In early 20th Century African American literature, Harlem was referred to as the “quintessential ghetto.” Using Harlem as the measure of progress, advocates, scholars and artists in the African Diaspora were able to uncover and discuss the many socioeconomic and socio-political injustices that continued the underdevelopment of poor people of color, predominantly those of African descent. Then, in the 1970s-1980s, hip hop lifted the otherwise veiled lens of American society so that it could no longer ignore the extended conditions of urban poverty. In 2005, that lens was shifted to the Gulf Coast, specifically New Orleans. With horror and disgust, the nation watched as thousands of poor people, primarily people of color, nearly drowned in the waters of neglect after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

Today—over two years after the city of New Orleans and many other communities in the Gulf region, were devastated by the combined local, state, and federal governments’ inadequate response to the hurricane—the French Quarter and much of its surrounding areas look normal. Construction projects block easy access to certain streets, but the sounds, the smells, the stores, and Bourbon Street look like they always did, only less populated. On the surface, New Orleans is New Orleans. That is, until you venture a little deeper into the city—into the Lower 9th Ward, where homes are still boarded and empty, where marks still show the number of people who did not survive the hurricane, and where some plots of land host only a concrete foundation to show where a home once stood. The wrongful demolition of homes and the removal of trailers plague families that are struggling to reclaim their lives from predatory contractors, property renters, and other exploitive entities that prey on those most vulnerable to the ongoing tragedy of poverty.

Today, thousands of the predominately poor, elderly, African American residents that were left to weather the storm continue the struggle to achieve their right to live with human dignity. Thousands remain displaced from their beloved New Orleans. Thousands more are unable to live in a healthy environment because of the toxins that surfaced with the flooding after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Even more are still without electricity, without a permanent home, and without the resources to even mow their own lawn. With these conditions, many wonder: Why return? Well, as a colleague in Louisiana described, “In New Orleans, everybody knows each other. There’s only one degree of separation…you feel safe when there’s only one degree of separation.”

Without the legal and political advocacy of organizations such as the Louisiana Justice Institute, Loyola Law School, Justice Policy Institute, and Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, among others, the progress we see today would not have been achieved. It is through the tireless advocacy and commitment of these organizations, their community partners, and the residents themselves, that the rebuilding effort in New Orleans remains conscious of the poor, youthful, and elderly people who demonstrate every day the type of fortitude many of us have only “witnessed” when reading the Old Testament or the narratives of our enslaved and interned ancestors.

I am honored to shine the community spotlight on Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, an organization which provides advocacy for the right to environmental justice. While the nation celebrates former Vice President Al Gore’s recent Nobel Prize-winning effort to raise awareness about the potential impact of global warming, we must also give special consideration of this “inconvenient truth” as it applies to those who also experience human, racial, gender and economic injustice. Here, the role of AEHR will grow increasingly important.

Resources:

Justice Policy Institute

The Louisiana Justice Institute

Loyola University New Orleans Katrina Clinic

Weeks ago, we all watched as a perfect storm of political activism, social commentary, legal advocacy, and community organizing resulted in the nation finally turning its head southward to monitor the injustices that divide our nation by race, class, and region. While the Jena 6 case is the result of violence and injustice fueled by a social culture rooted in the acceptance of artificial racial hierarchies generated by slavery and segregation, we can’t forget that this incident and the aggravation it caused throughout the nation are not unique to Louisiana, the gulf region, or the south in general. Yes, we were angry about the nooses hanging from a tree. Yes, we were angry about what happened to those six young men. Yes, we were so caught up with this one case that we didn’t see all of the “Jena 6” abuses that continue to victimize youth of color in other parts of the country.

Only days after hundreds of thousands of people across the nation marched and stood in solidarity with the protests that were taking place in Jena, a small group of high school students in the Los Angeles area were excessively handled by school security officers for an incident involving a dropped piece of birthday cake. In late September 2007 at Palmdale Knight High School, Pleajhai Mervin had her wrist broken, was ticketed for littering, and called “nappy head” after dropping cake on the floor and failing to pick it up. Her classmate—another African American student—was manhandled and apprehended after filming the incident.

Seriously, this is not about enforcing a culture of cleanliness in our schools. This, like the Jena 6 case, is about the racial overtone with which our modern justice and educational systems are converging to reinforce oppressive and hostile learning environments for youth of color. This is about our endless struggle for justice—not the “justice” we see exhibited on the news, and increasingly in our schools, but a real and true demonstration of a sacred formula to honor what it right.

We come to this place every now and then, when we learn of yet another racially charged event that so enrages us that we feel compelled to stand up against what we feel are demonstrations of injustice. But let’s be honest. How many of the folks attending these rallies, marches, and walkouts are committed to the type of long-term education and agitation it takes to generate systemic change? How can this be a Civil Rights Movement when so many of us, even in this sophisticated digital age, only find out about egregious demonstrations of racism and institutional bias if we belong to social justice listservs or comb through civil rights blogs? Unless we strike at the foundation of these injustices—the criminalization of poverty, the criminalization of youth, the dehumanization of people of color (men AND women)—we’ll never see the change many of us demand…especially, if we keep up our on-again, off-again relationship with pursuing justice.

We don’t need another Civil Rights Movement. We need a Human Rights Movement. We need to adopt a culture of resistance that does more than just allow us to respond to incidents, but that motivates us to stand for justice—justice beyond Jena; justice beyond Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and any other city or town that reflects an unjust status quo. Our Movement will have to strategically advocate for Justice in the universal and individual sense of the word, where we don’t have to explain what we mean because our actions have already told the story.

What should the Movement look like? This, I believe, is our work in progress…

Resources:

“Students, Parents Protest Treatment of Student by Security Guard” FOX-News LA. September 28, 2007

“School Security Guards Beat Teen over Cake Spill” FOX-News LA. September 29, 2007.

“The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight After Nooses Are Hung from Tree” by Democracy Now!

Free the Jena 6