Original at DailyKos
I came across this commentary by poet Tonya Matthews about the Internet petition going around that asks support for designating Mardi Gras as a national holiday.
While I am against people coming and overwhelming an already beleaguered city, I am for the petition and for people creating their own versions of Mardi Gras until such time as New Orleans rises like a phoenix from the muddied ashes.
But not without all of its people.
Ms. Matthews is of like mind.
Petition without purpose: New Orleans may not need a Mardi Gras this year
Commentary by Tonya Maria Matthews
At this moment, there is a circulating Internet petition that asks for support in designating the first day of Mardi Gras as a national holiday.
In order to keep from exploding all over my computer, I’m going to assume that the messenger means well – even if his message would get his butt kicked in certain brand new Houston zip codes. I’m going to assume the petition-makers are indeed from New Orleans and really do have love for their city at the core of this movement. I’m also going to assume – and this may be a stretch – that some member of the crew is Black, Mulatto, Colored, or at least, Creole. Maybe some investigative reporter will verify that last detail, but I’m just a lowly, irate commentator.
Given all those assumptions, I am wont to be nice. I am torn as to how to put my comments gently.
According to polls, Wall Street calculations, and scores of newspaper bureau trim-downs and lay-offs, many more people are likely to read this Internet petition than they are to have read a newspaper and kept up with the goings-on in New Orleans since Katrina. So perhaps all I need to do is bring folks up to speed. And to be brief, I’ll just keep it limited to things related to joys and hopes rung in on New Year’s Eve.
According to the Associated Press, “[during the New Year’s weekend], New Orleans got what it has been missing since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city four months ago: tourists” though barely one-fourth of New Orleans’ population has been able to return to this beloved city.
The French Quarter prepared for the holiday weekend and “at the venerable Palm Court, the jazzmen were opening their horn cases in preparation for the $90-a-person New Year’s Eve supper, (Washington Post, Jan 1, 2006)” though a bit farther down the road “an American Red Cross food truck was still parked at a corner of Claiborne Avenue, handing out 200 meals a day (same damn article).”
“Two large oil and gas companies have returned to New Orleans, and two more are expected in the new year, according to Don Hutchinson, director of economic development for the city. (Washington Post, Jan 1)”
Both January 1st Washington Post stories on New Year’s in the Big Easy re-printed on the internet ran with the same picture, reminiscent of the one I saw on the front-page of a section of my mother’s print copy. There was a white man in a black and white shirt with matching second-line fringed umbrella in the forefront; followed by a white guy with a beard, a really colorful shirt and an empty beer cup; standing next to The Pussyfooters, a group of 14 or so white women in colorful wigs and pink outfits, topped off with frilly boots; watched by scores of (yes, white) onlookers in various shades of glee and inebriation. Something about this picture is off to me but still, “Gary Washington, a 37-year-old merchant marine who was strolling down Bourbon Street, drink in hand” was quoted as saying “It looks like Hurricane Katrina never came by, looking at the faces” – and we are looking at the same faces, right? That is, if we were even looking at the same New Orleans in the first place. <u>(But, to be fair, one of the Pussyfooters could have been Black – there was some shade from nearby trees blocking the light, so I can’t really tell.)</u>
And I know for a fact there was at least one African American in the Quarter that night because Mayor Ray Nagin was also quoted in an article titled “Big Easy Sends Off 2005 in Style” while he presided over the ceremonies.
New Orleans does not need a holiday or a makeover or a national guilt trip. New Orleans needs a moratorium on non-residential squatters regardless of their Fortune 500 status, a renege on all no-bid contracts, <u>and an apology for the suggestion that a giant party will make it all better.</u>
The petition for a National Mardi Gras goes on to suggest that “with National Mardi Gras, we can use the best of our shared culture to remind us how to turn sorrow into joy, death into life. We’ll put the culture in the front seat and the politics in the back.”
I assume (and you know what they say about “assuming”) that all the emphasis on “culture” means the petition authors are suggesting an authentic Mardi Gras. So can the 2006 Zulu King be a white man in black face, or will we ship in a few Ninth Warders just for the occasion?” I suppose some of the new New Orleans Latino brothers could don the Mardi Gras Indian costumes – the tourists will never be able to tell the difference. And the petition does say culture, not color – so we could easily find the recipe for King cakes on the Internet and they’ve been shipping in beads from China for years.
Do you see what I see? There have been myriad attempts to blur the national vision of New Orleans with stump speeches, congressional petitions, donation telethons, musical radio tributes and holiday celebrations. Our view of the French Quarter is crystal clear, but things get a bit fuzzy farther out where there is the suggestion that rebuilding is too dangerous, and shouldn’t we put a park there instead of homes in case another storm comes? And besides, wouldn’t you like your brand new condominium to overlook weeping willows instead of public housing? The National Mardi Gras petition is feeding into the well-crafted illusion that there are plans to rebuild and revive New Orleans for its former residents. But I have worn glasses since I was a child and I see a different message in this madness: We can rebuild more easily without you; we can move on better without you; and as a matter of fact, we can even party without you.
<u>In the meantime, Trenace Walker tells a reporter to tell the powers-that-be “Show me you want me to come home” while Marietta Williams describes herself as “the fox guarding the hen house” because they are trying to demolish her house and take her land.</u>
And not just Trenace Walker and Marietta Williams.
