For Dr. Watson and Other Racists, Racism’s Beauty Lies In Its Simplicity: Part II

Read Part I here. 

So, back to Dr. Watson’s racist statements. The racism lies not just in what he said but why he said it. Dr. Watson ignored social, environmental, political, and cultural factors, instead trying to to use “race” to explain why Africa was doing so poorly, and why he was not optimistic about the continent’s future. He also argued that the races were not equal (presumably he also meant other “races” besides Black and White). But in reality, he was not proposing anything new. Rather, he fell back on simplistic racist assumptions—Africans are not intelligent and the races are not equal—and later, after he had come under fire, tried to use his position as a scientist to couch his original remark in scientific terms. The jury is still out on whether intelligence is or isn’t genetically predetermined but what we do know indicates that genetic difference, or similarity, is not so neatly tied to “race.”

More importantly, Dr. Watson’s statements rested on a common and essential element of racist thinking, the belief that people who share the same physical characteristics (skin color, hair texture, etc.) also share personality traits (intelligence, industriousness, etc.) regardless of environment, culture, religion, or any of the other factors that may affect a person’s personality. In the interview, Dr. Watson says that Africans are less intelligent, according to ”studies” he had seen (he does not elaborate on how these were conducted or who the subjects were, but that’s a lesser point). He then goes on to add that anyone who has ever had Black employees knows that people of different races are not equal. In other words, Dr. Watson—who ought to know better—is conflating Africans with Black Americans (I assume Dr. Watson has had only Black American, not African, employees), completely overlooking differences in culture, environment, language, religion, etc. In a classic racist display, he observes that Black Africans and Black Americans face similar economic and social challenges, but he concludes this must be because they have similar skin color and/or hair texture.

Dr. Watson should know that because of the widespread rape of slaves in North America, very few Black Americans would be genetically identical to Black Africans, but he ignores this obvious fact in favor of making a blanket statement based on skin color and hair texture. Of course, I’m not implying that Africans are all genetically identical. Quite the opposite. Dr. Sarah Tishkoff, now an assistant professor in the Biology department at the University of Maryland, wrote as far back as 1999 that genetic studies have revealed

an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations. Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians.”

Put simply, there is more genetic diversity among the human populations on the African continent than there is in all the rest of the non-African populations combined. Someone with Dr. Watson’s background in DNA research should know that this diversity would mean that, even if Black Americans and Africans were really less intelligent, it would be very unlikely that their “lack of intelligence” came from the same genetic source. To clarify, Black Americans share a genetic predisposition to Sickle Cell Anemia with their West African ancestors because most of them are descended from slaves taken from West Africa. However, the large genetic diversity among African peoples means that Black Americans cannot be genetically identical to East or South Africans because even their West African ancestors are not genetically identical to those other African peoples. Dr. Watson, in making his inference about Africans’ and Black Americans’ intelligence cannot, then, have been basing his statement on genetics because that would have precluded a common genetic root. Rather, he was—in true racist fashion—ignoring the social, political, and economic realities of Black Americans’ and Africans’ lives, focusing instead on the most superficial things both peoples share: dark skin and curly hair.

The other thing that struck me as racist was his focus on the question of lower intelligence while talking about Africans and Black Americans. Why did he pick that particular issue? To me, that would be like a modern scientist being interested in proving “scientifically” whether or not Black men have a gene for large penises, or whether brown-skinned people have higher sex drives (an argument Dr. Watson himself has made before). How ridiculous would Dr. Watson have sounded if he had suggested that Jews possess a gene that predisposes them towards avarice?! But because he chose to discuss Africans’ intelligence, people actually defended him, arguing that, as a scientist, he should be allowed to propose new scientific possibilities!

I’m not a geneticist and I generally oppose attempts to explain individuals’ behavior through racial or genetic arguments but, where there’s scientific evidence, let it speak for itself. But Dr. Watson’s statements were not based on scientific evidence, which makes me strongly suspect his motives. Nor was he proposing a new direction for genetic science. He was absolutely not talking about using modern science to break new ground? I mean, there are many differences among individuals of different “races” that could be studied at the genetic level, but why did he have to start from an old racist “truism” (Africans are less intelligent/the races are not equal)? The fact that he then tried to back it up with unscientific anecdotal evidence (if you’ve ever had Black employees, you know the races are not equal) makes me even more suspicious. After all, the question of difference in intelligence between the races is as old as racism itself. It predates genetics. Why would he be so concerned about using genetic science to prove or disprove a viewpoint that has existed and even thrived in the total absence of the science that could have proved or disproved it?

