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Masking New Orleans

By Fatima Shaik

On Mardi Gras Day, the nation will be looking to New Orleans to see if we are wearing masks. We’ll be wearing them in New Orleans, but they’re being worn in Washington D.C. too. That’s because the face of our tragedy is being covered up with a big smile—we are having a party and pretending that the poor people can just… return to article

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    “New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again,” Alphonso Jackson, the secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development said describing the state of affairs for post-Katrina New Orleans.

    Everything looks different, feels different. New Orleans has a different flavor.  Being a transplant from San Antonio I can only fathom what has happened by asking myself what would San Antonio look like with an 80% reduction in Hispanics? It is mind-boggling and sad. The poor of New Orleans have left and may not come back, but they are still out there and we should still care about them by doing what we can to bring them back and help them help themselves.  We can not let people like
    US Congressman Richard Baker ( Wall Street Journal-post Katrina) who said after the storm:“We finally cleaned up in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” Mr. Baker, how dare you talk about New Orleanians in that manner!

    United States Posted by Joseph Duran on Feb 26, 2006 at 4:47 AM

    Demographics change. Is the percentage of identifiable races (a social construct perpetuated by it’s own prejudice and shibboleths against sex and reproduction with “others”) really the issue here? Does it matter, Joseph,  if the maids turning down sheets in what is probably now one of the most toxic places on earth,  check “caucasian” or “African American” on government forms and job applications?

    Racism is definitely an issue in New Orleans as it is anywhere in the U.S., but isn’t class and power structure the real issue? Isn’t obscene amassing of money and the abilities it gives individuals and small groups to buy governments and towns and to live under the radar of law to build personal little empires the reality we’re looking at in New Orleans?  Isn’t the system rigged so that obscene amassing will happen and will be protected?

    Is the disenfranchising and neglect of the New Orleans poor,  not neoliberalism economic theory launched with the same vigor in N.O. as it was in Iraq, on the backs of broken and desperate people (who were broken for just that reason)?

    New Orleans has been seized. This is economic guerilla warfare conducted against anyone who can not afford to protect themselves or play the game.

    Corporate fiefdom. A serf is a serf.  We’re all individuals here! NO! We’re not!. As long as the corporation has the rights of individuals and only one responsibility, the overwhelming majority of us will remain peasants and pay for everything every corporation destroys.

    Why is it outspoken panic time among governments when population growth slows?  A couple of generations of real slow population growth will spell it out neatly. There won’t be enough serfs to keep the wages down, or to support the laws in favor of useless parasitic plutocracy. The job of protecting royalty won’t be worth the wages, and the work of enforcing privilege won’t be worth the bother. Wealth is produced by labor. Capitol is produced by labor. There won’t be a large enough army to keep the aristocracy filthy rich if we boycott and strike in the serf making factory.

    As long as we buy into the lies about how economies work, and markets behave, we will be serfs looking at every other social issue imaginable to find the explanation for our servitude.

    The owning class may prefer to have white niggers ironing their sheets, but who would be wise to argue for the rights of people of color to iron the master’s sheets? That sure would amuse the master’s—- yes, they’d be slapping their thighs and laughing at the country club over that one, I do declare.

    United States Posted by wileywitch on Feb 27, 2006 at 8:18 AM

    why don’t you guys ever post my comments, do I have to buy the magazine to get my thoughts heard, or do you have that many people posting?

    Whats up?

    United States Posted by your pal mal on Feb 28, 2006 at 1:32 AM

    Hi, pal mal. I have no idea what is up with your posts. You might want to take it up directly with the contact us  at the bottom of the page.

    This last post of yours clearly posted. Too bad you expressed your frustation with not being heard on that one, instead of the thoughts you want heard. That was a crumbly cookie.

    United States Posted by wileywitch on Feb 28, 2006 at 1:37 AM

    I’ve spent only a little time in New Orleans, but since the storms and floods I’ve carried with me a feeling of malaise in a small place in the back of my mind whenever I think about the city. It’s not crippling depression, just a tone of sadness in my thoughts when I imaginatively place my feet back on the streets there. Haven’t been there since 2003, but I have rich memories.

    I could easily write too much about my time in NO, but I’ll cut to the chase and say merely that the place left an impression. For those who call (or once called) the city Home, avoiding depression after the repeated traumas must take some real effort.

    Even if the parades could be thought of as trivial when seen in the context of the storm and the complete failure of government at all levels to prepare or assist, it’s understandable why they’re being held anyway. People want to reach for something fun and happy to mitigate their distress, even when the cause of the distress is measured in acre upon acre of destroyed homes and businesses. It’s natural. Some people think of it as admirable. Actually, even if it’s just a psychological defense mechanism, or just a moment of distraction from the other ugly realities, that’s not a bad thing, is it? Considering the magickal currents that have been said to circulate in the NO region, maybe it’s talismanic to parade. A gesture of refusing to throw in the towel, yes?

