Combat Racism
Everywhere! An Open Letter to
Our Fellow Residents and to Tourists in New Orleans Dear Friends, The United New Orleans Front (UNOF) is sponsoring this March Against
Injustice to expose the increasing, all around racist assault against the
New Orleans Black Community. As we march more than
100,000 of our family, friends and neighbors have been prevented from returning
to New Orleans since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
They have been prevented from returning because the local white ruling class has
attacked the social infrastructure and denied the working class Black community
living wage jobs, affordable housing, quality public education and healthcare.
Black workers were not hired to do the massive clean-up after the hurricanes. They are still shut out of the construction jobs,
despite $5 billion dollars of reconstruction now going on in New Orleans. The public housing stock has been decimated,
reducing by 5000 the number of affordable housing units in New Orleans. Rents
have skyrocketed forcing working class folk to work 2, sometimes 3 jobs just to
keep a roof over their heads. Our public schools have been taken over by out of
town charter operators seeking to make fast buck on our children.
The state of Louisiana has seized control of our local schools. 5000 teachers and support workers were fired and
their union, the largest in New Orleans, was decertified. Local
Black groups that have applied for charters are routinely turned down. Charity hospital, our public hospital, was shuttered
preventing low income people access to adequate health care. And to date 70,000
Eastern New Orleans residents are still without a hospital. On top of this the New Orleans Police Department has increased its terror,
brutality and murder of Black citizens. In March of this year two young Black
men, Justin Sipp and Wendell Allen, were murdered by
racist New Orleans policemen. These racial profiling
cases were as egregious as the Florida vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin. These social conditions have led New Orleans to
be the national leader in the rates of incarceration and murder as many of our
Black youth are forced into a life of drug dealing rather than being given an
opportunity to obtain a living wage legal job. The UNOF and other organizations have been waging a constant battle to combat
this racist offensive and improve the living conditions of the Black community.
We will not back down! We will secure our rights and our
freedom! We share this information with you so that you know what is happening here. We ask local folk to join our struggle. We ask tourists to boycott our city until the local
white ruling class addresses these problems. United New Orleans Front, 1647
Gentilly Blvd., NOLA 70119, 504-251-2201 |
