Hungry Blues

As with the other crimes against the people of New Orleans that we have been reading about in recent weeks, the criminal treatment of prisoners in the aftermath of Katrina is part of a long and terrible problem. Jordan Flaherty's latest email lays out a good bit of context:

Despite the attempts to explain away the officer’s behavior, the incident fits into a well-defined pattern of police conduct in New Orleans. In the last year, seven young Black men have been killed by New Orleans police, and none of the officers involved have been punished.

This year has seen mounting evidence of a police department out of control. Less than a week before Hurricane Katrina, on Wednesday August 24, Keith Griffin, a New Orleans police officer, was booked with aggravated rape and kidnapping. According to a Times-Picayune report, “Griffin is accused of pulling over a bicyclist under the guise of a police stop in the early morning hours of July 11. The two-year veteran officer allegedly detained the woman, drove her to a remote spot along the Industrial Canal near Deslonde Street, then sexually assaulted her.”

This is hardly an isolated incident. Another recent Times-Picayune article reported, “in April, seven-year veteran officer Corey Johnson was booked with aggravated rape for allegedly forcing a woman to perform oral sex, after he identified himself as an officer in order to enter the woman's Treme home.”

Another article states “Eight officers were arrested during a six-month stretch last year on charges that ranged from shoplifting to theft to conspiracy to rob a bank...In April 2004, 16-year veteran James Adams was booked with aggravated kidnapping, extortion and malfeasance after he was accused of threatening to arrest a woman unless she agreed to have sex with him."

Police misconduct in this notoriously corrupt city goes back decades, and occasionally it explodes in scandal. In a September 2000 report, the progressive policy institute reported “a 1994 crackdown on police corruption led to 200 dismissals and upwards of 60 criminal charges, including two murder convictions of police officers. Investigators at the time discovered that for six months in 1994, as many as 29 New Orleans police officers protected a cocaine supply warehouse containing 286 pounds of cocaine. The FBI indicted ten officers who had been paid nearly $100,000 by undercover agents. The investigation ended abruptly after one officer successfully orchestrated the execution of a witness.” . . .

The white-flight suburbs around New Orleans are in many ways worse. During the 1980s, Jefferson Parish sheriff Harry Lee famously ordered special scrutiny for any black people traveling in white sections of the parish. "It's obvious," Lee said, "that two young blacks driving a rinky-dink car in a predominantly white neighborhood? They'll be stopped."

The New Orleans Gambit newspaper reported that 1994, “after two black men died in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center within one week, Lee faced protests from the black community and responded by withdrawing his officers from a predominantly black neighborhood. ‘To hell with them,’ he'd said. ‘I haven't heard one word of support from one black person.’”

The Gambit also reported in April of this year that in Jefferson Parish officers were found to be using as target practice what critics referred to as “a blatantly racist caricature” of a Black male. Sheriff Lee laughed when presented with the charges. "I'm looking at this thing that people say is offensive," he says. "I've looked at it, I don't find it offensive, and I have no interest in correcting it."

These accusations of “target practice” gained force a few weeks later with the May 31 killing of 16-year-old Antoine Colbert, who was behind the wheel of a stolen pickup truck with two other teens. 110 shots were fired into the truck, killing Colbert and injuring his passengers. In response to criticism from Black ministers over the incident, Lee responded “they can kiss my ass.”

Also see: FAMILY MEMBERS AND PRISONERS SHARE NIGHTMARE AFTER KATRINA

Human Rights Watch reports that Six Weeks after Hurricane, Arrests for Minor Offenses Turn into Indefinite Jail Time.

Six weeks later, they are still waiting to be brought before a judge. Even if found guilty, they would only have spent 10 days at most in jail. Many would have been released on bond and some would never have been prosecuted. Instead, they remain locked up in jails scattered throughout the state, unable to rejoin their families, many of whom are also struggling to rebuild their lives in the wake of the hurricane.

“People entitled to freedom remain behind bars because public officials are putting up obstacles instead of restoring justice after the hurricane,” said Corinne Carey, a lawyer and researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Keeping people locked up six weeks after the storm for petty offenses they may not have even committed makes a mockery of due process.”