Furthermore, if Dr. Watson were so intent on using genetics to explain certain qualities in Black American or African people, he could easily have started out with something positive. For instance, statistics show that elderly White men have the highest suicide rates in the US. Dr. Watson could have expressed his interest in finding a gene to explain this (we know there is one because suicidal tendencies seem to run in families). Better yet, he could have talked about an “optimism” or “resilience” gene that might explain why, despite their widespread social, political, and economic marginalization, Black Americans tend to have much lower suicide rates than White Americans. Instead, he chose to focus on something negative, the racist idea that Black people are less intelligent than White people. 

At the end of the day, the beauty of racism lies in its simplicity and Dr. Watson’s remarks demonstrate this simplistic thinking. For people who can’t be bothered to study social sciences, economics, and politics, race “theory,” racist thinking, and outright racism are ideal. Everything about an individual or group can be explained simply by looking at skin color, hair texture, or any of the other signifiers of “race.” The underlying social, political, and economic order is never examined and challenged, so power relations remain intact. The racist in turn remains assured of his or her own superiority, itself the product of nothing more than an accident of birth that resulted in his or her having been born with the “correct” skin color. The racist never needs to compose a concerto, write a great novel, or even read one for that matter. She or he is more than content to know that other people who share his or her skin color have done so. This also absolves the racist of the need to prove his or her own intelligence, because that burden of proof is shifted onto people who were not fortunate enough to have been born with the right skin color or hair texture. Dr. Watson—in lending his voice to the question of Black and African people’s intelligence and industriousness—has joined a long and disgraceful line of pseudo-scientists who have, for centuries, attempted to argue that non-White people, be they from Africa, Australia, Asia, North America, the Caribbean, or the Middle East share one unifying characteristic: Their dark skin means they are not equal to Europeans. Even worse, Dr. Watson has thrown a bone to modern racists who—without considering science, economics, or politics—have always believed Black people are less intelligent than White people.

In making those utterly prejudiced and unscientific statements, Dr. Watson has shown the world that, despite his cutting-edge research, when it comes to social and political issues, he is living two centuries in the past. I am very sorry that the “World Have Your Say” team allowed him to escape the scrutiny, analysis, and eventual denunciation that his words so richly deserve.

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New Radio Show: October 8, 2007.

As usual, you can listen to the show online or download it to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist. Feel free to click on any of the links to learn more about the artists. You will also find a couple of the featured artists’ videos in “T’ings ‘n Times Videos.”

Listen to the previous show here.

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New Radio Show: September 24, 2007.

Got a brand new show for y’all’s listening pleasure.

The first segment features some Roma (Gypsy), French, and Arabic tracks. Then we move on to Disco, Reggae, and Hip-Hop: one track by Sierra Leonean rapper Problem M (rapping in Krio, a Sierra Leonean dialect) and the other by NY/DC poet/rapper/all-around-entertainer KOMplex, Mr. Keep On Moving. I met him a couple of times at open mic events in DC and he was impressive enough for me to buy his CD both times. I also put in one of my favorite tracks by the Spanish group Macaco who, for those of you who live in the DC area, will be performing at Lisner Auditorium on October 26. The last segment’s pretty much a random mix of everything I couldn’t get into the first two segments.

As usual, you can listen to the show online or download it to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist. Feel free to click on any of the links to learn more about the artists. You will also find a couple of the featured artists’ videos in “T’ings ‘n Times Videos.”

Feel free to comment and/or request music for the next show.

Listen to the previous show here.

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Blow Salone, Blow!

 

The BBC, the Associated Press, Reuters, and other news outlets are reporting that Sierra Leone’s National Elections Commission (NEC) has declared Ernest Bai Koroma, a former insurance company executive and leader of the opposition All People’s Congress (APC), the winner of last week’s runoff election. Mr. Koroma took 54.6% of the vote while the ruling party’s candidate and incumbent Vice President, Solomon Berewa, got 45.4% of the more than 1.5 million votes cast. Despite clashes between party loyalists and accounts of fraud and other “irregularities” at some polling stations, the elections were declared free, fair, and credible by the NEC and international observers. The runoff election was held after August’s prelimary election yielded an inconclusive result. Despite legal and rhetorical challenges mounted by the incumbent Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah conceded defeat and congratulated Ernest Koroma on winning the presidency. Sierra Leoneans can relax—or blow, as we say in Krio—now that this election season has come to an end.

