institute, he is a fantastic guy. if you are a real walk in the weeds of this subject, he is a real pleasure to read. and we have that grows in bird who is the head of the st. bernard project. but i think -- so be prepared -- resilience in a way is such -- [laughter] >> such a broad term. it could mean weathering the immediate crisis or coming back in recovering, adept in morning, but with all due respect to our topic of the day, it is also beginning to feel a bit religious to me. it is sort of everything, everywhere, sort of defining anything, any city that is new and modern can be put under that wing of resilience and -- [laughter] >> and i'm interested if it is anywhere, is it really anywhere? so i what you to help distill for us what the "r" word means.

in a real sense. >> first, it is great to be here. thank you. thank you for still being in this audience after this. >> louder voice >> -- louder voice! >> i think resilience is another word for success under stress. success under stress, that is, there are stressors of various kinds that our nation and our whole world faces and being able to whether those stresses and being able to succeed on a variety of measures is a good definition of the "r" word. >> i mean, three or four years ago, people didn't use of the "r" word, and now, we have probably set a world record today for the number of times of this word has been said.

>> and in the shifting towards resilience -- [laughter] >> i think they mean different things. i think sustainability means achieving some balance between equity, economy, and environment, and there are like six or seven other "e,s" that people have worked out -- "e's" that people have worked out. and -- oh, do you drink after governance? [laughter] >> no, i was just taking a drink. it just kind of slits in there. >> so it is just about government and the articulation of governance with the whole society and with the business to do the kind of preparation that we need to be able to face all kinds of challenges and threats. >> so let's just say that we are

10 years into the future. god, how do you -- how do we -- we need a new word. so if you were to look at the "r" word being implemented, i am now seeing it being used to describe all sorts of instances. which one will matter and which one will be a waste of time and will undermine the meaning and the sensibility of resilience? >> well, i think developing the metrics for success really matters for us. >> what are the metrics for success? >> i think we really need to consider how the most vulnerable among us are doing. that is at every moment and asked the question as to whether we are succeeding now. of course, we are not succeeding now under the face of huge kinds

of stresses and challenges. and those stresses -- those challenges could even be positive stresses. like going through seventh grade. i just had going through seventh grade in my house -- had someone go through seventh grade in my house. did someone enjoy going through some of grade? -- going through seventh grade? ok, you? ok, well, you are weird. it is really about a change of identity and it is like integration of communities. it is a stress to communities. >> but it can also strengthen the community. >> but it can also strengthen the community, right. we think about how the most full level among us do. that, to me, is the metric that we should be looking to. and looking back sort of retrospectively, saying that we did protect and keep those

people, that would be the definition of the kind of success we are looking for. >> be ruthless for a moment. on a scale from zero to 10, how well has new orleans and the definition that you just described, just done on the resilience scale? >> the statistics that we have seen today and that we have brought in where there are far too many people living below the poverty line, african-americans are still segregated from a and hispanics in this community, and too many people are being kept too far from opportunity. it is not over yet. but that was the condition before katrina, too. >> so maybe a three? >> i'm sorry? >> maybe a three or a four? >> know, maybe a two.

the systems are better now than they were before the storm, but i think the balance of the evidence suggest that, you yes, most of the systems in new orleans today are aligned in ways and their coordinated in ways and certainly the storm if the structure is much more prepared than it was before the storm, but that is not to say that there isn't a long way to go, too. >> now laura, you were telling me at your work at the national academy of sciences, and i hope i am not getting you in trouble here, you say that you reach into a lot of different state pockets and you are a big stakeholder and you were telling me that recently they didn't know what to do with you. laura: exactly, so, that's right. this is a growing thing. but what you were referring to is that when we started with the disaster resilience of business, it came out in one of our

