The Rawness of the Crescent City

Fire of Liberty

Now while I'm generally no great fan of NPR, I have to hand it to them for their due diligence in keeping America updated on the recovery efforts and return to normalcy in post Katrina New Orleans. The only problem I have with NPR's reporting is that they seem to keep on finding efforts to lay the blame on the Bush administration or has some story or the other where someone is complaining about FEMA and other federal government agencies being lax or late in the response. (That's what happens when you believe that the Federal government can do a better job fixing things then the private enterprise, churches, charitable organizations, family, and state government(Well maybe New Orleans isn't the right city to depend on for help- The one defect of LA politics)). I realize that the folks at NPR are concerned about the fate of the folks in New Orleans and generally push an agenda but their stories and reports seem to lack the flavor and rawness of the Crescent City thus becoming a tad bit boring.

Luckily, Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard has published "Will the Good Times Ever Roll Again?," which is an extensive travelogue article on how folks in New Orleans are trying to rise above all the problems that lay before them and return the Laissez les bons temps rouler! attitude back to this great southern city. I might not tear at your heartstrings like NPR's reports do but I think it makes a much more powerful statement about human nature's desire to return to normalcy and optimism, even if the odds are stacked against you(At least that's what I got from it). Here something a sample of some of Labash's work that stood out the most to me:

Despite his pedigree, Kingfish knows the 9th Ward a bit. One of his several enterprises is a construction company. He's built homes down here, supposedly above the flood line, though as he points out, somebody missed the call on that one. They hadn't counted on the Industrial Canal levee being breached, which turned the whole neighborhood into an aquarium. He takes us by one of his houses, which has a pillow strapped to the railing, inscribed with Jeremiah 17:7. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord." The rest of the house has been gutted for reconstruction, with nothing left but a crab pot in the rafters around the place the water line settled.

This makes Kingfish scratch his head. He doesn't understand why anybody would rebuild here, since it's proven hurricane bait, and the neighborhood was a crime and murder magnet even before the storm. This is a complaint I hear from both black and white New Orleanians about the city's largely black poverty centers. They are hoping their city becomes a safer place, since many of those who made it unsafe have taken up residence in other cities. Black city council president Oliver Thomas recently caused a stir, saying of public housing evacuees that are now residents of places like Houston, that New Orleans only wants people back who will work, not "soap opera watchers."

Kingfish is sick of all the media romanticizing of places like the lower 9th. "Give me a break with the lone kid blowing a trumpet on his porch," he says mockingly. "Look around, there ain't no f--in' porches left. That sounds harsh to some people, but they don't know what New Orleans is." It's as integrated as a city gets, he says, "the only place where a $2 million house can be two blocks away from your maid's." Spare him all the talk, he says, about how the city's entire identity is compromised.

New Orleans had problems before the storm, lots of them, says Kingfish. America just got a whiff of New Orleans's dirty laundry when even cops were shown shoe-shopping at Wal-Mart without hitting the checkout line. "You lose the 9th Ward and people say we're losing our soul. Horseshit," he grouses. There were a lot of good family people there, but it was also miles of urban decay which added nothing to the city. "Wynton Marsalis wasn't going around shooting people, being unproductive," he says. "And that kind of person will come back, and the culture will stay."

Now take what you will from it but it sure beats the hand-holding, "I feel your pain," reporting that comes from NPR. It's always good to see other aspects of the situation at hand.