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Why is the rate of incarceration in Louisiana so high? How do we critique the way prisons are part of infrastructural solutions to anthropocenic instabilities? As Angela Davis writes, “prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.” One way of imagining and building a vision of an anti-carceral future is practiced in the Solitary Gardens project here in New Orleans: 

The Solitary Gardens are constructed from the byproducts of sugarcane, cotton, tobacco and indigo- the largest chattel slave crops- which we grow on-site, exposing the illusion that slavery was abolished in the United States. The Solitary Gardens utilize the tools of prison abolition, permaculture, contemplative practices, and transformative justice to facilitate exchanges between persons subjected to solitary confinement and volunteer proxies on the “outside.” The beds are “gardened” by prisoners, known as Solitary Gardeners, through written exchanges, growing calendars and design templates. As the garden beds mature, the prison architecture is overpowered by plant life, proving that nature—like hope, love, and imagination—will ultimately triumph over the harm humans impose on ourselves and on the planet.

"Nature" here is constructed in a very particularistic way: as a redemptive force to harness in opposition to the wider oppressive system the architecture of a solitary confinement cell is a part of. It takes a lot of intellectual and political work to construct a counter-hegemonic nature, in other words. Gardeners in this setting strive toward a cultivation of relations antithetical to the isolationist, anti-collective sociality prisons (and in general, a society in which prisons are a permanent feature of crisis resolution) foster.

My interest in NOLA anthropocenics pivots on water, and particularly the ways in which capitalist regimes of value and waste specify, appropriate, and/or externalize forms of water. My research is concerned with water crises more generally, and geographically situated in Flint, Michigan. I thought I could best illustrate these interests with a sampling of photographs from a summer visit to NOLA back in 2017. At the time, four major confederate monuments around the city had just been taken down. For supplemental reading, I'm including an essay from political theorist Adolph Reed Jr. (who grew up in NOLA) that meditates on the long anti-racist struggle that led to this possibility, and flags the wider set of interventions that are urgently required to abolish the landscape of white supremacy. 

Flooded street after heavy rains due to failures of city pumping infrastructure.

A headline from the same week in the local press.

Some statues are gone but other monuments remain (this one is annotated).

A Starbucks in Lakeview remembering Katrina--the line signifies the height of the water at the time.

Reading:

Adolph Reed Jr., “Monumental Rubbish” https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/25/monumental-rubbish-statues-torn-down-what-next-new-orleans

P.S. In case the photos don't show up in the post I'm attaching them in a PDF document as well! 

In comparison to other counties, Essex county has the largest number of children above the CDC blood lead level, 5% of Essex county children are affected.  They surpassed Passaic County's 3.4%.  This risk is more prominent in Essex county than any other group in the state.

This study addresses vulnerable populations because it explains that high blood levels, which is a sign of poverty, can have an impact on performance in testing.  Even though information was not given pertaining to poverty in each subject, these conclusions can be drawn from other studies.

The article finds that because Newark's population is 75% black and Hispanic, the hiring problem has a disproportionate impact on minorities.  Blacks and Hispanics are most at risk of this issue.

The author is Cynthia E. Lamy, she is a developmental and National Institute for Early Education Research educational psychologist and research fellow at Rutgers University. 

Some vulnerabilities blacks in Newark face are health issues like blood lead poisoning because they cannot afford to solve the issue. 

This study was conducted by using testing data from 4th-grade students from North Carolina, and comparing if they matched high blood lead levels.  This method was conducted in seven counties through normal statistical methods.

In order to allow jobs for Newark locals, a report from the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice called "Bridging the Two Americas: Employment and Economic Opportunity in Newark and Beyond" addresses the solutions for this problem.  They call for more monitoring and enforcement of local hiring requirements under the first source ordinance.

SNAP and WIC are two organizations helping low-income families.  30,000 Newark children are receiving SNAP benefits, and 12% of Newark residents are eligible for WIC.  SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and WIC is the Supplemental Nutrition Program Women, Infants, and Children.  Both organizations provide nutritious food to low-income families to prevent food insecurity.