various themes in 2012, chaired by susan cutter, the blue book, you might have seen it, and usually, when the academy or someone at the federal agency or someone at a federal agency asks for a question, we provide them with that. in this case, people came back and said, help us with this, and so i went up to the highest level of leadership. i said, this is what we are getting. the president said, we don't do this, but he said no, you do this. so when we started this project, it was really an america project. it took a lot of scientific minds to say, oh, right. [laughter] >> it can see that there is a lot of people who can tell that we are having a lot of fun. [laughter] lauren: there are processes of

science and policy speech and we are working around the country -- >> name them. lauren: i can, seattle, washington, charleston, s.c., and we have staff in oklahoma city, oklahoma. and when people say you want to talk about disaster resilience, they say, we don't want to talk about natural disasters. we want to talk about economic resilience, strength, ok -- [laughter] lauren: everyone wanted to talk about vulnerable relations, ok? it's not like they don't care about it, but he goes to what we were saying earlier. it is not an emergency management issue, it goes beyond what you are planning for and what can happen. you think about what can happen and we think about jobs and you think about poverty and you think about people who are already on the edge and anything happening beyond that gets pretty rough.

>> and what can science bring to those? lauren: yeah, and we had april yet artist earlier who said that art is sort of like the alchemist. he said that they take something and they turn it into something else. and this is something that we felt like with science as well. we felt like we needed something like alchemy. scientists are not always great at communicating. we understand probability and statistics, that people want information so they can make a decision. what can i do? so we say, well, there is a 95% chance it there is something that is good to happen, so we are working with this broad stakeholder group, and we are working with scientists, social scientists, educators, and a whole swathe of people from the public sector asking what kind of format they need this in and can this kind of information go through an alchemy process to take a form that you can

understand and take a form that you can actually work with to make decisions that make your community better? >> so excuse me for asking this, but i have to. lauren: ok. >> you say you're working with communities and a number of the communities you are working with, i don't think i am out of line suggesting that science is not the biggest animator or driver and it is somewhat under siege. but do you have a problem talking to these communities about things like climate change and is that why they don't want to talk about natural disasters, because they are sort of not in the mode about not thinking about scientific underpinnings with things like this? lauren: you know -- kind of -- yes, we do run into this. >> a lot, a little? lauren: to varying degrees. like in seattle, we don't deal with that. but to varying degrees, we do. when you think about the risks,

we talked about risks earlier, and that stuff that is talked about, it is kind of funny. but when you talk about consequences, people kind of understand that. you know, we don't talk about the cause and increase of a cyclone cycle or an increase of flooding. but if you have flooding now and it costs you money, and it is because something -- because flooding is something that costs everyone of us millions of dollars every year, what do you do? are you ready for an increase? whether in intensity or death? those are questions you can't get around. again, it is going to what can you do? >> you are in the game and you came here after the disaster, and tell us what the st. bernard project is set up to do. >> so in new orleans, we build houses for people who cannot afford to rebuild their houses on their own.

i want to tell you one story. two and a half weeks ago, into our office walked a 95-year-old man who shares the same birthday as i do and he was a world war ii veteran. he was in fact the first generation of his family to not be enslaved, so his father was enslaved and was a sharecropper. so he went on to fight for this country and came back and built his own house with his two hands. this gentleman for the last nine years has been living -- too proud to ask for help -- in a house that was still storm damage. there was citing that was ripped off on one side, you can see into one side of the house, which you are not supposed to. so we build houses for people who cannot afford to build them on their own. and let a be clear, the recovery in new orleans has been tremendous. it i don't think that america can be whole until this recovery

is complete. we have a lot of work together -- work to do and we have to be mindful that there is people that need help still and many of them are part of the greatest generation. >> i want to talk about training young people and giving them skills that they would not otherwise have and one of the things that i did get into with greg today was that he said that some years ago, all of the support mechanisms that our country has developed has created a culture where people look at themselves as victims. there is a victim orientation, not something that people understand where they need to challenge that and to pick up the muscles by the bootstraps. i am interested in what you think about that? >> nonsense. pure, offensive, absurd nonsense. whether you are in new york or new jersey or new orleans, it is

