Thu, Nov 20, 2008
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NOTES FROM NEW ORLEANS: Misrepresentational Politics
(March 30, 2006)
While he’s called many names here at home, you know him as ‘Mayor Nagin’.
I tried, y’all. I really did. You remember – I went on the record during the Chocolate City debacle saying he was my boy. Well, he made it easy on several fronts. I mean, who wouldn’t look at that tall drink of Hypnotic over ice and say, “Yeah, heh…that’s MY man!”
But there comes a morning when you sit up in bed, look in the mirror at your disheveled, got-me-some head of hair, and ask yourself,
“Is the screwing I’m getting really worth the screwing I’m getting?”
Trying to stay by the Black man’s side on this one - I’m sorry, y’all…it’s just not worth it. We’ve been dragging this disaster around for seven months now – ENOUGH!! Bring the vanilla mayor on! Hurricane seasons right down the street and we’re still sitting here on ‘E’ with no housing, no levee protection, and no plan to bring displaced people back home.
He shoulda BEEN done cracked some heads in D.C.! He shoulda played that race card like it was Spike Lee against Hattie McDaniel in Celebrity Poker Showdown! He shoulda called Tony Soprano and taken a contract out on FEMA, then organized those buses he shoulda used during the flood to drive us up to the nation’s capitol so we could Turn! It! Out!!
Pardon my inner ghetto but I am so-SO fed up!
Now I look back and I realize…the signs were there all along. In January, he told reporters he didn’t think it was a good idea to organize a protest in D.C., immediately after a council meeting where former mayor Marc Morial suggested we march on Washington. It went something like this: “It would look bad if it wasn’t organized right and only a couple hundred people showed up. And anyway, I have faith the President will keep his word to us.”
Gee…maybe you’re right. We ought’n not do anything might make massa mad!
I knew then, but…I just didn’t want to believe it. It’s a process, getting out of the ‘making excuses mode’ of, “He’s growing,” or “You ought to be grateful – your city aint never had no honest, decent man before.” And then there’s my personal, Hall-Of-Shame favorite, “If you’re really ‘bout having the Black man’s back, you’ll stay with him!”
Superficial reasons like race and gorgeousness aside, even if he doesn’t bilk the system like so many other trifling officials have, and even if he did stay here and swim the flood waters for three weeks straight – we cannot get to the championship game with a coach like this. He’s misrepresenting so hard, he’s keeping the disaster going!
My wake up call began ringing last week. Just before the ‘Bring New Orleans Back’ committee’s presentation on the finalized rebuilding plan, Nagin announced to the press that Ninth Ward residents could “rebuild at (their) own risk” and that he couldn’t promise they’d have city services like utilities and trash pick-up. Quite different from the message he gave them two weeks prior when he went to their neighborhood association meeting campaigning for votes: "We're going to rebuild all sections of New Orleans, including the Lower 9th Ward,” he said. “We will do it. All of it."
Well, a resident and leader from that Ninth Ward meeting took the mike after he finished the BNOB rebuilding presentation and gave him a piece of her mind. “When I woke up today and read your statement, “rebuild at your own risk” after you came to our meeting and said, ‘Be patient and have hope,’ I said to myself, ‘Who IS this MARK?!!’
Gasps erupted and murmurs reverberated through the packed Sheraton Ballroom. Omigod! She called him a “mark”!! Then I thought, ‘Do these White people know what she means by “mark”? As I visually perused the room, scanning the faces, it was clear…
They knew…and agreed.
You don’t ever want to hear a brother get called a ‘mark’ in a room full of White people - ESPECIALLY when he’s the boss. My heart dropped for him standing up there, solemnly taking it all in. But I couldn’t help but feel loyalty towards that lady and the Ninth Ward community. That’s our people’s homes! And instead of fighting for them, he’s been jerking them around, caving into pressure from Bush’s boys to permanently close their neighborhood.
I don’t have to tell you the next step in their plan - you do the math...
The same day he was christened “mark”, the Times began circulating a story that his office was inking a deal to pay a company 23 million to take away the thousands of abandoned, flooded cars still sitting around here, after passing up offers from companies who offered to BUY the cars for about three million.
Three days went by as the story escalated into a full-fledge Category Five hurricane. There wasn’t one person in the city limits who wasn’t talking about it, during his election season of our discontent, except…well…HIM. For three long silent days, he and his City Hall staff refused repeated calls by the press to explain to his near bankrupt empire “Why?”
Radio show host Garland Robinette finally coaxed our Moses down off the mountaintop days later whereupon he explained to Garland that FEMA, not the city, was footing the bill for car removal and that we couldn’t make money on the deal anyway since FEMA paid for earlier car removals and would require any profits to be reimbursed.
Yeah – but paying them three million is better than them spending 23 million in tax payer’s money…
After everything we’ve been through, why drag us through more unnecessary drama? It’s just too much.
And yet…just like a love junkie, I watched the televised mayoral debate Monday night hoping against hope that he would redeem himself, arriving in the twelfth hour to prove his devotion, honor, and leadership.
During the debate, the moderator asked the candidates if they’d keep the current police superintendent or conduct a nationwide search for a new one. Nagin responded, “I’m satisfied with the current superintendent.”
In response to system-wide police corruption, Nagin publicly committed four years ago to conduct a nationwide search for a police superintendent capable of cleaning up the NOPD. He never followed through. Now in the last few months, public complaints of the department’s depravity have begun to escalate. And he’s satisfied. Another storm in the making…
This was the final straw – I’m done. Walking papers have been formally served.
Floating the topic to my hairdresser Trudy the other day, she crowed, “Oh, I’m voting for Mitch!”
“Really…? You think he’s the one? Cause I’ve just decided I gotta give Nagin up.”
She responded, “Well, what took you so long?” And a waiting room full of sisters, young and old, laughed the ‘Beauty Shop laugh’.
(Sigh)…as usual, the girlfriend is always the last to know.
Deborah Cotton is a freelance journalist and public speaker based in New Orleans, covering on-the-ground stories of the city’s recovery and chronicling the rebuilding efforts of the historic Ninth Ward. She can be reached at Deborah.cotton@gmail.com.
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