Revolution #66, October 22, 2006
Opening Game at Superdome, Bush Sr., and Fab 5 Freddy
Monday night, September 25. New Orleans Saints against the Atlanta Falcons. First game of the 2006 football season. Home advantage.
Who could forget the horrifying scene at the Superdome a year ago? The sight of 30,000 people, overwhelmingly Black and poor, packed into the stadium in the most inhumane conditions — brought to mind images of a modern day slave ship. Victims of Hurricane Katrina abandoned by the government, brutalized by the police, and heartlessly evacuated.
$185 million was spent on renovating the Louisiana Superdome. $94 million of this came from FEMA—the agency of Homeland Security which oversaw the criminal neglect of the people of New Orleans after Katrina and is still failing to really help people move back and get their lives back together.
An ESPN announcer says: “The most daunting task is to scrub away memories of the Superdome as a cesspool of human misery.”
But nothing, let alone a re-make at the scene of the crime, will erase the nightmare memories of those who were subjected to the more horrific conditions in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. And nothing can—or should—let us forget the crimes the government carried out against the victims of Katrina.
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Meanwhile, cheers to Fab 5 Freddy for confronting Bush Sr. on the war in Iraq.
Former host of Yo! MTV Raps, Fab 5 Freddy, was at the Saints opening game with MTV’s CEO Judy McGrath, ex-Viacom CEO Tom Freston, and Viacom’s John Sykes. When the three stepped on to the field to hear performances by U2 and Green Day, George Bush Sr. walked by. Barbara—who people will remember said “things were working out well” for the victims of Katrina packed into the Houston Astrodome—didn’t seem to be around at the time. Bush Senior had been invited to do the opening coin toss at the game that decides which team will have possession of the ball first.
Fab 5 Freddy told the New York Post, “I got in his way and [yelled], ‘We need to bring the troops home!’” According to Freddy, Bush Sr. replied “We must win this war.” Fab 5 Freddy said he reiterated his call to bring the troops home to Bush, who was being shuffled away by associates. And Bush then came back and said, “I don’t really have anything to do with it.”
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