In this recent article by Jennifer Vitry and Jordan Flaherty (link supplied later), even public housing residents are being kept from returning to their own apartments:
The B.W. Cooper Housing Development -popularly known as the Calliope projects – was home to 1,400 African American working-class households in 1,546 units on 56 acres of land. It is the third largest housing development in Louisiana and the largest tenant-managed housing development in the country. <u>Most of the complex was not damaged in Hurricane Katrina or the subsequent flooding.</u>
After Hurricane Katrina, residents were scattered throughout the United States, including many in shelters and motels here in Louisiana. Although most of these dispersed residents ache to return to their communities, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) posted a general notice in the projects informing residents that they may not move back, and some Cooper tenants report receiving notice that they have to clear out their possessions.
HANO has also hired a Las Vegas company named Access Denied to install 16-gauge steel plates over windows and doors at B.W. Cooper and other city projects, including the Lafitte projects in the Treme neighborhood.
In previous interviews with the Times-Picayune and other media, HANO spokespeople expressed concerns about “looting,” “troublemakers” and “squatters.” Although its true that there appears to have been massive theft from homes in these projects, in a recent visit to at least twenty homes that been broken into, most had their locks intact – the apartments had been broken into by someone <u>with keys and access.</u> In several interviews, residents placed the robberies as having occurred within the last few weeks – long after Mayor Nagin began urging people to return to the city, and weeks after the National Guard had finished breaking into homes to check for bodies.
More than four months after Katrina, public housing tenants are still facing displacement and victimization. Grassroots groups such as NOHEAT (New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team) and advocates such as the Loyola Law Clinic and grassroots Legal Network are calling for justice for public housing tenants, but for many residents, the city seems to be sending them a louder message – “stay out.”
This fight is nothing new. For years, developers have coveted the city’s public housing projects, many of which occupy prime real estate. New Orleans real estate mogul Pres Kabacoff, who currently sits on Mayor Nagin’s rebuilding Commission, transformed the St. Thomas projects into condos and a WalMart. Kabacoff has made clear his designs on the Iberville housing projects, which occupy prime real estate near the French Quarter.
Now, more than ever, housing is the front lines of the battle for New Orleans, every day’s headlines are full of bulldozers vs. injunctions, and evictions vs. restraining orders – words and phrases that have come to shape the daily struggle over what – and who – New Orleans will become.
Anyone going to New Orleans “to party” to me, is playing right into the hands of the developers and the speculators. Nagin is still talking a bullshit game, saying come back on one hand but allowing Kabacoff or people like him to start mapping out their plans. People going to New Orleans are basically saying, we can have Mardi Gras without black residents of New Orleans. No more and no less, unequivocably. We can be as forgetful or oblivious or without care about New Orleans residents in the ruins of the city as the next inebriated tourist. Sorta like the French nobility laughing at a Beaumarchais comedy at the very lip of the Revolution that sliced off many of their heads.
Back to Ms. Matthews:
According to the National Mardi Gras petition, once they get one million signatures, they’re going to get the world’s finest New Orleans marching band and climb the steps of the Capitol. Well, at least they suggested a march. That’s how you can tell they’re well-meaning – all well-meaning movements include a march.
Unfortunately, in this age of popcorn revolutions and flash mobs, the newbies often forget to incorporate meaning into the movement.
How about we march all of those African-American refugees from Houston to New Orleans and park them on Bourbon Street, daring the National Guard to move them and threatening Congress, the executive branch and the Louisiana State Legislature with one of the biggest voting blocks the southeast has ever seen? I will not name any names, but certain foes of freedom have proven that they can easily disenfranchise and ignore tens of thousands of poor, working-class black people. But, let’s see how they do with a quarter of a million. What if we marched thousands of displaced residents back to the airports that marked their drop-off into oblivion and clogged up a few terminals? Tensions are pretty high at TSA security checkpoints – those folks in Utah, Indiana might actually get some media coverage.
<u>I refuse to feed the fantasy of “it’s all going to be all right” by dancing in the street. A true statement of solidarity for New Orleans residents who were escorted out of their city with no way to return would be a boycott, even protest, of Mardi Gras. Tell them they can’t have Mardi Gras without the old black men who tack authentic quilt pieces on the floats. Tell them they can’t have Mardi Grad without the black seamstresses who sew their costumes. Tell them they can’t have Mardi Gras without young working women who make their hotel beds and wash their restaurant trash cans. Tell them they can’t have Mardi Gras without the original caramel-colored arbiters of the jazz coronets. Tell them they can’t have Mardi Gras without the invisible sanitation workers who clean up their drunken messes. Tell them they can’t have Mardi Gras without the Zulu King and Mardi Gras Indians. Tell them they can’t have the event that commemorates the spirit of this nation without its soul.</u>
Now, that is a petition I would sign.
Bibliography:
This essay cites quotes from
- Hull, Ann and Cass, Julia. “Auld Lang Syne in the Big Easy: New Year, New Hope in New Orlean.” Washington Post 1 Jan 2006:A01
- Burdeau, Cain. “Big Easy Sends Off 2005 in Style.” AP Online. 1 Jan 2006. 1 Jan 2006 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/31/AR2005123100503.html>
- “Declare 2/28/06 National Mardi Gras!” <http://www.nationalmardigras.com/index.html>
Don’t go to Mardi Gras this year, people.
I’m as serious as a heart attack.
While I may disagree with girlfriend about what the Petition actually means or even if there are blacks onboard in its implementation, the letter of Ms. Matthews’ protest remains the same.
Try next year, if you claim to be morally and politically conscious and a member of the reality-based community. Because this is reality, people. People dying, committing suicide, forced to start over again. Get real.
Or like one sista, Shanikka, has already said, and I am paraphrasing: yall <u>STILL</u> don’t get it.
