The Road Back
Two stories in this morning’s paper give a good outline of what’s happening and not happening in our city. This one talks about how expensive everything is getting, while another one outlines just how broken our infrastructure remains. No one ever said life was fair — particularly when Mother Nature and the Corps of Engineers are involved.
There’s also a third story that’s an offshoot of the other two. It’s this one, talking about how so many people are simply out of options when it comes to staying here — as badly as they might want to. Taken together, this triumverate of stories does a lot better job of describing day-to-day life here than most I’ve seen. We’re going to be hearing a lot of things over the coming week about the anniversary of The Thing — but don’t look for many New Orleanians to spend much time looking back. Believe me — we’re much, much too busy just trying to pay the power bill, concoct some scheme to pay the mortgage and praying the batch of checks were wrote two days ago will wait just one more day before going through the account.
I think we’re seeing some class divisions we didn’t see before. Beyond black/white, rich/poor and the usual things you find in most cities, New Orleans has developed a new set of partitions. There’s one group of folks who came back to town to find their jobs still intact and their salaries unchanged. In a way, these are the luckiest of all. But, on the other hand, a lot of these same folks lost their homes and have spent the past year haggling with insurance companies, adopting contractors and spend loads of gasoline money commuting to Baton Rouge or the Northshore or whatever. Then there’s the group who came back to find their homes in decent shape, but their jobs ruined. Largely self-employed, they got back to air conditioning and normal neighborhood life. But their income has been a patchwork of various temporary jobs or their time spent as alchemists, trying to turn their soggy, moldy shops into come sort of gold-making outfit once again — and it hasn’t been enough. Their savings and credit are shot and others have long since stopped accepting Katrina as a viable reason.
There are other divisions — family/no family, roof/no roof, parking/no parking and the rest — all artificial and yet all too real and all imposed on us by what happened. This isn’t a whine and it isn’t a rant — it’s simply a telling of the truth. Our choices are two — we can stay and fight it or we can go. But even if we go back to The World, the fight only shifts to a new and less familiar locale — and many of us simply aren’t willing to do it. To paraphrase James Brown, we’d rather die on our feet than go on living on our knees. Not that staying or leaving is choosing one or the other. It’s just tough to have to make that choice, y’know?
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You forgot one thing that occured after the Thing.
Blatant disregard for Southerners as being worth less
by Yanks-no one is talking about it it is the bigger problem.
There is no class involved in it, but it is there.
As long as this conditioning problem exist we will always
be percieved as being worth less.
Laurie
Laurie,
As a “Yank,” I will respectfully disagree with your comment that northerners regard southerners as worthless.
Normally I find Laurie to be a little kooky, but honestly many of us DID get that feeling of being considered worthless from certain people. I won’t make a generalization and say that every single person north of I-10 considered us worthless, but enough comments were made to make it seem like a good bit of “outsiders” thought we deserved what we got.
Chris, I didn’t say “All”.
I’m sorry.
But, I do stand by my original words.
No lettre’ is perfect.
Laurie
Okay…what I want to know is “why” y’all felt like us northerners made you feel worthless. Because, I gave what I could as far as money. If I could have given more I would have. If I could have come down there and help I would have. I have been back as a tourist. Lots of people have done the same. SOMEONE help me understand why y’all felt that way….because a lot of people in this country did what they could after The Thing to help everyone down there.
Thanks for your posts, Craig - I really enjoy reading them and have linked to a couple on my blog. I hope others find them as interesting and enjoyable as I do.
Due to health I’ve had to relocate and I am as far north as Pennsylvania. My neighbors just returned from regutting houses in Lakeview and my northern friends have been down not once but twice to help rebuild, etc.,etc. Look around and you’ll find alot of Yanks still giving what they can to help rebuild. Some of the most ignorant comments I have heard have been from the surrounding southern states. Also the Philadelphia Inquirer has been running decent front page stories about New Orleans all week long and Lee Spike’s documentary has been highly recommended. Please don’t alienate the north with careless generalizations. A good many are are still doing what they can.
It has been my experience in our post-K world that the help being sent to us, both monetary and physical, has been as unilateral as the effects of the storm itself. Among the biggest groups has been the Mastec workers (Minnesota) repairing our stoplight and telephone networks. I’ve seen plumbing guys from Massachusetts, carpenters from Michigan and (not to dwell on the M states) church volunteers from Kansas and Iowa.
Frankly, the only disgust I’ve seen directed toward Louisiana has come from a few fellow Southerners — and I blame that on individual ignorance and not on anyone’s regionality.
Stacy,
thank you dawlin’, your words are like liquid gold. But, on the other hand i undersand your confusion. i have to say (oh so regretfully) i agree with Craig. And yes, I’m a New Orleans girl.
*the individual ignorance around here would blow your mind.
Correction!
I *am* a New Orleans girl!… and that’s the other thing…we can’t speak very well either!
…but we’re a hole mess’a fun!!! ;D