Local parish prisons—the equivalent of a county jail—in six Louisiana parishes hit hardest by the hurricane held more than 8,500 people when the storm hit. These detainees were evacuated to 43 state and local facilities across the state. Several hundred were sent to Florida as well. Some had been convicted of felonies and were under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections. But most were being held for minor municipal offenses or misdemeanors such as public intoxication, disorderly conduct, sleeping in a public place, traffic violations, or even reading tarot cards without a license. . . .

Prosecutors and department of corrections officials have not simply dragged their feet, however. They have also actively sought to impede the release of those who should be free. In habeas and civil rights proceedings brought on behalf of some 200 prisoners, the state’s attorney general, the district attorney, and the department of corrections all argued that the court should delay releasing those who served their time until they could demonstrate that they had somewhere to go when they were released. There is no requirement under Louisiana law, however, that those released after serving their sentence inform authorities of where they intend to go.

While there was plenty of coverage of the NOLA police beating of retired school teacher Robert Davis, much less discussed has been "Camp Amtrak," the makeshift prison where he was taken. Camp Amtrak is a place that sounds like our own Guantanimo, right here in the continental US.

In interviews both inside and outside of Camp Amtrak, people who had been through the process told harrowing accounts of police brutality and harsh conditions. Some of them, like Davis, had visible injuries. Many said police had attacked them or others in their cells with pepper spray. All recounted trying to sleep on the concrete floor of the bus parking lot with just one blanket – or in some cases no blanket – to protect them from the cold and the mosquitoes which swoop in on randomly alternating nights here. None was given a phone call or access to an attorney.

Many of the arrests that bring prisoners to Camp Amtrak are gratuitous, and there are reports of terrible violence against the prisoners.

"I was in my yard, and a young white guy came by the gate and I was talking to him and the police came and arrested both of us," he recounted. "He was outside breaking curfew; I was inside… behind the gate. The police broke my gate down with a pick-ax. They broke it completely off the fence."

Jack continued: "It makes me really angry, man. It made me realize that the law isn’t working the way it is supposed to."

Sandy Freelander, a relief volunteer from Wisconsin, was also one of the hundreds arrested. He said that he and two friends – one a New Orleanian widely known here for having helped rescue hundreds of people in the Seventh Ward during the flooding – were detained by police in a parking lot last Thursday. He said that they were on their knees with their hands behind their heads when a police officer attacked his friend.

One of the motivations for accumulating these prisoners at Camp Amtrak is to provide the police with slave labor for its clean ups of its facilities.

A visit to the courtroom yesterday confirmed their accounts. In a stark, second-floor room of the Greyhound station, police brought in about 20 inmates who had spent the night in the cages. When they entered the room, public defender Clyde Merritt briefly explained the options while the defendants strained to hear him. In most cases, he told them, they could plead guilty and they would be sentenced to about 40 hours of "community service." If they wished the maintain their innocence, he said, they would be sent to Hunts Correctional Facility where they could wait as long as 21 days to be processed, no matter how minor or unsupported their charges.

Many of the defendants were obviously confused. They swarmed him with questions, but he held them off, telling them that he could not give them individual advice. For that, he said, they would have to retain their own attorneys. . . .

"The situation down there is really bad," said Don Antenen, a prisoner support activist from Cincinnati, Ohio who has been monitoring Camp Amtrak and working to secure legal support for people whose rights have been violated. "It’s not isolated from the rest of the prison system in the United States," Antenen said, "but we’re seeing all of the worst elements of the United States prison system coming all to the forefront and being very concentrated in one location."

He continued: "The police are basically arresting people for curfew violations and public intoxication and just using it as a way to get free labor to clean up the prisons and court houses and the police stations. They’re just using it as a way to get people to do their dirty work for free."

These human rights violations demand IMMEDIATE attention. Where is the Department of Justice? Juana gets the last word on this one: "I SOMETIMES HAVE TO QUESTION THE RIGHTS OF THE GOVERNMENT THAT DIDNT COME HELP OUR CITIZENS."

