Ray Nagin and “chocolate” New Orleans
January 17, 2006 by Laura | Trackback URI
I grew up in
Although King made a point of reaching out to white and black people, Nagin insisted Monday that if King were alive, he would urge African-Americans to stop worrying about other races and tend to their own community.
In his speech, the mayor lashed out at a shooting on Sunday afternoon that wounded three people during a second-line parade that had been designed to show unity and support for rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged city.
“Knuckleheads” were responsible for the gunfire that wounded a 34-year-old man, an 18-year-old woman and an 20-year-old man, he said. “When we come together for a second-line, we’re not going to tolerate any violence. Martin Luther King would’ve wanted it that way . . .”
Nagin went on to decry the violent crime that plagued many of the city’s African-American neighborhoods before the storm.
“It’s time for all of us good folk to stand up and say, ‘We’re tired of the violence. We’re tired of black folks killing each other,’ ” Nagin said.
“What are we doing? Why is black-on-black crime such an issue?” he continued. “Why do our young men hate each other so much that they look their brother in the face and they will take a gun and kill him in cold blood?”
In response to such senseless horror, King would say, “We as a people need to fix ourselves first,” said Nagin, striking a frequent theme of his speeches. “The lack of love is killing us.”Besides respecting one another, Nagin said his listeners need to pay attention to God, who, Nagin said, expressed his anger at America last year by sending hurricane after hurricane over the land.
“Surely he’s not approving of us being in Iraq under false pretense,” Nagin said. “But surely he’s upset at black America also. We’re not taking care of ourselves, we’re not taking care of our women, and we’re not taking care of our children . . .”
Nagin went on to say that 70% of black children in New Orleans are born to single parent families. The MSM left out that inconvenient statistic, because for a black politician to call for personal responsibility and to say that fatherlessness is a serious social problem it outside the traditional story line.
Bottom line: Nagin is no saint. But he’s no devil either. The current outrage is overblown, based on cherry picking several admittedly offensive statements, but disregarding parts of the speech that were good. And frankly, focusing on Nagin’s fumble is a good way to avoid covering
Another NOLA bloggers’ take that’s well worth reading: “
UPDATE: Nagin explains and apologizes. Video at The Political Teen.
I would...
Like an aging monument, democracy itself is crumbling.
I think your fellow Americans do know about fatherlessness as an issue in black communities. I do – and I live in Australia. I’ve seen Boyz in the Hood. I watch Oprah. The push for personal responsibility is also being articulated by black leaders in this country. We have to look at how we construct society – who is committing the violence, where is the fatherlessness, where are the drugs. Predominantly in poor communities. When we construct highly individualistic societies where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and have little hope and little way out anything can happen. To fix this might require limits on other people and we are not willing to make the sacrifice. Jesus preached to the poor – seldom to the rich. In fact, he is quite blunt about the rich. Yet what do our nations, our governments do – we encourage the rich (who are frequently dishonest – turns out one of our Aussie corporations has given more in backhanders to Saddams regime than any one else in the world) and blame the poor for their poverty. Start with fair taxation instead of tax cuts for the rich. Then a national system of medical insurance which the US has consistently avoided and, in turn, burdened the poor. Why should medical insurance be attached to employment so that if you are out a job or in a poorly remunerated one you have no medical insurance? Then poor some of those taxes into a first class public school system which is fair, equitable and accessible to all. And along the line let us admit that our nations are racist. We don’t want to confront that either – but we had an ugly riot recently at a Sydney beach against people of Middle-Eastern appearance. This has woken some people up – but others, including our leaders, won’t admit that Australia and Australians harbour racism. Let’s admit our sins so we can go forward in a positive manner. And let us always respect difference. It seems to me we are only prepared to include people if they subscribe to our dominant and dominating culture, chase money and ambition and real estate and so on just like us white folks do. Any alternative – no matter how positive or uplifting – we don’t like to tolerate. So let’s look at ourselves so we can be upfront and repentant and then maybe there will be good news for the poor.
Boyz in the Hood and Oprah are not realistic representations of poverty in America. The Census Bureau has classified 35 million people in America as “poor,” but some interesting government statistics have been noted in Understanding Poverty in America by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization.
* 46% of poor households own their own homes.
* 76% of poor households have air conditioning. Thirty years ago, only 36% of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
* Nearly 75% of poor households own a car; 30% own two or more cars.
* 97% of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
* 78% have a VCR or DVD player; 62% have cable or satellite TV.
* 73% percent own microwaves, more than half have a stereo, and a third have a dishwasher.
Don’t confuse poverty in America with poverty in any other country. Our poor would be considered quite fabulously rich by actual poor people in India, Indonesia, China, etc. You seem to equate societal problems like the whole “baby-daddy” problem here with poverty, and suggest that more taxes and a better welfare system would solve it. You are wrong. I have *been* on welfare – when I lost my husband, I was pregnant and couldn’t get a job so I got on welfare. I’ve seen the system from the inside. It is self-perpetuating, and in the long term harms people who stay in it. It provides opportunities for education which few take advantage of; yet that’s the only way out of poverty! I would also point out that as a society we did not HAVE these problems until the modern welfare system in America was created back in the 60s and things have gotten progressively worse with each generation that stays in the system, supported by the taxpayer instead of working for themselves.
