A Poor Choice of Words and a Shameful Worldview
Monday Morning at Baronne and Jackson by Derek Bridges.
Late last week, an article appeared in the Times Picayune that detailed a new potential plan to rid the city of New Orleans of FEMA trailers by June 1st. Now, on the surface, we’d all love to get rid of the FEMA trailers. Indeed, the trailers are poisonous: FEMA has recently admitted, after a few years of refusing to conduct tests, that many trailers distributed to Hurricane victims have exposed occupants to dangerously high levels of formaldehyde, a carcinogen. Certainly, we can all agree that the trailers are not a suitable place to live. The sooner our neighbors can move back into their own homes or can move to a proper apartment, the better.
But what does it mean if the city sets a deadline?
There are many reasons that FEMA trailers continue to remain a fixture of our street-scape. One is that people rebuilding their homes have not received adequate insurance payouts. Another is that the bureaucracy of Louisiana’s Road Home Program has been such an immense failure that actual payouts to aspirant rebuilders have been sparse. Third, because the city suffers from such an incredible shortage of affordable housing, even our most proactive neighbors attempting to escape further formaldehyde exposure will struggle to find an apartment they can afford.
As a result, there are still an estimated 7,200 FEMA trailers in Orleans Parish alone. That could represent 20,000 individuals, possibly more. To set a deadline for people to move out of trailers would mean that the city would have two months to discover affordable housing for tens of thousands of people legally compelled to relocate. Mayor Nagin himself, in a letter to President Bush, explained that FEMA’s own trailer resident relocation plan for mitigating the harms of formaldehyde contamination was out of touch with reality. He asserted that FEMA’s plan to begin emergency relocations was unjust because the severity of the city’s affordable housing crisis would ensure that victims of Katrina would have to be displaced from the New Orleans area all over again.
These facts were apparently lost on City Councilwoman Stacy Head, a primary architect of the plan to institute a deadline.
“At what point are we going to say that in New Orleans it’s not OK to live in a trailer as a lifestyle choice?” she asked. “There are many, many trailers in the non-flooded areas (where) people just would rather live there than deal with a house that they didn’t put any money into for a long time before that.”
There is nothing compassionate in that statement. Councilwoman Head expresses no anger toward FEMA for poisoning her constituents by distributing contaminated trailers. She chooses not to direct blame toward the State of Louisiana for failing to provide timely Road Home payouts to her constituents could fully rebuild their homes.
Instead, the tens of thousands of New Orleanians still languishing in these trailers are at fault themselves. Head seems to indicate a belief that New Orleans residents still stuck in these one room cancer shacks are making a “lifestyle choice” to remain exposed to poison. She boldly asserts that many trailer residents would prefer to remain exposed to dangerous levels of formaldehyde on a 24 hour basis rather than move back into their own home.
There are a several extremely troubling aspects to the language and perspective expressed by Councilwoman Head. First, her claim that people still living in trailers are making a lifestyle choice based on some strange preference to remain exposed to carcinogens appears to be totally groundless. Second, the fact that she would comfortably make such an outlandish assertion reveals the Councilwoman’s incredible ignorance of the circumstances of her constituents, the everyday challenges faced by those fighting to repair their lives. Third, her brazen labeling of trailer residents as making a “lifestyle choice” based on preference not to put in the work necessary to rebuild their homes divisively plays on racial and economic stereotypes regarding work ethic.
In total, Councilwoman Head’s comments go beyond merely being offensive as a result of insensitive word choice. Unfortunately, when viewed in the relevant context of the Councilwoman’s policies on matters of substance – her support of the June 1st trailer deadline, her staunch opposition to public housing, and her refusal to address the affordable housing crisis – Head’s comments become much more sinister and despicable.
Does she truly believe that people still stuck in those awful FEMA trailers are happy campers? Does she actually think that people prefer to live in the trailers than in their own homes? Is she unintentionally or willfully blind to the affordable housing crisis?
These comments, and the underlying sentiments behind them do more than bring Stacy Head’s credibility and character into question. Her statements and, ultimately, our reaction to them, speak to how we, as residents of New Orleanians, treat our neighbors.
Do we stand up and defend them, fight for them, empathize with them? Do we help them demand and receive the social services that they and we deserve from local, state, and federal government?
Or do we simply ignore them, disparage them, blame them? Do we allow our elected officials to embarrass our sense of community by bitting us against one another in competition for resources that we, as “beneficiaries” of government failure before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina all deserve?
When Mayor Nagin uttered his now infamous line that New Orleans was and always will be a “chocolate city,” citizens of the city, and the national and local media went ballistic. They were angry. The comments were divisive and New Orleanians demanded that he clarify, respond, apologize.
We cannot allow a double standard for Councilwoman Head. Her comments are just as divisive, and for my money, much much more sinister and hurtful. Residents of New Orleanians, her constituents in District B deserve better leadership, a Councilperson that will unify the community to help us get the resources that we all need to rebuild instead of pit us against one another. I don’t know if there’s anything Stacy Head can say that will erase the impression she left when she disparaged residents of FEMA trailers but I sure think she owes it to her community to try. She must attempt to clarify, respond, apologize. She must know that these comments are inappropriate, insensitive, and wrong. If the local press won’t demand the response we deserve, then the responsibility falls onto the citizens to do it for themselves.
Click on this link to contact Stacy Head’s office. Demand accountability from your elected officials, tell Councilwoman Head to support our neighbors victimized by formaldehyde exposure.
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There’s not much one could add to Eli’s lengthy rant here. I don’t disagree ~ not hardly ~ but I do get the feeling that there’s maybe a bit more personal animosity towards this particular politicians than might be appropriate.
I clicked the link and wrote a response directly to the councilwoman’s office. Among other things, I told her that longsuffering citizens “do not need to be castigated by clueless and overprivileged ‘leaders.’”
I was trying to be just nasty enough without going overboard…
Tom,
I appreciate your support in obtaining a response from Councilwoman Head’s office.
I was concerned that my commitment to getting this issue out there would be construed as some sort of personal bias against the Councilwoman. I don’t really know how to assure you that this is not the case.
I have taken a particular interest in publicizing her comments because I know that the local press is not pursuing the matter.
While I proudly deride the Councilwoman’s comments on this and other matters related to her position on affordable housing, an issue that I care about deeply, I think she’s been a total hero on other matters. For instance, I would argue that she has been the most strident member of Council in pursuing accountability from the Mayor’s office. That’s an issue of great importance.
I don’t know how to counteract the sentiment that I may have a personal problem with Councilwoman Head. I don’t believe that I have ever attacked her personally. I don’t even know Councilwoman Head.
Her comments were, however, totally insensitive and she needs to be held to the same standard as the Mayor in that regard. I’m glad that you agree and decided to contact her office.
And besides, I think calling her “clueless and overprivileged” is much meaner than anything I’ve said about her. LOL. I only called her comments sinister and despicable.
[...] I sent an email message to Stacy Head. This was about the time that Eli Ackerman posted his article A Poor Choice of Words and a Shameful Worldview on Think New Orleans about the FEMA trailer campaign. Stacy or [...]