nonsense. we were taught that if you lived in america you could work hard and buy a house and if you did that, things could only get bad if you didn't work. so i think it is simplistic, absurd nonsense to say that those people have been victimized, and i think people in new orleans would say that they had been victimized, because there was a failure of the federal levee system here. to paint this as that kind of system is overly simplistic. >> do you think -- somebody tweeted me today -- that something that is missing in today's discussion which has been so expensive was the accountability of thinking about what we have done and that we have gone a little bit soft and the little bit corrupted, if you will. i knowi know you are a big drivn changing the way that we think about how we -- or what we are

doing -- how we are dealing with what we are doing. >> we started our projects nine years and 20 pounds ago, we visited new orleans, and after volunteering and getting to know folks, we wanted -- >> a little bit louder -- >> we wanted to know when they would be able to go home. so we asked when the building could start and we got a very cavalier answer and it's essentially that we would not be evil to build and tell phase three was come -- until phase three was complete and it was only in phase one. there is an adage that we all know that you achieve what you measure. right? we have all heard that. so you measure process then you are going to achieve that process. if you measure outcomes, you will look at the cause, and that

is going to be holding the thread instead of pushing it. one challenge we are putting out there to the community is the disaster-impacted communities and the national actors have to create a benchmark where they say by year x, we will create a situation and by year y, we will be complete. i think we need to set a time and to find what success looks like and then drive to it rather that follow the process and say, hey, we have done it the rightht way when we don't see results. >> do you agree, rolf? rolf: yes, but we need something more like a thermostat.

so if you think about the degradation of not commitment over time, we need a sustaining commitment beyond improvement and -- commitment for improvement and that is what i think the definition of what being a resilient city or a resilient nation would be. now we drink. [laughter] >> we have two minutes of 45 seconds, we better hurry. lauren: can i speak? >> sure. >lauren: the baseline assessment for every community is very critical before you can say, we need this and we need that. >> i think that is the critical thing about organizations like the data center and other community data intermediaries throughout the united states. that is the hub of the national data center partnership, and is between 35 cities nationwide,

and these partnerships take different formats within different cities and they are part of this civic infrastructure and they do what they can to gain foresight and to gain relationships that come with understanding your social reality together. so the data center and other centers like this are successful because they bring people together, they bring institutions together, and they allow institutions to reason about what might be as well is what is rep -- what is happening right now. >> i want to take one question from the audience, and as you are thinking about it, i want to ask for a quick response for this. the rockefeller foundation has graded this cities initiative. -- created this cities initiative. >> i'm done. >> you're done? [laughter] >> so there are 100 cities that

will have resilient, and i will get to the drink in a minute, resilient cities. we are talking about new orleans today, but there are other locations. what you think about disasters and other problems within other arenas. what do you think the most important dna change that the officer can make in a city when you have no idea necessarily what is coming at you or what the problems will be? what do you do when you go to the city? what is the most important thing? lauren: i think one thing -- maybe not the most important thing -- but the thing that comes to mind first is when something happens, my response them easily think about the emergency management agency or office. and in this case, the cro in the rockefeller cities will bring in health and human services, can

bring in housing, can bring in environment -- >> so they can create an aggregate? lauren: i think so, we will see. rolf: a city isn't an island, for the most part, cities have suburban neighbors, and a city has state and federal government, so all of those units can work together instead of each one being adopted into the fall and expected to come in at the next level up. >> i think there does not have to be losers. i think part of the brilliance of the resilient city is situated in the cro of a mayor,

so there is an authority right across the spectrum, not nearly to vertical -- too vertical. >> so questions, comments? really quick. >> hello, my question has to do with the place of religion that i have heard very little of today. we know that very big communities have done so much to building and resilience -- there you go -- [laughter] >> whitlock -- we would like to look at the sacred dimensions of this community in this place. lauren: thank you for your question, we do cross the fabric of the community, so we do have a government there, the local