It is very sad that my blog is the first place where Juana found any outside sympathy or hope for finding her friend, Byron Joshua. She is very right about who the real criminals are and what should happen to them. If by some chance anyone has some information for Juana, contact me and I'll put you in touch with her.

I FOR ONE THINK THAT IT IS A PITY FUL AND A CRIME MOTHER FUCKING SHAME FOR NOT ONLY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BUT THE MAYOR THE CHIEF OF POLICE THE LOW DOWN SELF CENTERED DEPUTIES THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND ANY ONE ELSE WHO IS QUICK TO THROW OUR PRISONERS IN JAIL AND NOT MAKE SURE THAT THEY WERE @ STABLE GROUND .HOW WOULD THEY LIKE IT IF WE TREATED THEM THAT WAY AND THEY WONDER WHY OUR PEOPLE AND CITIZENS OF NEW ORLEANS ACT THE WAY THEY DO .NOW U SEE THEY TREAT THEM LIKE ANIMALS LIKE THEY ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH .LOOK @WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO OUR PEOPLE OF LOUISIANA ESPICALLY NEW ORLEANS THEY TREATED US LIKE SLAVES LIKE THERE WAS NO PLACE ON THIS EARTH FOR US AND I SOMETIMES HAVE TO QUESTION THE RIGHTS OF THE GOVERNMENT THAT DIDNT COME HELP OUR CITIZENS .A LOT OF THE PEOPLE WERE NOT CONCERNED ABOUT THE PRISONERS ESPICALLY THE PRISON ITSELF THATS NOT RIGHT THAT IS SOMEONE MOTHER FATHER BROTHER SISTER OR ANYBODYS FAMILY MEMBER AND TO SHOW THAT THEY DIDNT CARE SOME FAMILIES S TILL HAVE NOT BEEN NOTIFIED OF THERE LOVED ONES WHERE ABOUTS .I HAVE A VERY CLOSE FRIEND THAT WAS IN TEMPLEMEN3 AS WELL AND STILL DONT KNOW HIS WHEREABOUTS UNTIL NOW .I THINK THEY WERE WRONG FOR WHAT THEY DID AND SHOULD BE PUNISHED AND PLACED IN PRISON ALSO. PLEASE GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION YOU CAN ON BYRON JOSHUA 1-26-84 TELL HIM TO CONTACT JUANA @XXX-XXXXXXX /OR WRITE TO:[XXXXXXXXXXXX DALLAS,TEXAS 75237] TELL HIM I LOVE HIM AND HOPE THAT HE IS OK YOURS TRULY JUANA BOURGEOIS THANK YOU FOR CARING ABOUT OUR PRISONERS @ LEAST SOME ONE IS CONCERNED CAUSE THE GOVERNMENT ISNT I RECENTLY TALKED TO SOMEONE FROM HUNTS WHO SAID THEY ONLY FEED THEM ENOUGH TO SURVIVE THATS REAL SAD

(Via email from Beck Belcore of Community Labor United.)

STATEMENT OF THE COORDINATING COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE'S HURRICANE RELIEF FUND & OVERSIGHT COALITION ON THE BIRTHDAY OF FANNIE LOU HAMER, OCTOBER 6, 2005

October 6th was Fannie Lou Hamer's birthday. Fannie Lou was a black worker who emerged from the fields of Mississippi during the freedom struggles of the 1960s to head the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Fannie Lou Hamer represented the goals, hopes and demands of the grassroots (people of Mississippi and the black rural south). At the 1964 Democratic Party Convention her voice and ours were sacrificed by white (and some black) Democratic Party leaders to preserve an alliance with the Dixiecrats. The views, voices and interests of the working class and poor black majority were disrespected in this shameful event.

That painful and damaging history is vividly echoing in our ears. It is happening again. It must stop.

In the wake of one of the worst disasters, in the making long before Katrina's wind and water hit the Gulf Coast, poor and working class black people are once again being swept aside. We see and hear organizations, even in the black community, claiming to speak for us, claiming to represent us. They do not. Only we can represent ourselves.

