Halelujuah! Thank You, Jesus, for Maxine Waters. While too many in the Congressional Black Caucus were getting cozy with their new lobbyist friends, Sistah Maxine introduced a Katrina Housing Bill on the last day of February and got it to the floor in less than a month. Damn. You Go, Girl. It just goes to show that some talk the talk, but it takes a real sistah to walk the walk. Once again, I am impressed by somebody in the Congressional Black Caucus. Any reservations I may have had on previous issues with her is gone. Maxine is still my girl. Her bill, H.R. 1227 is impressively comprehensive and hopefully, will do something for our people left out and left behind in the gulf coast.
A fellow blogger, YoungBlackMan, and his law student chums just got back from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and told me that the outreach programs, workshops and seminars designed to “help” black folk connect to section 8 and other assistance that they need is just another hustle for some do gooder Negroes that ain’t gettin the job done. Ain’t nobody without a cell phone, telephone, or cable access going nowhere to find a damn website out in cyberspace to obtain assistance.
He spent extensive time talking to folks (mostly seniors) and learned that in Gulfport, Miss, the city fathers are planning a wholesale Negro removal program that involves giving public housing residents a voucher of $200.00 bucks to move somewhere else with a “right” to be first in line for “affordable housing” that will be built in place of public housing.
He ended up in some B.S. workshop and gettin into it with the city fathers and the “Director of Negro Removal.” Later, walking on the beachfront and looking at all of the devastated housing, he and his friends were racially profiled by “Gulfport’s finest.” The bastard threatened to arrest all of them if they didn’t get on down the road. YoungBlackMan, broke him off something proper and said something to the effect of , “Please, Mr. Poeleese Man, take me to jail so I can sue yo azz and pay off my damn Law School loans.” ”Take us all, we could all use the money.”
giving public housing residents a voucher of $200.00 bucks to move somewhere else with a “right” to be first in line for “affordable housing” that will be built in place of public housing.
But the $200/month voucher must be used for housing participating in the Section 8 program, right? Is there any whatsoever available in southern MS? I don’t think so.
On the ‘first in line’ BS — So the regional housing authority got permission from HUD to redevelop? Is the public housing near the beach? If so, nobody’s moving back.
Negro Removal Program about sums it up.
Go Rep. Waters. It’s about time someone tried to help those hurt by Katrina.
And, bless YoungBlackMan for trying to help too.
I’m remembering that Nancy Pelosi ordered the CBC to isolate Cynthia McKinney for sitting in on those Katrina hearings. Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee were the only ones who stood with her – the rest of the CBC chumps did Miss Nancy’s bidding.
Now, Miss Nancy agreed to strip out that provision that demands Bush comes before Congress and ask permission to declare war on Iran.
Maxine is getting the job done, and she’s not waiting on the CBC to line up behind her. She’s also reminding Pelosi about the fallacy of trying to run game on sistas, cause they aren’t going to play that mess.
A hard head does make a soft behind – as Miss Nancy will find out…;-)
political junkie,
Without Miss Nancy’s approval, the Rules Committee and the authorizing committee wouldn’t have fast-tracked this bill to the floor in record time. Having caved on Iran and Iraq, Nancy needed another legislative victory and Maxine’s bill provided a convenient vehicle.
No surpise here. Nothing much has changed since 1927 in this part of the world. Don’t know if this has been posted here before but a good background read for what its like down there can be found here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/dunbar09072005.html
“How ironic that the Superdome became a house of horrors for the dispossessed for five grueling days. Most of the African Americans who were herded into the Superdome came from the infamous New Orleans projects and are descendents of those evicted from their neat little homes in the working class district that was seized and bulldozed to build, with public funds, the Superdome.”
Ernesto – Exactly. It’s not like they haven’t been doing this in DC, no hurricane needed.