Perspective

Ed Blakely said "Race is the first thing in people's minds".

I said bullshit.

But today, I had a conversation with someone whose opinion I truly value. It changed my opinion to a degree.

I mentioned that when I go to the laundromat (yes, we have to, my $1k Campo washer is on the fritz, and that service contract simply means "the part is on the way"), I'm just about the only white guy there. When I go to Vaughn's, I don't see the crowd as black or white, I see them as tourist or local (truth is they're about 50/50). When I ate lunch at Dunbar's, I didn't seem to notice that I was the only white guy in there. When my kids go to orientation at Audubon or Lusher, race doesn't really enter into the equation.

This friend mentioned that these are the things we do to give the appearance that we're an integrated city.

He said that race, if not the major factor in all issues, is one of the top 3. Rebuilding? Yep. Poverty? Race. Jobs? Race. Crime? Race. Schools? Race.

I had honestly never thought of it that way. Damn. I guess that's the big zit I've been avoiding when I looked in the mirror, and Blakely (and the ever provocative Adam Nossiter) pointed it out.

Blakely, like Clarence, evidently needs a handler or some such to tell him when to STFU. OTOH, it could simply be Nossiter cutting and pasting whtever he thinks will get him in good graces with the NYT management.

I wouldn't even mind a "big box" store, if it looked like it belonged in the neighborhood. We're not getting a DH Holmes back, and Maison Blanche was a glorified JC Penney. Hell, put a bunch of these "big box" stores on Canal Street, and let me take the streetcar there. Walgreens can do it, if they want.

As my friend and I were saying, if we want a $20 hip T-shirt, we can get all we can stand on Magazine street. But for a $30 pair of jeans or $2 pair of socks, we have to go to Metry or the Tchoup Wal Mart. Why can't we get that stuff close by, and why can't the vendors make the stores look like they belong in the neighborhood.

I don't want to have to drive to Veterans boulevard just to get a damned firewire cable.

If you look at New Orleans architecture, there is a monstrously wide palette of styles from which to choose. The vendors just have to be willing to do it, and the city just has to be willing to enforce a stylistic code.

There are 2 overwhelming things here, though: 1) Ed Blakely is the best we got, and the best we gon' get. His plan, while not perfect, does an amazing job at appeasing almost everyone. If we ride him out of town on a rail, the whole country will think that we're buffoons. And they'd be right. We won't get any better than him, so we'll have to work with him.

2) Blakely needs to realize that we've been totally misinformed for so long, and in the case of C. Ray, totally uninformed for so long, that we need some assurance. Blakely needs to tell us what he's done, what's next, and what his benchmarks for success will be. That's not too much to ask, and while it may not stroke his brobdingnagian ego, he needs to realize that his communication to us will be an important measure of his success.

Too many of Blakely's statements have come across as though he knows nothing about the history and heritage of New Orleans. While his plan for Gentilly (for example) truly seems to echo the desires of the community, he has yet to make any kind of statement regarding preservation.

He doesn't need to have a PR campaign; he doesn't need to have weekly press conferences. He simply needs to let us know what his plans are, what his goals are, and that they fit in with the community. If he'd just say something about this to us, as opposed to a muckraking NYT reporter, then I feel that most of us would be appeased.

Finally, we've been a city of immigrants since day one. From the French to the Spanish to the Creoles to the slave trade of Congo Square to the Sicilians to the Irish to the Czechs to the Cajuns to the Brazilians, Hondurans, and Mexicans. We will continue to be a city of immigrants, and that is a very good thing.

I just want us to preserve that fragile heritage that makes us unique. Perhaps it's not as delicate as I believe, but when Blakely is refusing to even appear cognizant of our heritage, when Walgreen's is trying to bully their way to a cookie-cutter store, and when local legislators are trying to make issues of bathing in fountains, littering, and public drunkenness when our murder rate is through the roof -- well, I think I should worry.

Comments

[saintseester]

My dad lived in Thousand Oaks california for a while. They had a commercial "architecture" code everyone was required to adhere too. (Spanish tile roof, stucco).
If Taco Bell, Cingular, and CVS could adhere to that, I see no problem with it being done in any city that wants to.

[KamaAina]

Elections? Race. Did anyone actually think that Clarence was more capable of running the city than Mitch Landrieu, or any other candidate, for that matter?

I myself was once guilty of this, in a reverse sense: voting for Barthelemy over Donald Mintz simply because I'd be damned if I'd hand the city back over to what I perceived as the white, moneyed, Uptown business elite. Should I again become a registered voter in Orleans Parish, I pledge not to repeat this. (Hey, I was an idealistic twentysomething!)

[senior]

I care less about the architecture of chain stores - more that they're national chains. No matter how you gussy up a Wal-Mart, the profits still go to the Walton Family (and the Republican party). Although if it has to be a big-box, I'd pick Target over Wal-Mart any day of the week. At least Target has some vestiges of corporate responsibility...

[ashley]

Oh, agreed...but honestly, at this point I don't think we have the luxury of being picky. Sure, I'd much rather have a Costco than a Sam's Club, but I don't thing either one of them are beating down our doors.

Pretty much at this point, it's a decision between the evil big box that may be in our neighborhood, or the evil big box that is in a neighboring parish. And that's assuming anyone wants to come here at all.

We'd all rather buy socks at a local store, but I can't find one within 2 miles, save Perlis, and their socks don't fit over my surgically repaired ankle.

NOLA has shown a history of preferring local stores over chains (K&B, Holmes, PJs), and I think that will continue if given the chance.

[Puddinhead]

Ashley, I knew we could reel you back in. Excitable boy, indeed...LOL.

