GRITtv presents a week of special programming to mark the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. A recent article in the New York Times Magazine describes New Orleans today as “the most ambitious education laboratory of our time.” An interesting choice of words. As our panelist Jordan Flaherty points out, post-hurricane New Orleans was viewed as a blank slate on which the visions of government officials and urban professionals would be carried out. The market driven recovery effort has meant that while a few have benefited many are still living in poverty without basic services like health care and public housing.

New Orleans’ population has declined by some 200,000 people, many of them African-American. The composition of the city itself is changing. Young urban rebuilding professionals (YURPs), many with good intentions, have moved to New Orleans. Gentrification is being facilitated by mass displacement. Meanwhile, there is no living wage in the city, incarceration rates are high, and crime is up. The media like to blame the people of New Orleans the same way we blame Iraqi’s for not figuring out how to make democracy work. Yet the real failure is a systemic analysis of poverty and racism in 21^st century America.

Our first GRIT on the Gulf panel, which includes Ursula Price, Outreach and Investigations Coordinator of Safe Streets Strong Communities, Jordan Flaherty, Editor of leftturn magazine and a contributor to Red State Rebels, and Damon Hewitt, Associate Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, addresses the most important issues facing the people of New Orleans and what the post-Katrina recovery says about the United States.

They also tell us about the grassroots organizing that is pushing back. Civic participation is up and city council meetings are never boring, says Price. Groups like Safe Streets, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Critical Resistance, and the New Orleans’ Workers Center for Racial Justice are all fighting to make sure that their voices and their vision are part of the reconstruction process.

GRIT on the Gulf will be continuing the conversation all week. Send us your comments and questions to laura-at-grittv.org.