America without the Cresent City?
This is very simple. And no disrespect intended. But...
Four years ago America was attacked. It was a national disaster, and a national tragedy.
Fifteen days ago America was struck by a national disaster, and a national tragedy that is still going on, by an event natural (usually even commonplace) called a hurricane.
Was it the fact that the first was man-made, and the second (arguably) not, that the first set of people affected are lionized, and the second, at best, tolerated, and at worst, are blamed for their predicament?
Or was it that the victims of the first, in their offices, or on their planes, might be considered somehow worth more in the public mind than an entire city, an entire chunk of our southern coast, most of which are also hard-working Americans? Are we really so shallow, so hard-hearted in our personal little lives, to actually consider throwing away one of our most unique cities, by punishing the folks who for generations have made it what we love?
New Orleans was old when Houston was still a swamp; a major port, with its pirates, its wealthy, its scoundrels and its saints, it also happens to be the first place in the America to harbor and honor free people of color, and provide the first halting opportunities for many. I have yet to hear of any plans to rebuild the worst hit parts of the city of New Orleans (or for that matter Gulfport, or Biloxi, or Mobile), or any suggestion of providing reasonably affordable housing to the majority of the displaced.
The thought that such a singular place as the Big Easy in America's sweltering melting pot may rise again only to be a tourist attraction, a sort of Vegas South, without the core, the very people who gave her the unique laid-back ambiance, that toughness, that which is New Orleans, that scary, spooky, freaky, tawdry mixed dame that is everything the South itself is...
Rebuilding a city without its soul?
Have we really walked so far down the path to sterile oblivion? For shame!
The innocents of September 11 deserve our remembrance. The people of the Gulf South deserve no less.
Four years ago America was attacked. It was a national disaster, and a national tragedy.
Fifteen days ago America was struck by a national disaster, and a national tragedy that is still going on, by an event natural (usually even commonplace) called a hurricane.
Was it the fact that the first was man-made, and the second (arguably) not, that the first set of people affected are lionized, and the second, at best, tolerated, and at worst, are blamed for their predicament?
Or was it that the victims of the first, in their offices, or on their planes, might be considered somehow worth more in the public mind than an entire city, an entire chunk of our southern coast, most of which are also hard-working Americans? Are we really so shallow, so hard-hearted in our personal little lives, to actually consider throwing away one of our most unique cities, by punishing the folks who for generations have made it what we love?
New Orleans was old when Houston was still a swamp; a major port, with its pirates, its wealthy, its scoundrels and its saints, it also happens to be the first place in the America to harbor and honor free people of color, and provide the first halting opportunities for many. I have yet to hear of any plans to rebuild the worst hit parts of the city of New Orleans (or for that matter Gulfport, or Biloxi, or Mobile), or any suggestion of providing reasonably affordable housing to the majority of the displaced.
The thought that such a singular place as the Big Easy in America's sweltering melting pot may rise again only to be a tourist attraction, a sort of Vegas South, without the core, the very people who gave her the unique laid-back ambiance, that toughness, that which is New Orleans, that scary, spooky, freaky, tawdry mixed dame that is everything the South itself is...
Rebuilding a city without its soul?
Have we really walked so far down the path to sterile oblivion? For shame!
The innocents of September 11 deserve our remembrance. The people of the Gulf South deserve no less.
posted by meldonna | 11:08 PM
1 Comments:
Come on over to my little humble blog- I have a piece about WHY NOLA must be rebuilt....and I appreciate your sentiments.... http://watergatesummer.blogspot.com/,
Love your blog- see you have not written in a while- hope all is well....
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