Traditionally, election time in Sierra Leone is a period of violence, curfews, and general unease. Growing up in the capital, Freetown, I remember the palpable feeling of dread that would descend on the city whenever elections were held. It was not uncommon for supporters of the various candidates to openly clash in the streets; looking back, though, I have no idea what the clashes were about. After all, the APC was the only legitimate party. But as a kid, there was no space in my mind for contemplating the intricacies of Sierra Leonean politics; there was plenty of space for fear, however. Back then, it was not uncommon for people to be beaten or killed, simply for supporting  the wrong candidate in the wrong part of town. In the provinces, elections were an even more gruesome business. Supporters of one candidate would attack villages—and often kill the inhabitants—for committing no greater crime than pledging their support to a rival candidate or for living in the wrong candidate’s stronghold. In those days, Sierra Leonean politicians preferred to kill their rivals’ supporters rather than try to win them over.

As if the open violence weren’t bad enough, we children were warned to be indoors before nightfall as there were constant reports of children going missing and of bodies being discovered sans genitalia or other organs. Apparently, human parts were essential components of the juju rituals performed by political partisans to ensure their candidate’s victory in elections. None of us kids wanted to end up emasculated or eviscerated so, for the duration of the election period, we made sure to be home (or at the very least indoors) before dark.

For its part, the government of then-President Siaka Stevens did nothing to alleviate our fear and paranoia. On the contrary, government curfews, roadblocks, and checkpoints greatly contributed to the general sense of unease in Freetown. Rather ironically, election season was the worst time for political activity and demonstrations were brutally put down by the police and the army. In case anyone had trouble remembering who was in charge, Siaka Stevens made sure that his entire arsenal—the basis of his power—was constantly and prominently displayed throughout the country. In those days, I felt that anyone who got involved in politics was insane, but many people did anyway. No doubt some hoped to bring about a change for the better. Others, I am certain, merely hoped to carve a larger piece of the pie for themselves.

Thankfully, the 2007 elections went off without much of the anticipated violence but with perhaps more than a little of the expected irregularities. Ballot boxes were stuffed and swapped, ballot forms were forged, and ghost voters did cast many a vote—in some areas, ballot tallies exceeded 100% of registered voters. Nonetheless, in the final analysis, the 2007 elections may provide the faintest glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel of oppression, corruption, and violence. Even if the new APC government turns out to be as rotten and ineffectual as its predecessor, the relative peacefulness of the recent elections raises the possibility that, after years of war, Sierra Leoneans might have finally realized that violence has no place in the political process. That realization is, by itself, a major victory for the Sierra Leonean people.

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New Radio Show: September 9, 2007.

I’ve been a bit lazy in getting a show out since I got back from vacation.

It was Trinidad and Tobago’s independence anniversary a couple of weeks ago so the first segment of the show is all Trini music. Got some Mighty Sparrow and Lord Kitchener as well as Rikki Jai (Track 11) and the unofficial Trini national anthem (Track 07). Big up to TnT!!!!

As usual, you can listen to the show online or download it to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist.

Listen to the previous show here.

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New Radio Show: August 5, 2007.

In honor of Jamaican independence, we have a Jamaica-themed show this week.

Listen online or download to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist.

Listen to the previous show here.

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Killing Them Softly: Sierra Leone’s Leaders Get Away with Murder.

Today, 50 Sierra Leoneans drowned (100 are still missing) when their boat capsized shortly after hitting rough water at the mouth of the Great Scarcies river. The boat was travelling from the capital, Freetown, to the northern village of Rokupr. Of the undetermined number of passengers who departed the capital, only two have been found alive. Last week, another boat capsized in northern Sierra Leone, killing all 30 people on board. In spite of the shocking casualty figures, I am sure nobody will be held accountable for these disasters. People die, nobody answers for their deaths and nothing is done to prevent future deaths. In this way, Sierra Leone’s leaders continue to get away with murder.

