Letter from the Founder New Orleans

Letter from the Founder

New Orleans; From Cultural Treasure to an American Chernobyl Back to Cultural Treasure

In January of 2003 a narrator for a documentary on the city of Chicago commented that a healthy ecosystem had become a city in the space of fifty years (1830-1880). As the 18th centaury opened there was a piece of land well below sea level in south-eastern Louisiana the first Europeans took it upon themselves to establish a city in a wetland ecosystem prone to frequent flooding; thus began a phenomenon with which we are all too familiar. That is, we have a problem, we attempt to solve the problem and end up creating a bigger one. With the building and succeeding levies the city of New Orleans went from one crisis to another. In former times Louisiana's vast wetlands acted as a sponge or mediator between the interior and the relatively stable Gulf Coast. In the centuries since the coming of the first Europeans however, the bioregion has become increasingly compromised and this process was exacerbated in the twentieth century with the discovery of oil. The oil companies rammed canals through wetlands; the Army Corps of engineers placed that great corroded artery of the world, the Mississippi, in what could only be called a geologic body cast. On top of all of that refineries and other chemical facilities were imposed upon the landscape to the detriment of all. For decades warnings have been issued locally, nationally, and internationally, but, to paraphrase the great Lakota composer Brother Floyd Red Crow Westermen they, the powers that be, refused to listen. These same powers virtually joked about their corruption over the years and now barrowing a line from Brother Malcolm X, "the chicken have indeed come home to roost"! Thus, my relatives, the city which emerged from an ecosystem, which gave us Louis Armstrong, Jelly Role Mortem, King Oliver, and Kid Orrey no longer, exists for all practical purposes. The current illegitimate regime in Washington is insisting that there should be no finger pointing. The response of Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity is simple and blunt; whatever happened to accountability? The bad guy must, and will, be brought to account for one of the greatest screw ups in human history. Let us be even more stark, the city of New Orleans (like my home city of Detroit) has been on the skids for decades and these skids have been greased by nothing but old fashioned racism! Both cities have poor black majorities and the have both been written off by a regime and a congress which represent the last gasp of ideology. Both communities are to be rebuilt but in the case of New Orleans, in particular, there can be no reconstruction with out long term painstakingly well throughout ecological and cultural restoration.

For openers those wetlands have got to be restored and a wonderful English women named Denise is already on the scene proving that such restoration is possible. We hope to work with her sooner rather than later. In my last letter, simply entitled 'letter to Jual' I talked about a minimum ten billion dollar endowment for Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity. At the risk of repeating myself....if every person on this planet who cares about ecological health, bilateral restoration, and the permanent peace they will bring would send a dollar or more to this project we would be in a position to hire the best ecologists on the planet and go to the field in New Orleans.

In closing, let me return to part of the title of these remarks. We are about replacing the American empire with a brand spanking new nation on this continent based on indigenous wisdom, womens wisdom, retaliatory experiences to which we are all entitled and which are always evolving and hard science - not religious hocus pocus. Just as Chernobyl brought down the Soviet Union New Orleans will do the same for what John Frudal and Ward Churchill would call "this predatory exceptionality madness which brought us ecocide, genocide, slavery, violence against women, and the promise of permanent war, unless and until we stop them once and for all. Let us join hands and hearts to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the world. These are my words and I take full responsibility for them. Thank you. I hope to hear from you,

Brother Ray

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Photography by an Siosalaich, 2005