Mea Culpa, Indeed
Well...I see we (New Orleans) are still in the limelight of publicity, both on MSNBC and on AOL due to the fact that our Mayor, just a day after telling us that we are a "Chocolate City because God would have it no other way" and that God wants our city back because of our being in Iraq and so has sent the wrath of hurricanes down upon us...it seems that he has now apologized, thinking that he may somehow have possibly gone too far, and it just may be that he may have by chance offended someone. You think???

You think it is that, or the fact that he just saw his political career (and possibly any other high powered career) get melted just like his favorite delicious drink?

Either way, I'm still hurt.

I'm hurt not because I DO live in a "Chocolate City", because it was when I moved to New Orleans, and it has been every year I've been here. I could have left it when my hospital got wiped out and when my daughter and grandsons lost everything they owned and when the Hyatt closed down afterwards, thus creating her a lost job as well.

I have family in the northern part of this state, and could get a job anywhere. My husband's doctors were all gone, so we were going to have to find him new ones if they didn't return anyway. BUT WE CHOSE TO STAY!!!!! Truth is, I LOVE THIS CITY! And you know what? There are good and bad in all races, and pigmentations! And I love the quirkiness that comes with all the variations that comes in my beautiful city...so I dug in.

News Flash. I live Uptown. Yeah, in the area that our Mayor doesn't "care what they say". What'd we say??? If that statement was meant to generate a more African-American vote...take a look around at my neighbors. Vanessa, an African-American transvestite lives in the house next door with her hispanic boyfriend (but I believe hispanics were a whole other issue last month, weren't they?) Anyway, they own their beautiful home, which happens to be a double, and one half is rented out to, yep...a "chocolate couple and child". On the other side of me is another double, where there is a single mother and her two children (vanilla), and her neighbor is another "chocolate" family. On my block alone, there are at least four "chocolate" families, and there are several more on the street. I could lose count on the surrounding streets. We also have some hispanics, Italians and some Germans and one Welsh neighbor that I know of. I embrassed this neighborhood when I first found it and I find I love it more and more as time goes by. My point is, if I'd had a problem with the "pigmentation ratio"...I'd have already made a different choice, but the fact of the matter is...I looked at the people for who they were, not what they looked like. And blessedly, they accepted Pat and me for ourselves as well. We are a gumbo pot of different ingredients and we are each wonderful in our own ways. Of course, you can always throw something spoiled into the roux and it could ruin the whole thing, but that's been the beauty of it all...we've always watched out for one another. Neighbors in the truest sense of the word.

Second News Flash. I work because I have to. It is not a hobby. I am not wealthy enough to just give it all to charity, though I wish that I could. And as far as I can tell, none of my neighbors are independently wealthy either. Was his "Uptown comment" made to refer to the Garden District sector of Uptown, predomenantly white "old money", and if it is so... WHY? We in the Irish Channel have what we do because we work for it, the Garden District, because their families generally died and left it to them, and now they dearly pay their taxes to hang on to them. Still, why was a color issue brought into it or a section at all???? We are supposed to be a united front, fighting to bring our damaged and broken city back TOGETHER! But with that, comes a sense of pride.

I guess I am so hurt because I had thought that Mayor Nagin had understood all of this and really felt a part of New Orleans and of the people...ALL of the people. He certainly had stuck it out after the storm, made himself available and took a lot of flack when the heat was on, but I was so proud of him. "Was" being the key word.

I don't doubt for a minute that the apology that he offered today was a sincere one. I am sure that he simply got caught up in the heat of the moment, and because he did not rally many black votes when he ran for mayor last time, he wanted to do so this time by reaching out with black pride, but it was very inappropriate. People can take pride in where they come from, just as I take pride in my celtic background, without making oneself out to be someone that is not part of a team, and New Orleans HAS to be a team like it has never been before. I had thought Mayor Nagin was the man to lead us, and I'm saddened to find out that he isn't.

I realize that he made a "simple mistake". I mean, no one got killed by this action. No one was struck (YET), however, his words did cost us...they cost us a great deal, not just the billions of dollars in revenue (conventions that had scheduled for our Convention Center have already begun to start cancelling), but untold amounts of future earnings are lost to us all and our pride is damaged at a time when we were already so vulnerable.

We'd already suffered so much embarrasement when we'd had so much negative publicity with our Super Dome rumors of rapes, killings and just the filth in general...the damage done to the Convention Center and the things rumored to have happened in the bathrooms there...the NOPD either walking off the job or never showing up at all, or worse yet, becoming looters themselves and helping themselves to Cadillacs and Escalades that didn't belong to them... Then there were all of our displaced villians/criminals that proceeded to spread their activities to other unsuspecting and innocent cities to the point that they began to cringe to have to accept anyone from New Orleans.

Top all of that off with a feuding Mayor and Govenor and the help that had been called in like the calvary...well....let's just say...is it any wonder that Mississippi and the rest of the Gulf Coast are already getting their money and repairs done, while New Orleans sits around looking at one another, wondering which village idiot is going to be on television next?

We needed unity. Plain and simple, and I had thought he was the one that could bring something to the party. I was wrong. The closer it gets to election time...the more he says what he thinks each person wants to hear so that he can get their vote. Say what you mean and mean what you say, and if you can't be for ALL of New Orleans...then step down and let someone who is, get in there and get the job done.