government, and we really rely heavily on the community. in our work, we really do rely heavily on these organizations and other organizations. >> any other questions, right there, in the back? >> so i think this is emblematic of the faith-based community, but in general, we have discovered that there is something endemic or hardwired in people, and that is there compulsion to fix and to solve and to help. we have had over 100,000 volunteers, more than 90% of them had zero ties to new

orleans but they were tied by their humanity. they came down here and they spent their money and their vacation time and to work far out of their comfort zone to rebuild people's homes. the faith-based community was at the lead but i don't think it is essential for it to be there to do that. >> thank you very much, we thank you so much for being here. you all three can finish your nap now. a big round of applause or lauren alexander augustine, zach rosenberg, and rikf -- rolf -- after the session with gwen eiffel, i hear there is a big discussion coming -- gwen ifil, i hear there is a big discussion coming. ♪ announcer: and president obama is in new orleans this afternoon as he attends the 10th

anniversary of hurricane katrina. later today, the president will deliver remarks at a new community center opened in the ninth ward, the community that was hardest hit during the storm. the president will talk about policy change as climate continues to bring in -- climate change continues to bring in larger storms. tomorrow, we will talk to former new orleans mayor mark morreale, the editor of "the new orleans times picayune," and then on saturday, we will have actual video of the hurricane aftermath and the actual recovery over the past 10 years. we will also open the phone lines to get your reaction. late saturday afternoon, new orleans will hold a commemoration holding the 10th anniversary solar -- a 10th anniversary event. again, this gets underway saturday afternoon at 6:00 p.m.

eastern here on c-span. ♪ announcer: before president obama's new orleans visit, we are going to show you a new panel hosted by gwen ifil. this is about 40 minutes. gwen: all day long and you haven't seen that tuba come on stage, so you can tell it is the end of the day. but because it is the end of the day, we know there are a lot of unasked questions that have not been asked yet. it has been a very interesting day yet, hasn't it? hasn't it? a lot of us, face it, we thought we knew it all. but we don't. so here is the chance for a good wrapup and also a move forward. we talked at length about what happened, what didn't happen, what else to back, what didn't.

we saw some people get drunk on stage, and i won't name any names -- [laughter] gwen: but we are going to leave by as rain this last question. what does new orleans now know? we started this morning with what have we learned and what is new orleans and now we are going to talk about what we have learned, and we are going to do it with a pretty interesting group. we have had pretty interesting groups all day. starting to my left, we have a writer for "the new york times," and next to him is sherry harrison -- sharee harrison-nelson, and next to her is michael hecht, the president and ceo of the greater new orleans group, and -- [indiscernible] gwen: and then as a result of

that, we are not going to drink when we say the word resilience, and also, she has founded the resilience dividend project. so she comes equipped with ways of looking forward. gary is next to her, and no, john berry is next to her, i am looking at the wrong list. he is a distinguished scholar at tulane university and he may be making a special appearance tonight on the pbs news hour. and we have the founder of the bandleader of the brass band who will have more in that few moments. i'm quick to start out the same way we started up this morning by asking people to tackle this question, what do we know now? not only did we learn today, but 10 years later, what has new

orleans learned about it self, about where it goes next, and about what questions haven't been raised and what hasn't been answered. i'm going to ask them all to speak to that, but i am going to ask you all to speak to that as well. my only rules is that we try to avoid speeches, we have had her share, and we try to get some conversation going with you, with them, and among ourselves. and the more's the sink your questions are and the more's the sink your answers are, the more it better conversations we can have it i want to start with you gary with the answer to the question. gary: i am not very optimistic, i am afraid. i think new orleans has a worse response than it thought, and incensed after the storm that it would be a do over and whatever problems it had would be the problems that we had before and they would just go away.

