As we reached the 5th anniversary of the man made disaster that Katrina became, there have been two narratives about what the state of things are in New Orleans and the Gulf. The lives and conditions of Black people get some attention in the main story being told but this is overshadowed by the main story. Much of it commemorates the tragedy, the loss of lives and the epic nature of the event and aftermath. It then goes on to highlight the tremendous progress that has been made in bringing the City back to a level that tourism is booming again. Music is back, there are more restaurants, the Saints won the Superbowl. Yet there remain 100,000 New Orleanians spread across the country but cannot come back because there is not enough affordable housing, schools, health care and more, to meet their needs if they came back to their beloved city. Journalist Jordan Flaherty, author of “Floodlines” has laid out what the state of things really is as seen through the eyes of a Black spoken word artist. The Institute for Southern Studies reports that while community action has flourished, the President and the Congress have yet to deliver on the promises made by the Bush Administration and have not created a disaster and recovery policy that is adequate for protecting the area.

In North Carolina, there are 10 million hogs held in these confined animal feeding operations known as CAFOS that are concentrated in Black Communities in the eastern part of the state. There are hundreds of open lagoons located next to these feeding operations to receive the millions of tons of hog waste yearly that is sprayed over fields and communities when the lagoons begin to overflow.

Deaths here and in Mexico add to mounting worries about swine flu virus. The outbreak also raises many questions about the sustainability of food production on the corporate model. The new virus strain carries genetic elements from human, swine and avian flu varieties and was first reported in a resident of a village, La Gloria, in Veracruz, Mexico.