It is a cold morning in New Orleans. The temperature varies a lot here in the winter-- cold front, warm front, cold front, etc.. Similarly the climate of St. Mary's changes regularly as volunteers come and go. Sometimes, like fall break, we are flooded with college students, other times the community turns more inward, and with only a one or two gutting teams still active, we try to keep the place clean, keep ourselves fed, and stay on good terms with our neighbors.
Unlike most other communal living situations I have been in, St. Mary's has mostly open doors. Everybody gets a chance. Just about every week someone is asked to leave. Drug problems, threatening violence, stealing, or just plain not working enough. The volunteers who coordinate this site, mostly long term, committed activists, are constantly re-establishing the place as a volunteer center, not a temporary shelter, fun hippie squat, or in-between house for wayward families. It is a tough line to draw, and there is inevitably confrontation and drama. Also given the high turnover of volunteers, it is hard to keep any line drawn in the sand for long, before the next flood of students and eco-punks wash through the door, with their own expectations of community and utopian ideals. It is a fascinating clash of cultures, and often the youth here (mostly white) want to be inclusive and fair, but are confused about their role within a black community that has it own specific needs. Often it is Common Ground with it's open doors that is accused of bringing drugs into the community, which some people say contributes to added violence in an already violent and lawless area. Sometimes it feels like our existence here hangs on by a thread, and only by the good graces of the community are we able to stay at all. No other volunteer organization has been able to stay in the area for long. The history of racism and classism, in all their institutionalized forms is so deep here, that being another righteous white intruder it is not easy to gain trust. We try to do good work, and develop relationships with residents, and perhaps it is partly our status as a clumsy and funky grassroots apparatus, constantly making mistakes, that it is pardoned, and the young volunteers walk in relative safely in the streets at night, always conscious of the neighborhood they are in, while society's so called "violent elements" focus their attention elsewhere and on survival.
For those of us that are willing to stay here on the neutral (or common) ground and witness this intersection , it offers an incredible education. If you can keep your eyes open and talk (I find southerners on average twice as accessible and half as apologetic than liberal yanks back home!) you can learn so much. After a month I feel significantly older, exposed to reality I never had to witness before, and deal with issues that rarely entered my middle class existence in the north. New Orleans is a rough town, and the last couple of weeks have been particularly rough. We have been hearing about violence constantly. There is a precarious and fragile quality to the social fabric here. Since the hurricane the suicide rate in New Orleans has tripled, and of the 450 psychiatric beds in the city there are 80 remaining. Luisiana has had 300,000 cases of PTSD over the last year.
Halloween night with a good friend, I watched a woman come into a cafe where we were sitting after being mercilessly battered by her boyfriend. The police followed her to the bathroom and continued to interrogate her while shining flashlights in her face. My partner, a woman, stood up and slipped past the police into the bathroom, told them to leave, and held the woman for a long time cleaning the blood from her head. This kind of thing always hits me hard, but for some reason the whole month seemed to catch up with me and I had a night of delirious dreams and felt ill all the next day. Seismic, is the word that came to mind, some floodgate or levee broke and I was shook by my experience here. I feel more stable now, but have procured a cold, and had to leave my gutting crew today to rest. I would give nearly anything for a hot shower, and a small toe on my left foot for a real bath.
Maybe because I am still feeling a bit raw, or maybe because I am struck with the difficulty of relating life here to you all at home, I am going to do give you an entry from my journal. I wrote this about a week ago and have some trepidation sharing it, as a personal and mostly unedited piece. However, it feels like the most honest thing to do right now.
..............................................................................
"I have taken the 2am to 8am security shift tonight. In a district under siege by its own history of racism and the continued advance of neoliberal policy I am sitting in the hallway on the third floor of an old catholic school, one building we have reclaimed, and placed at least temporarily among the commons.
Who will write the history of this place? What will remain public when we are gone from the ninth ward and Katrina is just another disaster story? "Sorry for the mess" writes one refugee on a classroom chalkboard "but the shelter has been a blessing, we have rescued many from the area, about 200 here now. Still no help from the coast guard." They waited for almost a week, designated classrooms as toilets, and when the water was highest, stayed confined to this very floor. Others stood among rooftops or floated by refrigerators down avenues of toxic flood water.
Strange for us now to be living communally among these fresh memories, while it feels as if the rest of the nation with the collective amnesia of a well-meaning empire and the short attention span of well trained consumers, forgets. Prove me wrong by coming here, you, St. Mary's, the most unlikely ragtag band of helping hands.