Sure, the boat that collapsed today was—like all other means of motorized transport in Sierra Leone—old and rickety, overloaded with passengers and cargo. Sure, the water was rough where the Great Scarcies, swollen by recent rains, met the Atlantic. And sure, when God calls you, you can’t avoid it. Nonetheless, somebody should take responsibility for all this loss of life. Somebody should be held accountable. Somebody must be punished so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. But nobody will be.

Ultimately, no matter how this story is sliced or diced, one thing is certain. The government—the people who are supposed to be responsible for the welfare of the nation—bears responsibility for this catastrophe. But one question will not be asked: “Why were there so many people packed into a rickety, overloaded boat traveling up the Atlantic coast during the rainy season?” The answer is simple. They have no choice.

And why do they have no choice? Because the government has not bothered to try to make sure that people can travel from one part of the country to another without taking  their lives into their hands. And because there is virtually no public transportation network in Sierra Leone. Or in most of West Africa. The old colonial highways (and I use “highway” loosely because these roads are seldom wider than one lane in either direction) are in poor condition, unpaved, bumpy and barely navigable at speeds greater than 20 miles an hour. To go by land, would-be passengers have to cram themselves into . . . you guessed it . . . old, rickety, and overloaded minibuses. Secondly, there are no major roads that run from Freetown due north. Passengers would have to go towards the center of the country and transfer at one of the major junctions. Finally, the transportation system is a neoliberal freemarketeer’s wet dream come true. Drivers only go where there is demand, and the evidence of demand is a full vehicle. Passengers wait, sometimes longer than an hour, until the vehicle cannot hold another person or item of luggage. If you’re traveling from Freetown to another part of Sierra Leone, it doesn’t matter how you decide to get there. Traveling by sea or road is a costly, crowded, and uncomfortable experience. And you may not survive the trip.

Since independence, the country’s infrastructure has slowly been falling apart. Official corruption and public apathy—more accurately fatalism—have resulted in the literal and physical deterioration of every aspect of social life: housing, health care, education, transportation. Everything is falling apart. The recently ended civil war, which raged for a decade and a half, did nothing to improve the situation.

Now the war is over. It’s been over since 2003. And what has this meant for infrastructure in Sierra Leone? Not much, except that the international community has done a good job of rebuilding and refurbishing the main commercial and administrative buildings in the capital’s city center. When I was there last September, my guide pointed out all the buildings that had been rebuilt by the British, the French, the EU, the UN but I didn’t see a single building that had been rebuilt by the Sierra Leonean government.

“But,” I hear you say, “isn’t it a lot to ask of the fragile new administration of a post-conflict-country to invest huge sums of revenue into reconstruction?” Fair enough. But if they can’t or don’t spend money on rebuilding the country, what can or do they spend revenues on? Last time I checked, it was the duty of a government to provide for the wellbeing of its people. Certainly I’m not naive enough to believe that the government must do so out of altruism but the Sierra Leonean government is failing at performing its basic role even if we look at it from purely economic terms. How can the country progress economically without a reliable and comprehensive transportation system, a requirement for even the most primitive systems of trade and commerce?

Besides, not having enough money is no excuse. Isn’t it part of the government’s job to have money? Whether through loans or foreign aid or domestic revenue generation, it is up to the government to generate revenue, which can then be reinvested into the economy. Despite what we hear about the role of government in the US, this is actually how modern, industrialized and—dare I say it—civilized countries function. Sure there’s a role for the market and the entrepreneur and all that good stuff but even the most die-hard advocates of the free market would never claim that the market exists to serve the public good. Entrepreneurs will tell you that they are in the business of seeking profits, not serving the public good. So, if the market won’t do it, who should? I say the government should. Find me one modern, industrialized, civilized country in which the government does nothing to provide for the public good.

Which brings me to my greater point. The government of Sierra Leone does not give a sh*t about the people of Sierra Leone. Since indepencence—46 years ago—Sierra Leone’s leaders (like the leaders of much of the “developing” world) have been busy enriching themselves. Sure, colonialism left homogenous, un-diversified economies throughout sub-Saharan Africa that were dependent on European economies for their survival. And yes, structural adjustments took a grievous toll on social welfare programs in developing countries but the time has come to call a spade a spade. African leaders don’t care about their people. They have never cared about their people. In the ’60s and ’70s, Sierra Leone was a decent place to live, with passable roads, round-the-clock electricity, and running water in the capital (the “provinces” were always a different story).

