Reflections on New Orleans

I left the Jazz Fest early today. There were a zillion people there, it was hot and muggy, and there was no one I really had to see. So I did some disaster tourism instead, and went down to the Lower 9th Ward to see how it looked this year compared to last. The Lower 9th, a predominantly black area (where Louis Armstrong grew up), was one of the areas of New Orleans hardest hit by Katrina. Last year at this time, it was pretty much as Katrina left it, with blocks of houses destroyed, cars on tops of houses, houses on cars, and houses on houses. Today, it’s been cleaned up a lot, with most of the destroyed houses gone. The houses that remain are pretty much empty with very little signs of reconstruction. From what I understand, there won't be any major reconstruction there until levees are strengthened and raised or a new levee plan is in place. It was more than a bit eerie to drive through on my bike, and I have to admit I felt a lot more nervous than I did at the Banks Street Tavern the other night when there were gunshots down the street. I didn’t stay long.

I like New Orleans. I like the food and the music, and even its dilapidated streets and buildings have a certain charm. I like to think that these are hard times for New Orleans, and that one day it will return to its former glorious self. But then I start thinking about it. I'm not a New Orleans expert by any stretch, but exactly when were New Orleans glory days? Before the Americans took over in 1803? Then it bounced back and forth between French and Spanish control, and was a center for piracy, international intrigues, and the colonial slave trade. After the Americans took over and turned it into a major center of the antebellum south and its plantation economy? During the Civil War when it was firmly on the Confederate side? After the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era? At the turn of the century when jazz and blues got their roots? During the great Mississippi flood of 1927, when the city fathers intentionally blew the levees and flooded St. Barnard Parish to save the city? (As many had predicted at the time, the Mississippi jumped its banks above New Orleans a couple of days later and took all the pressure off the New Orleans levees, so breaching the levees was unnecessary) And then they refused to pay the promised reparations to the mostly poor Cajun and black folk in the affected areas. During the Great Depression? I don’t know what New Orleans was like then, but I don’t know of anything memorable that happened there. What about WWII and afterwards? What about the civil rights era? Didn't black musicians have to enter French Quarter bars by the back door, and black patrons were not allowed in at all? But what about Mardis Gras? Isn’t that a wonderful cultural event? Its roots are deeply, deeply, racist, with groups like the KKK forming the core of the secret Krewe societies. Throughout its history, New Orleans has had a reputation for extreme corruption and racism. Anything good that came out of New Orleans came out in spite of the culture, not because of it.

Today, at an event like the Jazz Fest, a year and a half after Katrina, one would like to think that the music and the food and all the good things from here, along with the shared suffering would bring people together. But the Jazz Fest is 95% or more white. There are more black people working at the Fest than attending the Fest. At any of the clubs I’ve been to, the clientele is exclusively white, even if the entertainment is black. In my very unscientific survey of racial relations, I’ve personally found that the black folks I’ve encountered in grocery and convenience stores and other commercial establishments are indifferent at best and rude at worst to white customers like me, in spite of my best efforts to be friendly and engaging. This city has some deep racial scars.

Sad to say, I think New Orleans is now, and has been for a long time, a dysfunctional city plagued by rampant racism, crime, and political corruption and incompetence. Katrina might have been straw that broke the camel’s back, but I don’t think that camel’s back could supported its own hump for much longer, even in the best of times. I don’t see much hope for New Orleans. If the powers that be get their act together and come up with a rational river management plan and a plan to restore the wetlands, there might be some hope for the physical New Orleans. And without the physical repairs, I don't see any way that New Orleans will ever heal its spiritual scars.