This disrespect and disregard is also taking place in governmental bodies and organizations who are meeting, planning and implementing programs in our absence, without our input and oversight.

Out of this horror we have the chance to build a movement for social justice in this country. The genuine interest from concerned people from every walk of life and every corner of the nation shows us we are not alone.

If we are to meet this moment, build the movement we need, this situation cannot continue. The gains of the black freedom movement must be preserved. All that we have learned, (the ways we have grown since must be celebrated and built upon). We demand that the voices of those left behind after Katrina hit, the overwhelming majority of whom are the black working class and poor be at the center of every discussion about what lies ahead for Louisiana and other areas of the Gulf Coast.

~

Also see: The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund holds organizing conference

By Bill Quigley

They are doing it again! My wife and I spent five days and four nights in a hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We saw people floating dead in the water. We watched people die waiting for evacuation to places with food, water, and electricity. We were rescued by boat and waited for an open pickup truck to take us and dozens of others on a rainy drive to the underpass where thousands of others waited for a bus ride to who knows where. You saw the people left behind. The poor, the sick, the disabled, the prisoners, the low-wage workers of New Orleans, were all left behind in the evacuation. Now that New Orleans is re-opening for some, the same people are being left behind again.

When those in power close the public schools, close public housing, fire people from their jobs, refuse to provide access to affordable public healthcare, and close off all avenues for justice, it is not necessary to erect a sign outside of New Orleans saying “Poor People Not Allowed To Return.” People cannot come back in these circumstances and that is exactly what is happening.

There are 28,000 people still living in shelters in Louisiana. There are 38,000 public housing apartments in New Orleans, many in good physical condition. None have been reopened. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimated that 112,000 low-income homes in New Orleans were damaged by the hurricane. Yet, local, state and federal authorities are not committed to re-opening public housing. Louisiana Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA) said, after the hurricane, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”

New Orleans public schools enrolled about 60,000 children before the hurricane. The school board president now estimates that no schools on the city’s east bank, where the overwhelming majority of people live, will reopen this academic school year. Every one of the 13 public schools on the mostly-dry west bank of New Orleans was changed into charter schools in an afternoon meeting a few days ago. A member of the Louisiana state board of education estimated that at most 10,000 students will attend public schools in New Orleans this academic year.

The City of New Orleans laid off 3,000 workers. The public school system laid off thousands of its workers. The Archdiocese of New Orleans laid off 800 workers from its central staff and countless hundreds of others from its parish schools. The Housing Authority has laid off its workers. The St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office laid off half of its workers.

Renters in New Orleans are returning to find their furniture on the street and strangers living in their apartments at higher rents – despite an order by the Governor that no one can be evicted before October 25. Rent in the dry areas have doubled and tripled.

Environmental chemist Wilma Subra cautions that earth and air in the New Orleans area appear to be heavily polluted with heavy metal and organic contaminants from more than 40 oil spills and extensive mold. The people, Subra stated, are subject to “double insult – the chemical insult from the sludge and biological insult from the mold.” Homes built on the Agriculture Street landfill – a federal toxic site – stewed for weeks in floodwaters.

Yet, the future of Charity Hospital of New Orleans, the primary place for free comprehensive medical care in the state of Louisiana, is under furious debate and discussion and may never re-open again. Right now, free public healthcare is being provided by volunteers at grassroots free clinics like Common Ground – a wonderful and much needed effort but not a substitute for public healthcare.

The jails and prisons are full and staying full. Despite orders to release prisoners, state and local corrections officials are not releasing them unless someone can transport them out of town. Lawyers have to file lawsuits to force authorities to release people from prison who have already served all of their sentences! Judges are setting $100,000 bonds for people who steal beer out of a vacant house, while landlords break the law with impunity. People arrested before and after the hurricane have not even been formally charged by the prosecutor. Because the evidence room is under water, part of the police force is discredited, and witnesses are scattered around the country, everyone knows few will ever see a trial, yet timid judges are reluctant to follow the constitution and laws and release them on reasonable bond.