On my recent trip, however, Freetown had become like the provinces. Roads in the once-affluent western suburbs were now rutted and potholed, the asphalt broken up by tank treads from the days of the war and the soil underneath washed away by rain. Where there were once sidewalks, I saw deep ravines and gullies where water had eroded the soil on the side of the road. In some places, so much of the road had been washed away that two cars traveling in opposite directions could not pass each other along the same narrow stretch of road. And the roads are just the most visible part of the decay. Schools, hospitals, homes are all in a deplorable state of disrepair. More and more people live in slums and shanties.

Not everyone lives in dilapidation, though. I saw the president’s house. It’s a mansion that sits on a hillside overlooking the capital. Paved driveway, fence, swimming pool. But this man presides over a country that is slipping further and further backwards. But here’s the rub. The very poverty of Sierra Leone is what keeps these people in business. Millions of dollars and euros in foreign and development aid are funnelled into Sierra Leone—and many other impoverished countries—but how much of that money gets to the people who really need it? Having seen the president’s mansion, I have to say, not much.

The government of Sierra Leone is parasitic, and that corrupting mentality trickles all the way down through the society as low-level civil servants, underpaid and undertrained, scrounge around for scraps—bribes and other forms of official theft. How many people get into government because they want to make a difference, to help lift their country out of poverty? Not many, I imagine. After all, why has it taken so long to make that difference, and why is the country so much worse than it was at independence? Yes I know, colonialism and the international financial institutions must bear some of the blame but let’s not forget, Africa was not the only colonized continent. Yet today, Africa is by far the most impoverished region in the world.

Why do so many Sierra Leoneans who have attained professional and financial success abroad give it all up to pursue a political career in Sierra Leone? Because that’s where the money is. Take the former ambassador to the US, who had been a successful attorney and businessman prior to his appointment. Why did he go to Sierra Leone to try to get involved in politics? Why not lecture at the university there? He has a law degree and legal experience after all. Why not find investors and open a factory or some other revenue-generating business? After all, he had worked in the private sector before. Because he was not interested in doing anything to make Sierra Leone a safer, cleaner, or more comfortable place for its citizens to live. But he’s not alone.

Post-independence administrations—from Siaka Stevens’ on—have demonstrated a stunning lack of vision and imagination. As the rest of the world has moved forwards, Sierra Leone has slipped backwards. Why has no post-independence government implemented any policies for sustainable development? No large-scale, industrialized agriculture; no modern land, sea, or river transportation network; no new schoolhouses; no new hospitals; no modern air- or seaport; nothing! Just a government that maintains form without function.

When the president travels abroad, he is treated with all the respect befitting a dignitary. But every day in Sierra Leone, and in much of Africa, how many people die daily from easily preventable accidents and diseases? How many lives could be saved if the government committed itself to improving road networks and making transportation a faster and less dangerous business? Would the president be treated with such respect if he had lined the casualties of today’s boat catastrophe up against a wall and shot them all in the head? Sierra Leone boasts the world’s highest rates of infant mortality, with measles and malaria respectively accounting for 48 and 33 percent of all under-five deaths. What if, instead of having succumbed to easily prevented diseases, all these children had been gassed to death on the orders of the present government? There would be an international outcry, that’s what! No member of the Sierra Leonean government could travel abroad as smugly and proudly as they do now.

However, these people are not dying from accidents and disease. They are dying because the people who were elected or appointed to provide the basic amenities that would prevent their deaths are failing to do their jobs. Not having enough money to fix roads, build hospitals, or educate children should no longer be an acceptable excuse! Finding the money is part of the job description. Using the money to improve the country for everyone is another part of the job. Failing to do either of these things is the same as failing in the job. And failing to do one’s job is negligence. Every day, in Sierra Leone and all around Africa, people are dying from government negligence. But because they are dying from negligence instead of deliberate government action, the world looks the other way. Nobody is held accountable. The negligence goes unpunished.