at the same problems we had before we had the day after the storm and we still have them. i also feel that in black new orleans, what they have learned, it doesn't count as much as they thought that it might. there are folks that i had a lot of respect for, but back in may, an individual announce that the recovery behind us was kind of a mission accomplished. i thought, go to the neighborhoods. you have the seventh ward, and african-american working-class neighborhood, you have another middle-class neighborhood, it is about 67%-70 8% black, and -- gwen: so what do we do now? what do we learn now? gary: i feel that there is a black narrative and a white narrative side-by-side and i think their niece to be more of an interaction. gwen: let me ask the next

panelist, and ask if there is a black narrative and a white narrative and so what? he started by saying that after katrina, everybody thought everything would be fine and beautiful and it is not. is every thing find a beautiful? -- fine and beautiful?

they failed children in the beginning. they were not prepared for children. we went to a hotel much like this one downtown. we areilitator said, building a plane for flying it. you are talking about children's live. if they are building a plane, we are probably going to crash. i saw children fed frozen lunches, frozen milk. they could not drink the milk, they cannot eat the food. if i did that as a parent i would be charged with child neglect and child endangerment. if you do that to 400 children under the age of 12 in the state of louisiana, my question is, is it any less child abuse? children's needs are still not being met. for me, we are at a crossroads

to figure this out and give children what is best for them to serve all of the citizens of new orleans. it is a racial issue, but it is a humanity issue. where is your humanity if you allow this to happen? can answer more from the perspective of economic development. one thing without doubt is that resiliency is not an ideology, it is a reality. one of the things i am most proud of is when you talk to individuals in our organization or the general public, the ideas of resiliency and building smarter is no longer seen as i left or right issue. everyone recognizes it as a something that we need to change. that is something new. we have also come to embrace the new. this is a place that reveled and celebrated in its past.

i think katrina showed that the past wasn't working. katrina made us all into entrepreneurs. that is good for the future. theard campanella said that city is in equilibrium. either they are evolving, or they are dire. -- or they are dying. the discussion about judge rotation, which is a real discussion. -- the discussion about gentrification. these growing pains are because we are growing for the first time in 40 years. >> there has been a running theme throughout the day -- the good and the strength and the struggle to coexist with growth, resilience, and the strain of getting to that. where do you see us 10 years from now?

i think we understand now that resilience is about physical infrastructure and about social and economic infrastructure. all three are critical for a truly resilient city. it may be that the word is overused, but i would submit, so is the word love. we each get to interpret it in our own way. [laughter] this is a moment when each of us needs to take responsibility for making the new orleans that we wish it could happen. -- it could have been. i think in the immediate the concentration on physical infrastructure may have swapped some of the ,oncentration on education doing it in the way that, in

retrospect, people think we could have done better. thinking about social and racial issues. but it was a physical infrastructure emergency that triggered it. i do think now with the luxury, as john has said well, it's not a done. but with the luxury of shoring up those things that made new orleans most physically vulnerable -- there is the opportunity now to not only learn from what wasn't done well in the 10 years that has passed, but to really begin to focus, in a much more ambitious way on the social and economic infrastructure. because you cannot rebuild the economy of the city without equity, without social inclusion as part of that rebuild. that obviously starts with education, but it continues with all of the things that will need to happen in these

neighborhoods. i am an outsider. i think, hearing the pain and exists,ion that still it is a reminder of how important it is to both here at one another and to continue -- and to hear one another, continue this journey together. it is a journey that is far from finished. that is what i certainly knew, hearing that over and over again today in a variety of ways. i admire and agree with the sentiment. must be a state of saying, let's continue to work to fix this together. >> what trajectory are we on,

john? john: i don't know. i don't think any of us know. if gary talks about a black and a white narrative since the storm, i would agree with that. but i think you should have seen it before the storm. i used to consider this the most racist city that i know of, one of the most racist cities in the u.s. i think there has been positive movement there. i hope that is the case. i think the best thing that has come out of the storm is the sense that people have to rely on themselves and take charge of things. i think a lot of positive things have come out of new orleans had been the result of that. influx, whatever

the number is, more than 10,000 talented young people. that is generally positive. but then you create problems with rising rents and driving folks out of their neighborhoods, gentrification and so forth and so on. so i don't know where we are going. the other issue is the question of complacency. i have been pleased in general by the coverage so far nationally. torry not been as lever as i had feared -- >> as the five-year anniversary? john: maybe i didn't specifically recall that. certainly in everything today has two continued problems, continued risk.

