Hurricane
Irene is gone and the damage was done across the eastern
coast of the U.S. In
New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced
the shutdown of the city’s transit system, and the evacuation
of a quarter of a million people in low-lying areas. But
the city had no plans to evacuate the 12,000 prisoners on
Rikers
Island. There was no plan because there is no plan,
no plan in place to evacuate these incarcerated individuals
in case of a disaster.
Really
now?
I
can’t help but believe that if the island was occupied by
investment bankers or other “important” people worthy of
protection, perhaps like the
Hamptons, maybe things would have been a little different.
After all, prisoners are perhaps the least regarded segment
of society. And while no harm was visited upon these prisoners
this time around, what will happen the next time? Given
the effects of global warming, more hurricanes and tornadoes
surely will come - more frequently and more intense.
Disasters
- whether environmental or financial, both of which include
those created by human beings - impose a system of triage
that negatively impacts the poor, neglected and politically
powerless.
The
U.S. saw that in action in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina six years ago. The
impoverished black residents of the Lower Ninth Ward caught
Hell, to be sure, and suffered the most damage as an indifferent
federal government looked the other way. And the men, women
and children who occupied Orleans
Parish Prison at the time, the second-class citizens
that they are, suffered some of the greatest injustices
of the storm. Stray pets received better treatment. Guards
left their posts unattended, with prisoners locked up without
water, food or ventilation, and sometimes up to their chests
in dirty water. As New
Orleans was being evacuated, the sheriff
declared “The prisoners will stay where they belong.”
And
that spirit of callous neglect is evident in today’s financial
crisis, the product of an unsavory mix of greed on Wall
Street, and greed and deregulation in Washington. Through
their water carriers, plutocrats and oligarchs are using
the recession as a pretext for austerity measures, a job-killing
assault on poor, working and middle-class families. As a
Koch Brothers-funded Congress and Tea Party-endorsed governors
and state legislatures slash budgets and taxes for the rich
in the name of deficit reduction, everyday folks are blamed
for getting the country into the mess we’re in. And the
everyday people are left to suffer in this bad economy.
But
back to Rikers. It should not escape us that Rikers Island is about 95
percent black and Latino. The students in the New York City public school system, the largest district in the nation,
are overwhelmingly
of color - 86 percent. Mayor Bloomberg controls both.
And it is not such a stretch to suggest that the Big Apple’s
richest man and the thirteenth
richest American may have interests that clash with
New York’s prisoners and public school students. Black males
in New York City have a 28
percent high school graduation rate and a 50 percent
unemployment rate.
Moreover,
the mayor’s two previous schools chiefs demonstrated a tendency
to view public education as a commodity to be exploited
for profit by business executives. His immediate past chancellor,
Cathie
Black, is a magazine executive with no education experience
who suggested birth control as a means to solve classroom
overcrowding. The man who headed the schools before Black,
Joel
Klein, is Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand man and consigliere,
hired to investigate (perhaps clean up) a scandal-plagued
News Corp., and head up the corporation’s new for-profit
education division. Murdoch’s hacking scandal just cost
Wireless Generation, his education technology business,
a $27
million contract with the state of New
York - most likely because hacking into the records of students
is generally frowned upon. I can’t think of any corporation
more averse to the interests of people of color than News
Corp., the parent company the New York Post and Fox
News, the former employer of madman and hatemonger Glenn
Beck.
And
so, the inmates at the Rikers penal colony likely have few
champions, an unpopular constituency lacking any highly-paid
lobbyists to do their bidding. Surely some of these captives
have committed some heinous crimes. Others are caught up
in the criminal justice system through no fault of their
own, or due to racial profiling, or because they were in
the wrong place at the wrong time. And let’s not forget,
Rikers Island
also holds people awaiting trial who couldn't afford their
bail, some awaiting bail hearings and even those awaiting
arraignment - all of whom are innocent under our justice
system. Whatever the reason, the occupants of Rikers Island, Orleans
Parish Prison and elsewhere are human beings entitled to
basic human rights. One would think that these rights include
the right to not be left to die during a hurricane.
Sadly,
from the time slaves were thrown
overboard for the “safety” of a ship, whether ostensibly
to fight the spread of contagion or to collect
the insurance money, people of African descent have
been no strangers to triage. The circumstances have changed
since then, but have they really?
BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, David
A. Love, JD is a journalist and human rights advocate based
in Philadelphia, is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania
Law School. and a contributor to The Huffington
Post, the Grio, The Progressive
Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service,
In These
Times and Philadelphia
Independent Media Center. He also blogs at davidalove.com, NewsOne, Daily Kos, and Open Salon. Click here to contact Mr. Love.
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