People are making serious money in this hurricane but not the working and poor people who built and maintained New Orleans. President Bush lifted the requirement that jobs re-building the Gulf Coast pay a living wage. The Small Business Administration has received 1.6 million disaster loan applications and has approved 9 in Louisiana. A US Senator reported that maintenance workers at the Superdome are being replaced by out of town workers who will work for less money and no benefits. He also reported that seventy-five Louisiana electricians at the Naval Air Station are being replaced by workers from Kellogg Brown and Root – a subsidiary of Halliburton

Take it to the courts, you say? The Louisiana Supreme Court has been closed since the hurricane and is not due to re-open until at least October 25, 2005. While Texas and Mississippi have enacted special rules to allow out of state lawyers to come and help people out, the Louisiana Supreme court has not. Nearly every person victimized by the hurricane has a price-gouging story. Yet, the Louisiana Attorney General has filed exactly one suit for price-gouging – against a campground. Likewise, the US attorney has prosecuted 3 people for wrongfully seeking $2000 FEMA checks.

No schools. No low-income apartments. No jobs. No healthcare. No justice.

A final example? You can fly on a plane into New Orleans, but you cannot take a bus. Greyhound does not service New Orleans at this time.

You saw the people who were left behind last time. The same people are being left behind all over again. You raised hell about the people left behind last time. Please do it again.

Bill Quigley is a professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans where he directs the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center and the Law Clinic and teaches Law and Poverty. Bill can be reached at duprestarsATyahooDOTcom

I probably won't be blogging much until Yom Kippur is over on Thursday night. I am, however, taking a moment to post an important article by Bill Quigley, on the state of things in New Orleans—so far only circulating via email on Jordan Flaherty's list-serve. Flaherty is a New Orleans union organizer, writer and editor. He has written a number of important articles on New Orleans since Katrina. To subscribe to his low-volume email list for his emails from New Orleans, email jordanhurricane-subscribeATlistsDOTriseupDOTnet.

Ella Fitzgerald, Just One Of Those Things (Ellla in Rome - live)

Frankie Newton, Rompin'

Bob Dylan, Moonshiner (Live at the Gaslight, 1962)

Elvis Costello, Jack Of All Parades

Ella Fitzgerald, Until The Real Thing Comes Along (w/Ellis Larkins (!))

M. Ward, Regeneration No. 1

Giant Sand, Anarchistic bolshevistic cowboy bundle

Mommie, Bulldozer

Elliott Smith, Don't Go Down

Carlton Reece, Ninety-Nine-And-A-Half Won't Do

Nate Hertel, you really shouldn't have commented with such hackneyed right wing arguments that are so easily proven false.

And if you are so bent on starting this kind of argument, people in glass houses really should not throw stones:

Liberals are a despciable species of parasite with no concern for integrity or principles, and have demonstrated a contempt for any consistency in the values they claim to have.

Putting aside your vitriol, which I have done nothing to provoke, let's talk about "consistency in the values" that the Republican president and his staunch, ideological supporters "claim to have." Let's stick with just one example, that bedrock of right wing ideology: states rights, the very thing Jesse Jackson, Jr. was arguing against in the op-ed of his that I excerpted and you commented on.

Courtesy of Nathan Newman:

•More GOP Hypocrisy on States Rights (2005)

•So Much For States Rights (2005)

•Bush Attacks States Rights/Promotes Corruption (2005)

•Scalia Hates States Rights (2004)

•Wine and States Rights (2004)

•Bush Attacks States Rights, Again (2003)

•Bush Opposing States Rights (2002)

And you really, really should not have been blogging and leaving an uncivil comment on my blog while you were on a senate.gov computer.

From: TypePad <typepad@typepad.com>

Reply-To: Nate Hertel <nate.hertelATgmailDOTcom>

To: minorjiveATgmailDOTcom

Date: Oct 7, 2005 10:15 AM

Subject: [HungryBlues] Nate Hertel submitted a comment to 'What Liberals Don't Get About Supreme Court Nominees'

Dear Benjamin T.:

A new comment has been submitted to your weblog "HungryBlues," on the post "What Liberals Don't Get About Supreme Court Nominees."

