Iberville Public Housing Resident Glenda Goins Denounces Michael Valentino: Hotel Magnate : NOLA Indymedia

Iberville Public Housing Resident Glenda Goins Denounces Michael Valentino
at Sham Anti-Racism Workshop:
Hotel Magnate Responds with Police Repression

Friday morning, September 15th, Iberville public housing resident Glenda Goins led four other C3/Hands Off Iberville members to confront millionaire Michael Valentino on the 4th floor of his new hotel/visitor center located next to the Iberville development. Valentino was holed up there with about 30 other or so people as part of a so-called undoing racism training session. The developer unveiled plans recently to turn Iberville into a ‘mixed income’ community--the new capitalist code word for racial and class cleansing--along the lines of the St. Thomas development. He was using the undoing racism session as part of his political strategy to legitimate his racist capitalist plans that calls for, among other things, shrinking the number of public housing units from the current 865 to only 300, imposing work requirements, and placing time limits on how long people can stay. Of course time limits never apply to real estate sharks in New Orleans that have received generous state subsidies for their ‘developments’. One prime example is Pres Kabacoff’s ‘river gardens’ (St. Thomas) development that mainly provides subsidized housing for the wealthy.

Valentino’s choreographed public relations effort hit a snag when Goins led a delegation to expose the sham. This grass roots African American working class activist, after taking the elevator to the top floor of the former railroad depot that oversees the Iberville development, confidently walked up to Valentino and let it be known, before the whole crowd of mostly young people, many of whom were Common Ground volunteers, that she opposed his efforts to drive out the community. Among other things, she pointed out that many residents hold jobs, often two, including herself. She expressed an undying commitment for her community and willingness to defend it. The developer, who turned blush, tried to weasel out of any confrontation by claiming that he was only hosting the event, and that she needed to talk with representatives from the Peoples Institute that organized the workshop. PI representatives quickly intervened to try and defuse the confrontation.

This writer then intervened and confronted Valentino. I let him know that we would not allow him to follow the Joseph Canizaro strategy of using community front people to legitimate some phony ‘redevelopment’ plan. [Canizaro is a real estate developer, and a major Bush backer, who helped to gain the consent of tenant and non-profit leaders to privatize the St. Thomas. His nearby property skyrocketed in value with the ensuing ethnic and class cleansing. He and his partners made $70 million from simply flipping their nearby 70 acres of riverfront property].

Valentino Unmasked

With this confrontation Valentino’s supposed anti-racist commitments were unmasked for the sham that they are. The ‘host’ of the anti-racist confab and his aids quickly called on the NOPD to eject us from the meeting. Four armed police thugs, on orders from Valentino and his aids, came up to the fourth floor and demanded that we leave or face arrest. None of the organizers of this so-called anti-racism workshop objected or intervened when Valentino turned to the notoriously racist NOPD, the armed fist of the local racist ruling class, to evict us. Where will they be if Valentino achieves his wish of evicting most of the African American working class community at Iberville?

Undoing Capitalism

One African American Common Ground member did courageously accompany us as we exited under pressure from the NOPD. He wanted to hear more about our position and how he could get involved. We invited him, as we do all anti-racist, anti-capitalist fighters, to attend our regular weekly meetings on Thursdays, 7 PM, at St Jude Community Center, 400 N Rampart St. This is where we democratically discuss and strategize over efforts to defend Iberville and reopen all public housing. The battle over public housing is part of the larger class struggle for the city. This struggle, which has huge implications for the whole US working class, will be advanced not by holding hands with the capitalists—capitalists and capitalism are deeply tied to racism; the system is genetically coded for racism. Capitalists cannot be ‘cleansed’ by going through some workshop. The anti-racist, anti-capitalist agenda will only be advanced through building a strong, mass, politically independent, working class movement. Join us!