RACISM, SUPERSTORM SANDY & DISASTER CAPITALISM
From: Marjorie Stamberg
Sent: Thu, Nov 1, 2012
Red Hook faces racist Katrina-like treatment
Having been to housing projects in New Orleans, post-Katrina, where authorities were trying to force residents out by cutting off essential services, what's happening in Red Hook, post Sandy, has an eerie familiarity.
Beyond the DOE's nasty harassment, making teachers "prove" and "appeal" why they can't get to school in the middle of a catastrophe where the trains aren't running into the most-affected areas, Brooklyn is sealed off, people are trapped in their flooded homes in Jersey, Long Island is still without power, NYU Hospital and now Bellevue are evacuated because of failing back-up power, and we in lower Manhattan are still living in the Nether World of Darkness, the New Yorkers who are suffering most terribly right now are in Red Hook.
To get the people in the Red Hook NYCHA projects to leave, the city gratuitously turned off their electricity, water and gas before the storm -- this was not a result of Sandy but a deliberate attempt to force them out. Many decided to stay anyway as they needed to project their property and did not have family or friends in other places.
Now, four days later Red Hook project residents still have no heat, no gas, no electric. Many cannot shop