Anger on the New Orleans Bridge Is Long Overdue

On April 1, 2006 (this Saturday) there will be a march with world significance in the battered city of New Orleans. The fact that this planned demonstration is being ignored by the media makes it no less important. Thousands of marchers from all over the nation will assemble to force a laser beam of conscience to focus on the horror of ethnic cleansing now underway in that region. Similar to the march at Selma, Alabama which accelerated the passage of the Voting Rights Act, this march will focus on a bridge: the Crescent City Connection Bridge. While it is true that Hurricane Katrina was an act of God and the collapse of the levees was an accident resulting from years of Federal under-funding, incompetence and local corruption, some have charged, and I agree, that the present blunders and stagnation in the recovery and rebuilding operation is the result of an "ethnic cleansing mindset." The plot you will find nowhere on paper or in any set of email messages; however, there is an understanding within a powerful "government-real estate complex" that African Americans who have been displaced by the ravages of Katrina should not be encouraged to return. This unwritten plot begins in the White House where chief political strategists have pinpointed the obvious fact that without the Black voters of New Orleans, Louisiana will become a permanent Republican "red" state.

The April 1st march is designed to confront this bold ethnic cleansing by planned neglect and abandonment. The march will also dramatically highlight the overarching racist mindset that nurtures the ethnic cleansing process. On several different occasions, during the early flooding in New Orleans armed law enforcement officers blocked the paths of fleeing Black evacuees and forced them back toward the murderous flood waters.

Waving and firing their shotguns uniformed officers of the law blocked evacuees attempting to escape the floods by crossing the Crescent City Connection Bridge. High-level elected officials later condoned this behavior by their police. These inhumane, unspeakable actions combined with the present planned ineptitude related to the rebuilding of the 9th ward and the refusal of support for evacuees who wish to return, have generated numerous angry voices, especially among the youth, in New Orleans and across the nation. In the language of RAP poems, I have tried to translate and convey the message of three of these angry voices:

Angry Voice One: NAZIS ON THE BRIDGES

Armed Nazis

On steel bridges

Blocked paths to

The highest driest ridges.

Each uniformed gangster

Had an official gun

Black fathers forced

To watch their

Flood soaked children run.

They drew a hard line

Between Black and White blood --

They drove the mothers

Back into the flood.

Nazi viruses

Never die

They don't even fade away,

When times are dry

They hide in bunkers

Hunkered down for a stormy day.

On the bridges

Satan in command

Devils ruled the land

On the bridges

Judgment day

Blacks get back

Stay out of the way

Die out of sight

The waters will cover you

In the endless wet night.

Run to requisition

The tightest Nuremberg nooses

These Katrina crimes

Are war criminal abuses.

Angry Voice Two: THEY ARE COMING FOR OUR HOMES

Wake up Black people

They're coming for our homes!

Monster Katrina

Has many national clones.

Wake up Black people

With confusion and neglect

They now wash us away

They hijack our property

For a tourist development day,

Donald Trump and Disney Ducks

Will have their powerful say;

People chocolate people

You're not welcomed to stay

Our schools churches graveyards

Have all been hauled away.

Wake up Black people

They're coming for our homes!

Monster Katrina

Has many national clones.

Urban blight declassified

Diversity agenda mystified

Inner cities reoccupied

Suburban flight

Has suddenly died

City planners cried

Eminent domain

Brings savage pain

Ethnic cleansing

Income rinsing

Brokers bulldoze us out

Urban surfs

Have no financial clout

Wake up Black people!

Weak tribes will rot

Extinct among the stones

Monster Katrina

Has many national clones.

Wake up Black people!

They're coming for our homes.

Angry Voice Three: BLACKS NEED MORE GUNS

Now hear this!

Soldiers in Iraq

Come home now

To kill racist snakes

Crawling on our backs

More guns are needed by Blacks.

To fight our way

Across blocked bridges

Blacks need more guns!

Never again

Will they drive us

Weeping back into the flood,

Next time before we drown

We'll spill lots of blood.

Blacks need more guns!

They halted all Blacks

Who came their way

They hoarded the food

For their next rainy day.

To get gestapos off our back

Black soldiers in Iraq

Come home now

Blacks need more guns!

Soldiers come home

Storm the bridges

Nazis fire down

From high dry ridges.

No well regulated

Militias from the slums

Are here to march against

Official heartless bums.

Desperate Blacks are mandated

Now to bear arms

Shed the luxury

Of non-violent charms.

The NRA

Can save our day

The second amendment

Is the great American way.

Blacks need more guns!

It's us oh Lord

Black victims

Standing in the need of prayer.

If not the NRA Lord

Tell us who else is there?

The NRA

Is our salvation

Whom shall we fear?

When the next flood rises

On television

You will not be entertained

By even one tiny tear.

The second amendment

Is our road to rescue

Whom shall we fear?

Blacks need more guns!