A national medical system is not working out too well in Canada or England – people from those countries come here for treatment when presented with 2 and 3 year wait times for surgery and other needed care! If it’s working out better in Australia, that’s wonderful, but it’s not anywhere else. And just because our politicians equate lack of health insurance with lack of health CARE doesn’t make it true. I have gone long stretches of time without health insurance and yet not gone without needed health care. We have a system of charity and university hospitals to take care of those who need it; they may not be as fancy as private hospitals but they get the job done. As for the schools – the main problem with the schools is the teacher’s unions, actually. Districts with no unions and higher accountability have much better scores on much less money. Some of the highest paid school districts in this country have the lowest scores.
Bush’s tax cuts, just like Reagan’s, have resulted in phenomenal economic growth, unprecedented low unemployment rates – our liberal media during the Clinton era actually called HIGHER unemployment rates “essentially full employment” but they deny any mention or credit of what’s going on now to Bush – and deficit reduction. Time and again it has been proven that capitalism works and socialism does not. The Laffer Curve effect has been proven true over and over again.
Finally, if you think Jesus advocated socialism, please provide chapter and verse so that I may be enlightened, because I’ve never seen anything like that in the bible.
I wasn’t seeking to enter into a discussion about welfare. Merely consideration of equity on the basis of common humanity. I’m sorry,but if one thing showed US citizens and the world the inequity in US society and how the power elites respond it was Katrina. It is not as though there are not inequities in my own country. It is that they are not as glaring. We are a smaller nation and, while it is always easy for people anywhere to get in their own caste/class/socio-economic grouping and not have much knowledge/experience of those outside, the wall is not so big here. In Australia, we are stunned at how the merest mention of a national medical insurance program and equity for public schools leads to hands held in horror and cries of socialism in the US. Our system of medical insurance for everyone is not perfect and more and more problems have to be addressed. However, a significant number of the problems have come as the powers-that-be look to the US health system and implement some of it in this country. There are politically conservative people (particularly in the medical profession) who would like Medicare to be abolished. It gets tinkered with but not abolished because both the Liberal Party (not US-style liberals but more like your neo-cons or conservatives) and the Labor Party (akin to your Democrats)know that the Australian voting public want Medicare. Australians – particularly those with children – don’t want to go backwards to a life without Medicare. Jesus taught us to love one another as we would love ourselves. In systems where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer the golden rule can hardly be said to be working or act as dominant force. This is the radical message of Jesus. We have to learn through a thorough-going application of the two commandments to enter into Kingdom practices – not absorb our cultural and economic views into our religious practices. Amos spoke out about such a people – those who were enthusiasts for religious practice but treated the poor unjustly. He even criticised women for egging their menfolk on so that the men then became involved in such unjust practices. I am not relying on Oprah and Boyz in the Hood for my views on US poverty. I have a sociology background and I keep myself reasonably well informed. Your culture is very dominating and is usually a one way street. Australia, along with the rest of the world, gets a lot of information about the US and the US seems to absorb so little about us. Poverty and racism in the US did not begin in the 60s in the US. I recall in the 70s when my church in Toowoomba, Qld employed a Youth Pastor from the US. One night we had a slide evening at our place and he showed slides from his part of the US. Now I had read in books of what are called tar paper shacks but I had never seen them. I would not have believed they existed in the last quarter of the 20th century. I was gobsmacked when I saw it. Our youth pastor had been raised in a tar paper shack (he is white not black in case that is of relevance) and his parents had recently, in their retirement, moved into a proper house which was a budget priced demountable. Having said this, the only time I was more gob-smacked about housing was my first visit to Doomadgee in north-west Queensland here in Australia in the early 80s and saw Aboriginal people living in tiny, dark, corrugated iron ‘buildings’ in which white people would not keep their chooks. Giving every human person equitable access to health, education, and economic and social participation is not socialism. This is a right of every human being just for being alive. It is one way of ensuring the second commandment is alive and active in our lives and the lives of others. How we carry out this is up to us. We are created in the image of God and, like Him, we are creative so we can devise various ways of doing this. We just need to remember that anything that intrinsically diminishes human beings-and any political and economic models whether they be capitalism or socialism or any other ism are capable of this – are not in accord with God’s plan for human lives and living.
The inequity in US society… (sigh) same old thing. You seem to expect an equal OUTCOME, and that is not what our system of government promises, only equal OPPORTUNITY.
Jesus taught us to love one another voluntarily; at no point did he advocate lobbying the Roman government and levying a tax on anyone. And as a matter of fact, he said ‘the poor will be with you ALWAYS.’ Jesus did not force anyone to anything, whereas the whole liberal/socialist ethic is “you WILL give, first to us, then we’ll distribute as we see fit because we know better how to spend your money than you do.” That you do so in the name of Christ is offensive and in no way reflective of Christ’s words or actions. If you think it is, I ask you again to cite chapter and verse. Christians need to do what we are called to do. Because of that calling, my family lives modestly and gives away a great deal. If others do not, we pity them and pray for them. The rewards we enjoy now in the act of giving are great, and they are eternal. If more Christians did this, poverty would be less but it will never be eliminated. God’s plan for human lives and living is not to keep us from being “diminished.” We are here for His glory, nothing more, nothing less.
As for the rights of humans for just being alive; this is not a biblical concept at all. It is a concept in the US constitution, and that is the right to have equal opportunity, not equal outcome. The government is not called upon to do what Christians are called to do. Again, I ask you to cite chapter and verse where Jesus advocates income/wealth redistribution. You can’t do it because it’s just not there. He calls on individuals to give, which is a very different matter.