Comment from:

Name: Nate Hertel

Email: nate.hertelATgmailDOTcom

URL: http://radarblog.blogspot.com

IP: 156.33.29.19

It looks especially bad, Nate Hertel, when a quick google search reveals that you work in the office of Senator Charles E. Grassley (Republican, Iowa). Were you behaving immaturely and irresponsibly on the Senator's time? I hope not.

CORRECTION:

Though Nate Hertel was on a senate.gov computer when he left his uncivil comment on my blog, I don't have evidence that he was also blogging at that time. The post on his blog that I had linked to is by his blog-mate slowpitch.

Jesse Jackson, Jr. has an excellent critique of liberal criticisms of Bush's Supreme Court nominees.

Disappointed conservatives are approaching the nomination from an ideological perspective and they are not sure Harriet Miers is pure enough for them. Liberals are concerned about the lack of a paper trail and judicial record by which they can judge her views on the issues. Liberals have the cart before the horse.

Supreme Court interpretation of issues flows from the structure of a broad ideological framework. Philosophically, that structure may lead a Justice to interpret the Constitution in broad or narrow terms. A Justice will see the Constitution as static - as a "strict constructionist," "originalist" or "literalist" - or as a living document. It will lead a Justice to an interpretation that helps to build a more perfect union or one that perpetuates state-centered federalism (states' rights).

President Bush and his conservative allies are focused on the broad ideological argument out of which Supreme Court interpretation of issues will flow. Liberals are merely focused on the end product - her position on the issues.

Liberal civil rights groups want to know Ms. Miers stand on the issues of affirmative action, economic set-asides, racial discrimination and police-community relations. Liberal voting rights groups want to know whether her interpretation of the criteria for proving voter discrimination in court will be based on proving a discriminatory "effect" or must they prove a discriminatory "intent." Liberal women's groups want to know her views on the issue of abortion and whether there is a right to privacy in the Constitution. Liberal labor wants to know where she stands on labor-management issues.

Liberals don't seem to understand that where she comes down on virtually all of these issues will depend on this ideological framework. Conservatives are clear.

President Bush is not focused on issues. He only wants to make sure that she, like him, is an ideologically oriented state-centered federalist. One only needs to remember how Bush handled the issue of the Confederate Flag in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential campaign to be clear on his orientation ("I'm sure the good people of South Carolina are perfectly capable of deciding this issue"). He knows that in the name of states' rights she will decide the issues in a conservative, narrow, strict constructionist, literal, originalist and static way and not in a way that would help to build a more perfect union.

So while I don't know Ms. Miers personal or religious views on a wide range of issues - abortion, civil rights, voting, labor and the environment - I'm virtually certain about her ideological judicial orientation and, therefore, can pretty much predict where she will come down on these issues.

Whether abortion, civil rights, voting rights, labor rights or the environment her basic orientation is going to be - based on the Tenth Amendment - "let the states decide" and "Congress doesn't have the authority."

(Whole thing.)

This week Human Rights Watch, in conjunction with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, is again calling attention to the treatment of prisoners in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. This isn't an update on the Orleans Parish Prison, where prisoners were left locked in their cells without food or water for days. This is a new story about the Jena Correctional Facility.

Interviews conducted on Tuesday by the two organizations revealed widespread claims of abuse against pretrial detainees who had been evacuated to Jena from Jefferson Parish Prison because of Hurricane Katrina. Every detainee but one of the 23 interviewed reported that he had been hit or kicked by the prison staff.

The claims are credible and serious enough to warrant an independent and comprehensive federal investigation to determine whether the human and civil rights of the detainees have been violated.

The detainees said that correctional officers at Jena slapped, punched, beat and kicked detainees and sprayed them unnecessarily and repeatedly with pepper spray. The detainees, primarily African-Americans, also described degrading treatment and racist language by the Louisiana state correctional officers, who were primarily white. . . .