By the way, interesting thing about that whole "city of immigrants" thing...after each wave of immigrants into the city, it's culture invariably changes. It just HAS to; even though the long-term residents almost always lament the "loss" of their precious existing culture. But only the most hard core nativists (think Daniel Day-Lewis in "Gangs of New York"...well, maybe not quite THAT hard core) really think the newcomers should just give up their own traditions and be forced to adopt those of their new home.

Two funny things...One, the immigrants usually do end up adopting most of the cultural aspects of their new home after a couple of generations even if the existing culture isn't as strong as New Orleans'. And two, although New Orleans' culture invariably has changed with every influx of immigrants, it always seems to end up changing for the better, doesn't it? I mean Lord, what would New Orleans be without the muffuletta? LOL

[Puddinhead]

Oh...and I knew you'd come around on the whole "development CAN and SHOULD be welcomed into the City as long as it fits it" bit. Beneath the whole reactionary, emotional exterior lies a tragically logical core. LOL

[senior]

Yeah, you right. When I was living in the 9th ward last summer, I drove to the Whole Foods on Vets a lot before I knew there was one on Magazine. In my Marxist dream world, we'd all be shopping at neighborhood co-ops - but I guess if there has to be a big box, keep the parking lots small!

Up here, there is a strip of road that has literally every chain store available. Borders and B&N right next to each other, that kind of place. And acres and acres of asphalt parking lots. It's hideous. As long as it doesn't turn into that.

Keep fighting until I move down there (five weeks to graduation)...

[rcs]

"But for a $30 pair of jeans or $2 pair of socks, we have to go to Metry or the Tchoup Wal Mart. Why can't we get that stuff close by..."

FYI, I hear Dominoes at 214 Magazine St is a great place to buy jeans. Apparently they've been there since Before The Malls Came and didn't get the memo that their business model was obsolete :)

[Editor B]

As many people, including our esteemed mayor, have observed: It's more class than race, but the two are often conflated in this city.

[slate]

While not as young as "senior" I share the same Marxist dream world. I much prefer local stores and prefer that the money goes into a PERSON's pocket rather than a corporate pocket.

That having been said, in my years in New Mexico, I learned that preservation is eminently do-able. Santa Fe has a very strict code regarding what can and cannot be built and what it must look like and they've done very well. Go down 60 miles to Albuquerque, where we lived, and there were no codes. As a result, the place became a haze of strip malls, some with anchor big boxes, all with giant signs. On top of that, the developers were allowed to run roughshod over the city, with the idiot mayor's approval (yes we had an idiot mayor there too, and yes he was re-elected after a couple of major scandals--go figure.)

Albuquerque is bordered by National Forest and Reservation Land. The developers developed every single square inch of it in the course of about five years. Now Albuquerque has the largest school system in the country in terms of square miles, and is always at the bottom of any list in terms of education. Not to mention it looks like a cheaped out Los Angeles.

Architectural codes can work. It's a good idea, and the preservationists among us have to be watching as the developers move in.

[Kirsty]

I think you said it the best, Ashley. Its been interesting reading the furore in the blogosphere over Blakely. Those up in arms were on the normal feisty outraged track when ..... the brakes were applied by others (puddinhead - whose name incidentaly always makes me think of haggis!!LOL) ... and the debate seems to have moved forward.
Of course we've yet to see what he does. I think this is the general concensus and outcome:
"Blakely needs to tell us what he's done, what's next, and what his benchmarks for success will be. That's not too much to ask, and while it may not stroke his brobdingnagian ego, he needs to realize that his communication to us will be an important measure of his success."
I'm a hope-in he's a-listenin!!!

Kursed

[Puddinhead]

You mean I actually contributed something to an adult conversation?!? Zut!!!!

Oh....and, "haggis"????? Ewwwww........so I make you think of sheep's lungs and hearts and stuff? Well, I guess actually that's a step up, considering what I usually make women think of. As for Puddinhead, see (http://cgi.ebay.com/Willie-Puddinhead-Jones-1950s-Baseball-Glove_W0QQitemZ120093638130QQihZ002QQcategoryZ27945QQcmdZViewItem) Not that I have any particular love for Philadelphia or anything--I just like the name.

[ashley]

I always thought the primary difference between haggis and boudin was that you knew what was in haggis.

[Kirsty]

can anyone tell me about boudin? or cajun haggis? I heard a rumour such a thing exists???
:)

[Kirsty]

oh and I know very little about what is in haggis and I'd like to keep it that way!! :)

[Kirsty]

Oh AND puddinhead - I LOVE haggis!!
:)

[GentillyGirl]

"As many people, including our esteemed mayor, have observed: It's more class than race, but the two are often conflated in this city."

Bart, truer words were never spoken regarding this observation. This is the crux of the problem here in NOLA.

This poop started back when the Americans moved in, trying to shove their Northern, Protestant, organized shit on the natives (Creoles, Haitians, French and whatnot inhabitants of the swamps.)

We here have a different way of living. Let these white shits work themselves to death creating the treasure chest they can't take to Heaven.

Our Heaven is HERE.The Goddess is here. Life is here. We are what we are.

[ashley]

I think boudin *is* Cajun haggis. And AFAIK, the only thing that I *know* is in there is rice. Everything else is a crapshoot.

That's it, GG. That's what nobody else gets. They're puritan, we're French. If Blakely could understand this, he'd be halfway home.

They live to work, we work to live.

[Kirsty]

"They live to work, we work to live"

That's why I feel at home!

[Marco]

I live to eat, drink and carry on. I should have moved to New Orleans in the 70's when I could have afforded a home. I can still visit and ...

[Marco]

I live to eat, drink and carry on. I should have moved to New Orleans in the 70's when I could have afforded a home. I can still visit and ...