It is easy to forget an incomplete picture, to give up on the puzzle half way through than two steps before the end. I am trying these days to learn more, as much as I can before my mind in self doubt and confusion looses focus, and gives up on bringing together the missing pieces. That is how it so often wins, the advance of my own apathy. One statement that has always stuck with me, was given by a revolutionary: "we are fighting a war for memory and against forgetting!" Another peoples struggle against the nihilism of market domination.
To fill in the picture, we must remember: The city of New Orleans, once the largest slave port in america has remained until now a mostly black city. Through centuries and decades of struggle (nothing was given freely to poor African americans) to have equality and to remember their own history, blacks were able to establish the ninth ward with the highest home ownership rate of any black community in the US.
Katrina, and its aftermath has done it's best to break the back of the black middle class in New Orleans. There are many horror stories from the flood, but in the end the post-katrina loss of the teachers union will have longer lasting effects. It supported the black middle class through health benefits, living wages that kept other black professionals employed - doctors, dentists, mental health workers.
Real services are hard to find. The power goes out, the roads are failing, traffic lights don't work, hospitals are shut down. The state of Louisiana also enforces the siege: they sit on the $10 billion dollars given by congress to help rebuild. For over a year and for those who were displaced, who's social situation is worsening at the rate of minimum wage in Houston, Atlanta, or Chicago. The checks when they come, based on property value and not repair costs, will be insufficient to rebuild most homes. Meanwhile The city threatens to bulldoze homes that are neglected.
Speculators and large private contractors are already at their doorsteps, having long ago laid their Trojan horses among all levels of government by the power of their lobby, who whisper in ears: "I know you're tired baby (a southern colloquialism), just let the market decide."
Ambulances wait in line, and hospitals turn down patients who are cannot afford treatment. You could wait all night with a life threatening emergency, don't be that unlucky fool who cannot afford it.
Among the schools that are open, many have no books, some don't have hot food, and in one famous case, no drinking fountains. These are the poorer sections of course, where children seem to be worth less money, so later they can be bought so cheaply. I don't know how else to be there for the young people. I try to keep them entertained during the day, and not let them from steal my tools, or play with the saw when I am not looking.
Where we drop into the picture:
The buzz of fluorescent lights fills up the otherwise empty hallway. It is just after 5 am. A few minutes ago I just woke up Samantha, a close friend among the gutters here - at St. Mary's we all learn about the strength of platonic intimacy, and how to share it. It keeps us going and gives us hope, laughter and touch - we share our secrets together. I shook Sam's feet and beckoned her up, and watched her stumble down the hall to the stairwell. She works hard six days a week and never flakes out on her chores.
To most of us there is nowhere else to be right now, nowhere more pressing or fulfilling. We are here for different reasons, but by our work we hold this space, temporarily, among the commons.
............................................................................................
Nick and I have decided to extend our stay until the end of January, which is the deadline for houses to be gutted. We want to extend an invitation to all of you to come spend any amount of time here between now and then. Have a weekend? We will put you to work and show you a good time, and make sure you go home with stories. Tickets are cheap now, about $200 dollars for a round trip, check travelocity.com.
My cell phone was stolen, but I have a new one now (thanks Mom!). Anyone can call me (206)818-7888.
Thank you and stay in touch -- love to our family and friends,
Logan
some more photos, click on the thumbnail to enlarge:
--installing a water filter beneath a medical clinic in the lower ninth. two weeks ago.
-- pirate costumes from clothes pillaged at the distribution center. halloween.
---the nick-station. an enormously effective tech team...who knows if they will succeed from common ground and declare autonomy to liberate machines across the city?
-- plumbing in hell. with tyvek.
-- riding the ferry across the mississippi
It is a cold morning in New Orleans. The temperature varies a lot here in the winter-- cold front, warm front, cold front, etc.. Similarly the climate of St. Mary's changes regularly as volunteers come and go. Sometimes, like fall break, we are flooded with college students, other times the community turns more inward, and with only a one or two gutting teams still active, we try to keep the place clean, keep ourselves fed, and stay on good terms with our neighbors.
--installing a water filter beneath a medical clinic in the lower ninth. two weeks ago.
-- pirate costumes from clothes pillaged at the distribution center. halloween.
---the nick-station. an enormously effective tech team...who knows if they will succeed from common ground and declare autonomy to liberate machines across the city?
-- plumbing in hell. with tyvek.
-- riding the ferry across the mississippi