Today, as 50 people go to their watery graves, we have seen one more demonstration of this negligence. With elections around the corner, let’s hope the next government is better than the previous ones. Let’s hope the next government values the lives of Sierra Leoneans enough to actively attempt to prevent such catastrophic accidents.

But I’m not holding my breath.

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New Radio Show: July 23, 2007.

The July 23 edition of Diaspora Sounds is now available for your listening pleasure. Listen online or download to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist.

Listen to the previous show here.

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Mombasa Prostitutes Get No Breaks!

According to the BBC, prostitutes in the predominantly Muslim city of Mombasa, which sits on the Kenyan coast, are increasingly ditching their typically revealing work attire in favor of traditional head-to-toe garb.

Some of the prostitutes say they do it to hide their identities because they are ashamed to be seen plying their trade, which they consider to be a sin. Others choose to fully cover themselves to avoid arrest because police can not distinguish them from non–working women.

But the switch to more modest attire has not been met with universal approval. Local women who are not engaged in sex work complain that they now feel there is nothing to distinguish them from prostitutes.

To these women I say, “Too bad!” Isn’t it bad enough for the prostitutes that they have to sell sex and risk their lives and health just so they can earn a living? I mean, give these poor women a break! Don’t you think it’s hard enough to go against the rules of tradition and religion in pursuit of a living? Now you’re unhappy because they dress like you? Come on! Maybe you hoity-toity women would prefer prostitutes to endure further humiliation in your conservative society by openly identifying themselves as sex workers.

But I am curious about how customers know who is a prostitute and who isn’t?

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Lessons From Katrina

I decided to give the first post of the day over to someone with more hands-on experience. Read on . . .

 

How to Destroy an African American City in
Thirty Three Steps – Lessons from Katrina
 
By Bill Quigley

 

Step One.  Delay. If there is one word that sums up the way to destroy an African-American city after a disaster, that word is DELAY. If you are in doubt about any of the following steps – just remember to delay and you will probably be doing the right thing.

Step Two. When a disaster is coming, do not arrange a public evacuation. Rely only on individual resources. People with cars and money for hotels will leave. The elderly, the disabled and the poor will not be able to leave. Most of those without cars – 25% of households of New Orleans, overwhelmingly African-Americans – will not be able to leave. Most of the working poor, overwhelmingly African-American, will not be able to leave. Many will then permanently accuse the victims who were left behind of creating their own human disaster because of their own poor planning. It is critical to start by having people blame the victims for their own problems.

Step Three. When the disaster hits, make certain the national response is overseen by someone who has no experience at all handling anything on a large scale, particularly disasters. In fact, you can even inject some humor into the response – have the disaster coordinator be someone whose last job was the head of a dancing horse association.

Step Four. Make sure that the President and national leaders remain aloof and only slightly concerned. This sends an important message to the rest of the country.

Step Five. Make certain the local, state, and national governments do not respond in a coordinated, effective way. This will create more chaos on the ground.

Step Six. Do not bring in food or water or communications right away. This will make everyone left behind more frantic and create incredible scenes for the media.

Step Seven. Make certain that the media focus of the disaster is not on the heroic community work of thousands of women, men and young people helping the elderly, the sick and the trapped survive, but mainly on acts of people looting. Also spread and repeat the rumors that people trapped on rooftops are shooting guns, not to attract attention and get help, but AT the helicopters. This will reinforce the message that “those people” left behind are different from the rest of us and are beyond help.

Step Eight. Refuse help from other countries. If we accept help, it looks like we cannot or choose not to handle this problem ourselves. This cannot be the message. The message we want to put out over and over is that we have plenty of resources and there is plenty of help. Then if people are not receiving help, it is their own fault. This should be done quietly.

Step Nine. Once the evacuation of those left behind actually starts, make sure people do not know where they are going or have any way to know where the rest of their family has gone. In fact, make sure that African-Americans end up much farther away from home than others.

Step Ten. Make sure that when government assistance finally has to be given out, it is given out in a totally arbitrary way. People will have lost their homes, jobs, churches, doctors, schools, neighbors and friends. Give them a little bit of money, but not too much. Make people dependent. Then cut off the money. Then give it to some and not others. Refuse to assist more than one person in every household. This will create conflicts where more than one generation live together. Make it impossible for people to get consistent answers to their questions. Long lines and busy phones will discourage people from looking for help.