    Perhaps the people who want the festivities to continue fear the finality of saying, “No more Mardi Gras in New Orleans”. Maybe for them, it would turn their home city into a dead thing, instead of merely a terribly wounded and neglected thing.

    Well. Good wishes to all y’all in New Orleans. Lots of people around the country still have concern for you, even those of us who have only been there briefly.

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Feb 28, 2006 at 10:19 AM

    Kuya New Orleans was a major port and a tourist town. Mardi Gras was big money—-lots of tourists who only stayed for a few days, spent a lot of money, and then moved on, leaving the town to the home crowd.

    The in-home diaspora of these people is overwhelming and frought with government malfeisance.

    I think the celebrations that will matter most for the survivors might be the little ones for individuals and families whenever they find their footing, gain a little or a lot of ground, and renew themselves in countless ways. I think those might be their celebrations.

    But, I don’t know. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I read an interview with a New Orleans couple that was staying in Austin about a month ago. By the end I was sobbing.  One of the man’s biggest problem was getting I.D. so he could get a job. No government agency helped people get the I.D. that the government demands. Wish I had the link to post to that article now. They were so dignified. Hurt—-but still proud.

    United States Posted by wileywitch on Feb 28, 2006 at 9:01 PM

    Hi wiley,
    About 2 hours after writing my post above, I caught a report on BBC World in which a woman from the Lower 9th Ward was interviewed next to her wracked up house. She said she didn’t have the heart to attend any parades, she was just too disheartened. It’s understandable, just as much so as the wish of others to invest their energies into the parades that did take place.

    The part that galled me is that in the distance behind her was a tour bus - yup, a f’n tour bus! - which she (the interviewee) said was for tourists to hire in order for them to see the devastation. Like a Disney World “land” or something.

    Somehow that just comes off as insult added to injury, ya know..? Perhaps there was more to the situation than met the eye and my snap-judgement was too harsh, but that dejected woman standing by her thrashed home, with a tour bus in the background… it was not easy to look at.

    I guess it “adds to the local economy” and all that stuff, but you can see what I mean, yes? Had it been my house the tourists were gawking at, I might have hucked a rock at the bus!

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Mar 1, 2006 at 8:19 AM

    IM sorry if I offend anyone with these coments. I marched in the Zulu Parade as a security detail for the Marine Corps Band. I am a Marine and it was somethign Ivolunteered for. New orleans is as segregated as ever. It is just the newest version. I will let sociologist and you good folks figure it out. “Thank you Marine!” I must have heard it ahundred times, but we talked about it tonight. We bet each other that those folks thanking us probably never served by the looks of them (I know I’m stereotyping, but c’mon, when was the last time a southern college educated gentleman ever enlisted or sought a commission. they looked soft, God help us if those guys ever were officers, and if they were, they were probably a big reason why we had so many casualties). Mostof our officers, by my experience come from the midwest. Anyway, we bet that they would never have their rosy cheeked little ones ever be in the armed forces.“I love New Orleans” means I love the idea of it, as it should be, but the reality is it is just the same as it ever was, segreagated, racist, and backwards.

    United States Posted by Joseph Duran on Mar 1, 2006 at 9:13 AM

    I was thinking the same thing Kuya! Chuck a rock and some raunch at those nasty rubber-necking bastards. A ghoulish tourist industry peeking at others’ devastation? Shouldn’t all the survivors get a cut? The commodification of tragedy—-unfu**ing believable! Anyone with the start up money and no decency can make money off of other peoples’ pain.

    Aye, aye, aye, aye.

    United States Posted by wileywitch on Mar 1, 2006 at 9:40 AM

    What are you talking about, Joseph Duran? You didn’t offend me.

    I don’t understand what you’re saying about the military and New Orleans.  What were people thanking you for? Were you part of the rescue operations and such? The band thing? What instrument do you play?

    I was enlisted in the Air Force. The enlisted/officer thing was really hilarious sometimes. I went to Biloxi, Mississipi twice for tech school and man was it a poor and dirty place. I haven’t seen anything about all the other places in the south that were hit by Katrina. They didn’t have the lake to drown them, but from what I’ve seen, I don’t think it would have taken much for a hurricane to have blown most of the houses near the coast down. Not a lot of brick or high-dollar construction in those parts.

    The Gulf of Mexico is a toilet.

    United States Posted by wileywitch on Mar 1, 2006 at 9:54 AM
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