JK: Let's talk about New Orleans. Are you living in New Orleans now?WP: When I'm not working, I'm either in Los Angeles or New York, but my parents are there, and I go back maybe once a month. I was there maybe two weekends ago. It's a city of people who are very resilient pioneers because government has really put them in a bind. It's like a ghost town. It's like Chernobyl. Every other house is abandoned.
JK: You are identified with the city's plight because of the Spike Lee documentary "When The Levees Broke," aren't you?
WP: I've known Spike for a long time. I lived in the same neighborhood years ago. I worked on "Malcolm X" and "Get On The Bus" with Spike. I speak of my father in the documentary, and to this day, people always ask about him. Nothing much has changed with his insurance, unfortunately.
JK: That whole situation kinda reminds me of "The Wire." The institutions worked hard in New Orleans to marginalize the population to maintain their power. [Sandee]
WP: We organized to help, but we were turned back by the Federal Government. The government has jurisdiction in a floodplain. And the lack of maintenance and upgrade on those levees I find criminally negligent. Actually, I find New Orleans and Baltimore very, very similar. A bar on every corner and a church on every other. A working class port city. There are so many similarities. What happened with Katrina is the moral ambiguity and lack of political leadership just like in "The Wire."
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