It was around 1778 when Captain Cook sailed into Hawaii on a religious day prophesizing the return of the Agricultural God, Lono. Being the first arrival from the outside world, the Hawaiians had never seen a real ship and white men in fine British clothes, blowing smoke from their mouths (cigar). King Kalaniopuu and his nephew, the future King Kamahamaha, who both looked like any African American’s relative, greeted Captain Cook as a deity. “Right time, right place!”

After a protracted stay of exhaustive demands, Captain Cook sailed away with such a laden ship of Hawaiian possessions; his mast broke in a storm. He returned arrogantly to demand the natives fix his mast, but for the Hawaiians, it was a day of war and ‘bad luck’ to return after beginning a journey. The King and his men “took them out.” Captain Cook and his men are buried at Kona, above Kealakekua Bay, on the Big Island of Hawaii. “Wrong time, wrong place!”

Now about HURRICANE KATRINA! Is there any question that Black people of New Orleans lived in the wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe not so much because of bad luck, but, as alleged, was the 17th Street Canal levee intentionally breached under the cover of a hurricane to grab valuable real estate from New Orleans Black families, so as to rebuild a shinning new city for white people with government money? Where is the story on the 5 people killed on the breached levee by the New Orleans Police Department? Why did New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin state on TV, “I fear the CIA may take me out?”

Within days of Hurricane Katrina’s unleashed fury on New Orleans, the Labor Department’s first action was to suspend affirmative action for clean-up and rebuild while simultaneously, FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dished out no-bid $200 million start-up contracts to Bechtel, Shaw and Halliburton (formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney). “Absolutely no shame to their game,” states Castro Valley’s Rev. Marlene Jones, President of the newly formed New Orleans Connection.

A few days later, the Corps gave out $1 billion contracts each to ECC, Phillips and Jordan, Ceres Environmental and Ashbritt for debris pickup, that could easily include minority truckers, but no affirmative action. Then FEMA implemented existing emergency contracts for large companies such as Fluor Daniels, DMJM, Dewberry & Davis, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Ch2m-Hill, etc. In response, at a meeting in Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s office, I angrily requested the Corp’s Chief of Contracting, Colonel Doyle, to name one Black contractor hired, but only silence filled the room. At another time, another President and another 68% Black city, this could be a “silver lining” for Black firms. But today, it is obviously the wrong time, wrong place!

“ There are no good times to be black in America, but some times are worse than others.”
-David Bradley
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