-- has pointed to continued problems, continued risk. how much of that goes past this room and is penetrated the city, that remains to be seen. votedrnard parish twice down a tax to pay for the operations maintenance of the brand-new levee system. if they can do that in st. bernard parish, and everybody here probably knows every single home in st. bernard parish was underwater. everyone of them. if they can do it in st. bernard, and expect taxpayers around the country or in shreveport -- come on. st. bernard had a special problem. because of the local parish government. those not from new orleans may not know that the parish president has been indicted on several charges. the whole thing is a mess. they may have just lumped all taxes and government together.

in a not -- it may not reflect their view. i don't know what the future is going to be. >> let's talk about opportunity and challenge. just for fun. i want to start with you benny, talking about what you would identify as the most hopeful things that have happened in the last 10 years in your hometown. and what have been the most challenging things? or, where have we fallen short as a community, as a society in making ourselves a better place? benny: i think the bottom line, like what we said earlier, love. some of these problems are out of our control. when katrina hit, i saw white people, black people, everybody get together and helping each other. we need that type of state of mind. >> did that last?

benny: no it didn't last. but this isn't going to last. everybody fix it until they make it until the next storm hits. black people are going to have their issues and white people are going to have their issues. there will be hate mixed in between. it's never really going to end until some way where we can all settle down and figure things out as humans. we have to work with each other as new orleanians to help build our city. >> are you optimistic that could happen? do you have any expectations, whether it is of government, cultural leaders, educational leaders to agree on how to do that? benny: i mean yeah, i have to be. i have faith that i cannot. thatte that -- faith that

can happen. i still believe that is what is going to have to happen. ancestors, whether you were a slave or you are rich with hate in your heart, whatever the case may be, it's never going to be the world that we imagine or was like it to be for everyone to live peacefully as one. not think it's fair that everybody is looking for it to be roses and the sunshine. benny: no, but just to live, enjoying our family and kids without worrying about being burnt, killed, hated, whipped, whatever it might be. things we can control as humans.

>> i want to ask the panel, what is the single thing you are most optimistic about that can happen in the next 10 years? we gathered here to talk about katrina 20-25 years. this is something we saw that was going to happen that made us better, whether it was closing the inequality gap, making housing more affordable, getting those taxes for the levees -- what do you see as a glimmer of stability in the next 10 years? -- glimmer of possibility in the next 10 years? mike: to me it is really simple. if we want this recovery to be sustainable and to grow overtime, that we need a middle class that is acceptable -- that is accessible, that grows. the inequality gap has to be s

hrunk. we need everybody participating in that recovery. years, it are10 middle-class grows, everybody has a chance to join it and it moves up the income axis. that is what success looks like to us. >> what is the optimistic thing you can bring? what is the glimmer of hope that can put us in a better position 10 years from now than what you see today? say 10 years from now, hopefully all the initiatives that have been put forth, they result in real growth for all of the citizens of new orleans, not just the ones who have means. people who were starting from a lower level, that a reach a fairer playing field so that they can advance. especially children, children

who have been under at risk educated, that they have equitable education. the best possible education for that child. children, thataf is wonderful. with one children, that means -- with blind children, that means nothing to you. every child needs a fair and equitable education. that is hopefully what we are moving toward. >> hands up if you have questions. gary. gary: i am very optimistic about a lot of this stuff, economic development in the center of town, these bordering communities along the river. i do think they are going to thrive. i think the start of the city is going to grow that way. ultimately i am pessimistic about it, because this city has the second greatest income gap