Step Eleven. Insist the President suspend federal laws requiring living wages and affirmative action for contractors working on the disaster. While local workers are still displaced, import white workers from outside the city for the high-paying jobs like crane and bulldozer operators. Import Latino workers from outside the city for the low-paying dangerous jobs. Make sure to have elected officials, black and white, blame job problems on the lowest wage immigrant workers. This will create divisions between black and brown workers that can be exploited by those at the top. Because many of the brown workers do not have legal papers, those at the top will not have to worry about paying decent wages, providing health insurance, following safety laws, unemployment compensation, workers compensation, or union organizing. These become, essentially, disposable workers – use them, then lose them.

Step Twelve. Whatever you do, keep people away from their city for as long as possible. This is the key to long-term success in destroying the African-American city. Do not permit people to come home. Keep people guessing about what is going to happen and when it is going to happen. Set numerous deadlines and then break them. This will discourage people and make it increasingly difficult for people to return.

Step Thirteen. When you finally have to reopen the city, make sure to reopen the African-American sections last. This will aggravate racial tensions in the city and create conflicts between those who are able to make it home and those who are not.

Step Fourteen. When the big money is given out, make sure it is all directed to homeowners and not to renters. This is particularly helpful in a town like New Orleans that was majority African-American and majority renter. Then, after you have excluded renters, mess up the program for the homeowners so that they must wait for years to get money to fix their homes.

Step Fifteen. Close down all the public schools for months. This will prevent families with children in the public school system, overwhelmingly African-Americans, from coming home.

Step Sixteen. Fire all the public school teachers, teacher aides, cafeteria workers and bus drivers and de-certify the teachers union – the largest in the state. This will primarily hurt middle class African Americans and make them look for jobs elsewhere.

Step Seventeen. Even better, take this opportunity to flip the public school system into a charter system and push foundations and the government for extra money to the new charter schools. Give the schools with the best test scores away first. Then give the least flooded schools away next. Turn 70% of schools into charters so that the kids with good test scores or solid parental involvement will go to the charters. That way, the kids with average scores, or learning disabilities, or single parent families, who are still displaced, are kept segregated away from the “good” kids. You will have to set up a few schools for those other kids, but make sure those schools do not get any extra money, do not have libraries, nor doors on the toilets, nor enough teachers. In fact, because of this, you better make certain there are more security guards than teachers.

Step Eighteen. Let the market do what it does best. When rent goes up 70%, say there is nothing we can do about it. This will have two great results: it will keep many former residents away from the city and it will make landlords happy. If wages go up, immediately import more outside workers and wages will settle down.

Step Nineteen. Make sure all the predominately white suburbs surrounding the African-American city make it very difficult for the people displaced from the city to return to the metro area. Have one suburb refuse to allow any new subsidized housing at all. Have the Sheriff of another threaten to stop and investigate anyone wearing dreadlocks. Throw in a little humor and have one nearly all-white suburb pass a law that makes it illegal for homeowners to rent to people other than their blood relatives! The courts may strike these down, but it will take time and the message will be clear – do not think about returning to the suburbs.

Step Twenty. Reduce public transportation by more than 80%. The people without cars will understand the message.

Step Twenty-One. Keep affordable housing to a minimum. Instead, use the money to reopen the Superdome and create tourism campaigns. Refuse to boldly create massive homeownership opportunities for former renters. Delay re-opening apartment complexes in African American neighborhoods. As long as less than half the renters can return to affordable housing, they will not return.

Step Twenty-Two. Keep all public housing closed. Since it is 100% African-American, this is a no-brainer. Make sure to have African-Americans be the people who deliver the message. This step will also help by putting more pressure on the rental market, as 5000 more families will then have to compete for rental housing with low-income workers. This will provide another opportunity for hundreds of millions of government funds to be funneled to corporations when these buildings are torn down and developers can build up other less-secure buildings in their place. Make sure to tell the 5000 families evicted from public housing that you are not letting them back for their own good. Tell them you are trying to save them from living in a segregated neighborhood. This will also send a good signal – if the government can refuse to allow people back, private concerns are free to do the same or worse.

Step Twenty-Three. Shut down as much public health as possible. Sick and elderly people and moms with little kids need access to public healthcare. Keep the public hospital, which hosted about 350,000 visits a year before the disaster, closed. Keep the neighborhood clinics closed. Put all the pressure on the private healthcare facilities and provoke economic and racial tensions there between the insured and uninsured.

