For a Former Panther, Solidarity After the Storm
For a Former Panther, Solidarity After the Storm: "NEW ORLEANS -- Malik Rahim, a granddaddy with a broad face and long gray dreadlocks, leans across his wooden kitchen table and with a low Nawlins growl lets you know what he thinks local pols did for racial harmony.
'I'm far from being a Republican, but I got to call it the way it is,' he says. 'They had a shoot-to-kill order on African Americans in this city with an African American mayor.'
He catches himself.
"Let me rephrase that: A so-called African American mayor and a so-called African American police chief. They sat here and allowed this governor to declare martial law on African Americans ."
In the days after Katrina drowned the city, Rahim, 58, sat on his front porch in Algiers, a working-class district of bungalows, churches and smokestacks that lies across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans, and watched mostly white militias patrol the streets with rifles and pistols. Then came the National Guard, carrying their M-16s, and Gov. Kathleen Blanco's order to "shoot and kill" the "hoodlums.""
'I'm far from being a Republican, but I got to call it the way it is,' he says. 'They had a shoot-to-kill order on African Americans in this city with an African American mayor.'
He catches himself.
"Let me rephrase that: A so-called African American mayor and a so-called African American police chief. They sat here and allowed this governor to declare martial law on African Americans ."
In the days after Katrina drowned the city, Rahim, 58, sat on his front porch in Algiers, a working-class district of bungalows, churches and smokestacks that lies across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans, and watched mostly white militias patrol the streets with rifles and pistols. Then came the National Guard, carrying their M-16s, and Gov. Kathleen Blanco's order to "shoot and kill" the "hoodlums.""
posted by Blackgold at 9:33 AM
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