in the country. right now, it is getting worse. the gap is getting wider. as things are right now, unless things change, i only seen it getting wider. the center of town he's doing great and thriving. it's a fantastic place for tourists. the katrina money is out. the fema money is pretty much over. now it's just another wrecked community like detroit or parts of philadelphia, chicago, or cleveland. >> i have a first question here. audience: after a full day of being here, wonderful people on the panel, interviewers. latina.latino, not one i am wondering what the panelists believe that my community does not fit any of the narratives that have been constructed around katrina.

who wants to take that one on? >> in those first months, the mayor said a ridiculous thing in saying, i know what you are all thinking, what are we going to do about all the mexicans in town? the whole room just did this gasp. the truth is that black and white, rich, poor, you appreciate workers coming in and out of the house. -- and gutting the house. i thought latinos were at the center of the narrative more than they were prior. i don't think i can answer your question though. >> mike? mike: statistically, we lead the nation by 3% in -- 30% in hispanic population growth.

racially, we are becoming more like the rest of america, multiracial. the past of new orleans was much more black/white stasis. we are now becoming more of a typical american city, and that is a good thing. it absolutely needs to change because it doesn't reflect the future of what you are seeing. audience: we haven't heard much about what we call the do-gooders, the good samaritans right after katrina. a new small amount of people who have come in and stayed, who felt they needed to help us recover and continue to fall in love with the city. future if you see all of this gloom and doom? >> john first, then we will come back. john: they are making their own

future. it's not for anybody here to tell you what their future is. islandhere from rhode many years ago. i love the place. but i wasn't really trying to create any myself. i just sort of tried to fit in. i think there was a different kind of energy with a lot of these people. a couple months ago, regarding startups and business types i was invited to -- i don't know why -- but there was a billionaire there who said one of the things he loved about new orleans was that it was so open. i'm thinking, are you nuts? this is one of the most closed societies you can imagine. is, this newened

energy has created a sort of parallel society. they don't care about ye olde crews. they started a new crew. is not that they have sharp elbows, they don't even realize they are elbowing part of what new orleans was out of the way. but they are doing that. >> want to weigh in on that? >> my response, as it relates to the integer is, cultural arts committee. artse indigenous cultural community. many people wanted to save the culture of new orleans. save the people in the african-american carnival traditions. the unfortunate narrative of that is most of the time, it was a contemporary plantation society.

they would ask us to come to their offices, come to them, to the big house. everybody in the big house is getting paid. but instead of us really being in a big house, we were in the outhouse. we all know what happens in the outhouse. they wanted us to literally give up all of our information so that they could go to foundations and basically they themselves and middle-class salary to let little drips and drops come into our community dollars at a time. [applause] audience: i am with the new orleans for operative development project. michael, this is specifically directed to you. it's in relation to what charisse just said. when they launched 10,000 small

businesses, when goldman sachs launch that four years ago. be talked about the cleveland experiment and the cooperatives going on there. i was so happy. i thought, maybe something is really going to happen around that here finally. and certainly we are a very operative -- very operative -- why hasn't that happened? it seems like the whole recovery was a soap market based -- was so market-based and not community-based. i was wondering if you could give us some insight to that, and if it is still continuing on that neoliberal path. mike: i'm not totally familiar with what you are talking about. my understanding is that program has been successful for small businesses that have gone through it. that is my background, small

business. in terms of being a market-driven, one thing we have to recognize, and it pains me that we don't, we were the beneficiary of that $70 billion plus of federal funds that came in. it has not been perfect for a long shot. we have had markable progress, but not close to success. there was a lot of public involvement. we should recognize that. >> a question here. audience: hi, i am a new orleans native. this question is mainly for michael, but just to put it out there, a concern about our commitment as a community to make sure that there are jobs, particularly for a generation of young people. the generation under me who go t stiffed in many ways in

the educational system. they are now in their late 20's and 30's, trying to make a way for themselves. menow someone very close to who keeps paying out money for trainings, but can't find a job. i want to know what our commitment is to creating more jobs and to help to make sure it that some of our new orleans natives, particularly our young black men have jobs for the skills that they are paying for. >> judy, i would like for you to weigh in as well. we talk about rebuilding these cities, to what degree do we also include this idea of that continued employment, especially for young residents who, as we know, there unemployment rate is skyrocketing while everyone else be flourishing? mike first. i want to start with mike because eucharist question. -- because she directed the

question. mike: the problem with workforce programs, i have been involved with this in other places -- there is a mismatch between the training and what employers really want. so what doesn't work. we started going to big companies like chevron, turner, saying, what exactly do you want? delgagdo,e elgato -- creating the exact skill sets at those jobs. we are replacing students in real jobs with associates degrees that are going out and making $35 -- $35 an hour plus benefits. the middle class is working, but now we need to scale it. but the problem you point out is no doubt a problem in the past. udy: i would have answered your earlier question about what we hope in the future. my hope is that that 52% of unemployed african-american males is a number that, in the next 10 years, we will look back on and say this is a rallying

cry and a turning point. i came back from an amazing meeting with the mayor and ceos of some of the large anchor institutions in town. there is a command is amount of effort going on with regard to the kind of training that mike talked about. but more importantly, it needs to start with the employers. often the argument that the skills aren't sufficient is the kind of shield behind which the employer hides. getting employers to recognize that there are many skills that don't appear on a traditional resume or gpa that is often how people hire. we and others have been working with opportunity youth here and around the country to make sure that young people who have lots of talents already, not only in some cases the right skills and

training necessary, but get the right pipeline and access to employment opportunities, many of which currently exist in new orleans and should be capitalized on. >> benny, i want to bring you win because you are the young black man on the panel. i wonder if you can give us a little reality check because of this gap, people who are seeking opportunity and those who can't quite take advantage of them. especially on young -- especia lly among young black men that you know. benny: the struggles they are going through our part of the problem in the inner-city. the blighted properties. just the utensils of being in that position. they are stressed out. they have other issues, mental issues. they are traumatized. we talk about crime and different things. for instance, just me, for the

most part, i am a real landed, -- well-rounded, cool individual. [laughter] i'm trying to do with having a brass band and having a career out of it. old, and iy 39 years have played over 1000 jazz funerals for those who didn't reach over the age of 30. you're telling me i need to do this and do that. i can't get the job anyway, so why bother? that is the mindframe of some of the young guys. my friends and people in the youth of inner cities. then you have other people who go on to school and graduate and get diplomas and degrees. then they are telling me they are overqualified and don't have a position here in the city. are at now with

chaos and crime in new orleans. i don't know what the resolution will be in fixing a problem. -- fixing that problem. but that is where a lot of the guys are. we don't talk to them, we judge them. he's a murderer, throw him away, give him life in jail. if you find him, kill him, shooting or whatever. but there is a lot of pain inside those young individuals. they don't want their like to be that way. they didn't plan it like that, "i'm going to kill some people before i make 13 years old." it just happens. audience: i'm with the greater new orleans foundation. i am really stuck by -- struck by judith and benny's focus on

love. love is the focus of philanthropy, loving humanity and one another. before, during, and after katrina, it was the hundreds if not thousands of liters and staff of nonprofits -- hundreds if not thousands of leaders of staff and nonprofits. when i talk about philanthropy, i'm not talking about just foundations. i'm talking about corporations and small businesses, and individuals who give up their time and treasure to support the nonprofit sector. what we have learned-- >> see all of our katrina program on the video library, c-span.org. we leave this recorded event to take you live in new orleans, where president obama is marking the 10 year anniversary of hurricane katrina. ♪