Detainees evacuated to Jena because of Hurricane Katrina had no contact with the outside for the first two weeks they were there. They were not allowed to use the telephone until recently. After two weeks, they were given writing materials to send letters to their families, who had no idea where they were, if they were safe or whether they had survived the storm. But detainees reported that the correctional officers read their letters and refused to mail those that contained complaints about their treatment at Jena. One detainee said an officer ripped up his letter in front of him. None of the detainees have seen their attorneys.

There is much more. Also read the NY Times coverage.

This year's annual convention for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History is being held in Buffalo to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Niagara Movement.

Professor Kim is there and she is live blogging with audio posts.

Particularly interesting was the interview with Dr. Gwendolyn Webb-Johnson concerning her work on something she calls "instructional racism," the racism that causes teachers to have low expectations for African American students and to funnel them through the special education system, in which they are grossly over represented.

New to my blogroll is a blog I hope will be regular reading for progressive bloggers (and everyone else, too), Racism Ain't Over. This is a new blog from Phaedrus, who previously kept No Fear Of Freedom and is a sometime poster at From The Trenches. Racism Ain't Over "is intended to become the go-to source for documenting class and race injustice, with a particular emphasis on injustices to black Americans."

Phaedrus has a good follow up post on last week's discussions of Bill Bennett's remarks on Blacks and crime. It's short and sweet and to the point, so just go read it.

There has been some surprise that when pressed, Bennett insisted on reiterating the racist position that more Blacks = more crime. As a former Reagan Secretary of Education whose job it was, on behalf of an overtly racist president, to oppose affirmative, promote school vouchers, and deride multicultural courses, Bennett has already demonstrated an ideological commitment to racist ideas.

The notable thing here is not that Bennett has shown himself to be racist, but that he is expressing his racist views in more extremist terms. Rather than couch racism within elevated discourse about education or drug policy, he is saying the sort of thing David Duke or Hal Turner might say.

Bennett is now behaving as a "transmitter," to use David Neiwert's term:

This crossover is facilitated by figures I call "transmitters" -- ostensibly mainstream conservatives who seem to cull ideas that often have their origins on the far right, strip them of any obviously pernicious content, and present them as "conservative" arguments. These transmitters work across a variety of fields. In religion, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are the best-known examples, though many others belong in the same category. In politics, the classic example is Patrick Buchanan, while his counterpart in the field of conservative activism is Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation.

In the media, Rush Limbaugh is the most prominent instance, and Michael Savage is a close second, but there are others who have joined the parade noticeably in the past few years: Andrew Sullivan, for instance, and of course Ann Coulter. On the Internet, the largest single transmitter of right-wing extremism is FreeRepublic.com, whose followers -- known as "Freepers" -- have engaged in some of the more outrageous acts of thuggery against their liberal targets.

Consciously or unconsciously, Bennett has sensed that the current climate in America invites this sort of blurring of the line between mainstream conservatism and right wing extremism. Call it a response to wider public discussions of race, post-Katrina. Call it getting with the program of the right, already well underway.

From Mike Davis & Anthony Fontenat, 25 Questions About the Murder of New Orleans.

1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans side and not on the Metairie side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?

2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward--the most deadly hit-and-run accident in US history?

3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?

4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city?

5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31--thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?

6. Why wasn't the nearby USS Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort.

7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?

8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his "severe weather execution order" that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments?

9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority--eventually flooded where they were parked--not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor and car-less residents?

10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council, which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city?

11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the "forty thieves"--white business leaders led by Reiss--reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city?

12. Everyone knows about a famous train called "the City of New Orleans." Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not?

13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die?

14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, portable toilets, cots and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision--as many believe--to force poorer residents to leave the city?

15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn't officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.)

16. City Hall's emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise, many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood?

17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?

18. Why weren't evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews?

19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police, who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River Bridge--an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated?

20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater?

21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.

22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?

23. Why isn't FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city?

24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future?

25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy?