Beyond repair.(COMMENT)(New Orleans, Louisiana)

I AM STRUGGLING WITH A MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL dilemma. I am a progressive, African American academic committed to battling racial inequality and I do not want my public voice deployed against struggling communities. So I have been reluctant to admit that I am ambivalent about racialized demands to rebuild New Orleans. Displaced black citizens are insisting on return--they want their city rebuilt as it was before Katrina--because they reasonably fear the loss of all they have invested. But simultaneous and complete urban reconstruction is impossible. I finally choose to speak ...