleans kick. I haven't been all that successful in finding music from New Orleans that I like--although I did eventually post a track from an excellent record by the Meters here. I sure did find an inneresting book about the place, though.

Desire Street is the story of Curtis Kyles, an African American from a poor neighbourhood in New Orleans who was tried five times for the same murder and spent fourteen years in jail before finally being released. The book left me wondering if Kyles would have been so poorly treated if he wasn't poor and black.

Louisiana's courts have a reputation of bias against African Americans. In the early 1980s, before latching onto the odd idea of recording albums of slightly reggaefied, featherlight Neil Diamond covers, UB40 put out a series of punkish reggae albums with angry, socially-conscious lyrics. One early UB40 song, "Tyler," is about an African American man then languishing in a Louisiana prison for a crime he claimed he didn't commit.

UB40 - Tyler

I have no idea what happened to Tyler. As for Curtis Kyles... Read the book.

Desire Street isn't an easy read. Its level of detail and the conflicting accounts within it are bewildering. But it does make at least one point I had never thought of before: if the amount of a welfare cheque goes down when someone in a household is earning an income, it can be a powerful incentive for a breadwinner to walk out. And where do too many children of single parent families wind up? In jail or huddled together in football stadiums, thirsty, hungry and afraid.

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