I was refraining from publishing this letter I got last month from a St. Tammany resident and apparent North Shore enthusiast. For some reason I felt the need to protect her from the phalanx of insults she would recieve if I posted it (she used ennui...it's French...it made me like her more). But I jumped on nola.com a minute ago and after reading the breaking news
... the irony was just to thick....I had to post it.
Ran across your blog completely by accident but wanted to let you know how many of us in the North feel about the state of New Orleans.
The bulk of us have quit caring about the Big Easy because you show little care for your selves.
African Americans savage one another at a higher rate than before the flood and the rest of the city swings between adolescent fits of "it's not fair!" and overly romanticized ennui and victimhood.
A tornado wipes out some Kansas farm towns, kills some townsfolk, they clean up and move on. Flood hits Minnesota, they dig out, bury the lost and move on. Blizzard hits North Dakota, stranding the elderly and expectant mothers, they go out on their own snowmobiles and SAVE THEMSELVES and each other. New York City after 9/11, they fed one another, rescued one another, cried for one another, buried one another and MOVED ON.
Please for the sake of yourselves if no one else, grab ahold of your self, create your own future and move on. A little less absinthe, a little more elbow grease. A little less spanish moss, a little more clorox. Demand less corruption, be more accountable. Own your destiny, don't look for the Mommy state to save you.
Good luck -
Hit and runs in Kenner , claw hammer swinging crazies in Tammany....I don't understand lady....I thought you guys had it all figured out. You mean white people kill people too?
Let me dissect this sentence:
African Americans savage one another at a higher rate than before the flood and the rest of the city swings between adolescent fits of "it's not fair!" and overly romanticized ennui and victimhood.
So there are African Americans.....and then there is the rest of the city. That, my dear, is a dichotomy. And therein lies the fundamental difference between your St. Tammany mentality and we New Olreanians' mentality. You think black people are something other than "the rest of the city".
Have you ever considered that violent crime in New Orleans could be corollary to poverty and poor education....not race?
I'm curious what you think the conditions and factors were which led to the present state of New Orleans....you seem to understand it so well.
I await your answer....until then I'll be on my front porch sipping the finest wormwood-laced absinthe, smoking spanish moss, and throwing dice with Bill Jefferson and my mommy. I may take you up on the elbow grease part....while grabbing a hold of myself, of course....since that's all we know how to do down here on the south side of the puddle.
It's funny...you're saying our "problem" is our attitude...correct?
That's exactly what I would say to you as well.
9 comments:
Excellent response. People have got to start realizing that what's "over the rainbow" is just more of the same as "here". Thanks.
Editor B got something similar concerning the neighbor kids he lets hang out on his porch.
http://b.rox.com/archives/2007/07/24/letter/
Can anyone else say "racist subtext"? Can anyone else say "eye off the classist ball"?
This kind of crap really burns me up.
"The bulk of us have quit caring about the Big Easy because you show little care for your selves."
On the contrary, the bulk of us care immensely, utterly for ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our culture, our city; otherwise, we wouldn't still be here. Unfortunately, the bulk of us don't have time to worry about whether you've quit caring or not. That's something you must square with your conscience, your maker, yourself.
Great post. And what a bitch. At this -
"I'll be on my front porch sipping the finest wormwood-laced absinthe, smoking spanish moss, and throwing dice with Bill Jefferson and my mommy. I may take you up on the elbow grease part....while grabbing a hold of myself, of course....since that's all we know how to do down here on the south side of the puddle."
- I laughed so loud and so uncontrollably that the cat got worried and meowed. He wanted to make sure I was all right.
Amazing. It's one thing for someone from, say, Nebraska to have an opinion like this. But for someone who lives as close as St. Tammany there can be only one explanation -- willful ignorance. The person in Nebraska might not think New Orleans is all that important, but I'm frequently amazed by the suburbanites who honestly believe their little whitebread cul-de-sac paradises don't depend on a healthy, vibrant, and rebuilt New Orleans. So the notion that we aren't working our asses off to save our home can only be made by someone who is either deliberately ignorant or incredibly stupid and lacks basic reading comprehension skills.
Honestly, if she fells that way, she needs to pack her bags and leave Louisiana as soon as possible. She is not wanted. She is not helping. She is not important.
"And the hardest core white flighters rolled out of Metairie and settled on the north shore" --Chapter One, Verse One of the First Book of the Louisiana Bible
Hey, baby, can I come over to YOUR house? I love the green fairy, and maybe I can win some of that 90K off of Bill Jefferson to pay Entergy with. Sounding like a win-win situation to me!
As for the Northshore lady, and I use the term loosely, clearly she wasn't here right after the storm seeing all of "us" taking care of each other.
You and the other commenters took her out better than I can, so I'll just settle for the drinking and gambling part.
This New Yorker says: what a crock!
NYC got $20 billion in federal aid after 9/11 -- and we've still got a hole in the ground to show for it and folks dying of illnesses caused by breathing the contaminated air (tho that's a whole 'nother story).
The other examples this strange person has used are either urban legends (emailed around by folks who pine for the fantasy days when men were men and ... you know the rest) or outright lies. Most of the examples she uses are of places that requested a great deal of federal aid.
It isn't just the folks in New Orleans that get hurt and angry about this kind of thing. I depend on the NOLA bloggers to find out what's really going on because the traditional media does such a bad, bad job of covering the facts.
Folks all over the country are hurting over what has happened and is still happening in New Orleans. And that number would grow exponentially if the real news could penetrate through our obstructive media.
Pass me some of that absinthe, willya?
All the misfortunes other cities faced (which you mentioned) were not as devasting as the floods in NO. It was not a concentrated area, like NY 9/11 etc. Unfortunately the media does not portray a "true" story regarding the recovery of New Orleans. Many people have taken responsibility and moved on...but I belive the people of New Orleans are not looking for "mother" state to save them we are looking for the same kind of assistance other citizens (9/11) received after a "diaster," Not a "hand-out" but assistant.
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