Step Twenty-Four. Close as many public mental healthcare providers as possible. The trauma of the disaster will seriously increase stress on everyone. Left untreated, medical experts tell us this will dramatically increase domestic violence, self-medication and drug and alcohol abuse and, of course, crime.

Step Twenty-Five. Keep the city environment unfriendly to women. Women were already widely discriminated against before the storm. Make sure that you do not reopen day care centers. This, combined with the lack of healthcare, lack of affordable housing, and lack of transportation, will keep moms with kids away. If you can keep women with kids away, the city will destroy itself.

Step Twenty-Six. Create and maintain an environment where black on black crime will flourish. As long as you can keep parents out of town, keep the schools hostile to kids without parents, keep public healthcare closed, make only low-paying jobs available, not fund social workers or prosecutors or public defenders or police, and keep chaos the norm, young black men will certainly kill other young black men. To increase the visibility of the crime problem, bring in the National Guard in fatigues to patrol the streets in their camouflage hummers.

Step Twenty-Seven. Strip the local elected, predominately African American government of its powers. Make certain the money that is coming in to fix up the region is not under their control. Privatize as much as you can as quickly as you can – housing, healthcare, and education for starters. When in doubt, privatize. Create an appointed commission of people who have no experience in government to make all the decisions. In fact, it is better to create several such commissions; that way, no one will really be sure who is in charge and there will be much more delay and conflict. Treat the local people like they are stupid; you know what is best for them much better than they do.

Step Twenty-Eight. Create lots of planning processes but give them no authority. Overlap them where possible. Give people conflicting signals whether their neighborhood will be allowed to rebuild or be turned into green space. This will create confusion, conflict and aggravation. People will blame the officials closest to them – the local African-American officials, even though they do not have any authority to do anything about these plans, since they do not control the rebuilding money.

Step Twenty-Nine. Hold an election but make it very difficult for displaced voters to participate. In fact, do not allow any voting in any place outside the state, even though we do it for Americans in other countries and even though hundreds of thousands of people are still displaced. This is very important because when people are not able to vote, those who have been able to return can say, “Well, they didn’t even vote, so I guess they are not interested in returning.”

Step Thirty. Get the elected officials out of the way and make room for corporations to make a profit. There are billions to be made in this process for well-connected national and international corporations. There is so much chaos that no one will be able to figure out, for a long time, exactly where the money went. There is no real attempt to make sure that local businesses, especially African-American businesses, get contracts – at best they get modest subcontracts from the corporations that got the big money. Make sure the authorities prosecute a couple of little people who ripped off $2,000 – that will temporarily satisfy people who know they are being ripped off and divert attention from the big money rip-offs. This will also provide another opportunity to blame the victims – as critics can say, “Well, we gave them lots of money, they must have wasted it, how much more can they expect from us?”

Step Thirty One. Keep people’s attention diverted from the African-American city. Pour money into Iraq instead of the Gulf Coast . Corporations have figured out how to make big bucks whether we are winning or losing the war. It is easier to convince the country to support war – support for cities is much, much tougher. When the war goes badly, you can change the focus of the message to supporting the troops. Everyone loves the troops. No one can say we all love African-Americans. Focus on terrorists – that always seems to work.

Step Thirty-Two. Refuse to talk about or look seriously at race. Condemn anyone who dares to challenge the racism of what is going on – accuse them of “playing the race card” or say they are paranoid. Criticize people who challenge the exclusion of African-Americans as people who “just want to go back to the bad old days.” Repeat the message that you want something better for everyone. Use African American spokespersons where possible.

Step Thirty-Three. Repeat these steps.

Note to readers: Every fact in this list actually happened and continues to happen in New Orleans, after Katrina.

Bill Quigley is a law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans. He has been an active public interest lawyer since 1977 and has served as counsel with a wide range of public interest organizations on issues including Katrina social justice issues, public housing, voting rights, death penalty, living wage, civil liberties, educational reform, constitutional rights and civil disobedience. He has litigated numerous cases with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the Advancement Project, and with the ACLU of Louisiana, for which he served as General Counsel for over 15 years.

This column was originally published on the Black Commentator.

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