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A New Year in New Orleans

By Wayne Emilien, Campus Progress. Posted January 25, 2006.


New Orleans has become home to opportunism. But for natives, it has yet to become home again.
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[Editor's Note: This story was originally published on Campus Progress.]

Christmas in New Orleans. Mumbled profanities were all I could muster as a good friend and I drove through the newly plowed streets of his 9th Ward neighborhood. This used to be civilization. This was his existence for a solid 19 years before he moved to another part of the city for college. But still, he was lucky, unlike many of his neighbors whose homes wore spray-painted badges signifying body counts.

Some houses were atop cars, some were piggybacked on other houses. Other houses lay in shambles. Some houses, however, still stood. These were the testaments to human architecture. All were surrounded by testaments to the floodwall's inability to fight off the deluge. How many millions spent in the name of the public good lined the pockets of politicians and contractors? And what would've been the fee to keep these streets debris-free? New Orleans has been relegated to Third World nation status, the public's modern-day Babylon and our leaders' favorite political talking point.

Entering the fourth month of the Katrina aftermath, I looked everywhere for tangible evidence of improvement. The streets were changed, though barely improved. Even in the French Quarter, the epicenter of the tourism industry, life continued beneath an ominous cloud. Day and night, you see the bustling of "contractors," following the smell of money, anxious as sharks sniffing out blood. There's an eerie stench of opportunism in the air, mingling with the odor of uncollected trash, stagnant water and old refrigerators shut with duct tape to contain the rotten food from months prior.

My Christmas tour of New Orleans was my second trip home since Katrina. During my first trip home, or to what used to be home, I went from room to room trying to find what remained in my waterlogged house. Still, I was thankful that I was far removed from my old first-floor apartment on Napoleon Avenue -- in the middle of a flood zone that was then under 10 feet of water. The treasure that I found were photographs, lots of them. They were mostly ruined. Browns and blues, hues of greens and yellows created psychedelic swirls -- vivid colors that once captured moments in my family's past. I even ran across an absurdly ironic page from the local Yellow Pages, stuck to a photo album, that read "How to Stay Safe in a Hurricane."

Before my family emptied out our house that day, before we sat down to a donated Thanksgiving meal of turkey and various canned goods, I drove around town. My grandmother's house -- where I used to go for my pre-Catechism breakfast of butter and toast -- was a ruined shell. The corner where my cousin told me there was no Santa Claus was cluttered with rotting and moldy pieces of wood.


Digg!

Wayne Emilien was born in New Orleans in 1978. He earned his B.S. in computer science from Loyola University New Orleans. He now serves as a systems administrator and IT consultant for a D.C.-based firm.

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Gentrification ?
Posted by: Jimbo on Jan 25, 2006 10:51 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is no need to wory about the return of New Orleans residents. Our dear mayor Ray Nagin has it all planned out. Take a look for yourself. www.imnotchocolate.com/index.html

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Ray Nagin is worse than an Uncle Tom
Posted by: jeffrey7 on Jan 25, 2006 2:57 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This man really has some set of balls to say he wants New Orleans to be a 'Chocolate Town'. Considering he never made any attempts to 'save' his people from the wrath of Katrina. He made damn sure the well to do got out,but he parked the busses that could have saved thousands of lives.
What a Brotha. I'm afraid the old residents of this great city will not be comming back. They will be stuck in FEMA trailer towns for many years,soon to be forgotten by the press and the rest of America,while the 'Great Rebuliding Effort' will get plenty of 'boost'. There's a plan for New Orleans, it includes the black folks too. Ray's 'Chocolate Town' will be like all the other's below the Mason Dixon line. Nice fancy bulidings,beautiful boulavards,fine resturants,and all. But it will still be,the folks of color will be working in the back,white folks at the front desk,because the rich new residents will be the same carpetbaggers that made the last big rush down to Dixie. With the same Racism.
You dropped the ball Ray,you can't pick it up and say you're going to win the game when you've proven otherwise.

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Pictures of Levee System Damage
Posted by: savebigeasy on Jan 27, 2006 5:43 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you want to see pictures of the damage taken a couple weeks ago you can find some here.

If you live or lived in New Orleans please support rebuilding the levee system by signing this petition to congress to rebuild them to withstand a Catagoy 5 Hurricane. The goal is to generate one million signitures, so tell your friends!

Hey, New Orleans is one of the most unique cities in the world in a class by itself. Its blend of Spanish, French, and African-American influences has it made a cultural gem in the American jewelry case of cities. Places like the French Quarter and the Garden District occupy a prominent place in American lore. New Orleans has an extremely rich culinary and musical tradition; it is the birthplace of jazz and early rhythm-and-blues. New Orleans, I love it!

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