Go Westing! - Creole

When I say New Orleans, though, I really mean the French Quarter and more specifically the Fauborg Marigny section of the Quarter. The Quarter has, from the beginning, had a semi-independent relationship with the rest of the city and it still does today. Mark wrote in to ask if I would share my reflections on what the city is like these two years since the levee broke. The best way to do that is to separate out what has happened to the municipality of The City of New Orleans, and then to talk about the feel in the Quarter.

The City of New Orleans is struggling, still, to rebuild itself and to regain its identity. Services, like trash pick-up, internet service, power, and water are about as reliable as they are in the capital city of a relatively prosperous third world country. In the areas that were hit hardest by the flood, the Lower 9th Ward and the area around the fairgrounds, very little is left. The city lost half of its African American residents and those are people who, under normal circumstances, would not have the resources to re-locate. They will not come back mostly. The will not re-re-locate.

What people sometimes do not realize is that New Orleans was a pretty dysfunctional city before Katrina, and not unlike my hometown Washington D.C. It is starkly segregated by geography and class. White people live in the Garden District and Uptown in very nice neighborhoods with very big houses. At the same time, the city government, which is African-American, has had a history of corruption and tends to maintain the status quo. If you had gone to the Lower 9th before the storm you would also have been appalled in the living conditions of the people there.

The City of New Orleans, as a government, is not very powerful, because of the system of parishes and their relation to the state. The State of Louisiana normally has the last word on budgeting issues, and that government is an old boy system, mostly white and Cajun, from the northern part of the state. Imagine New York's upstate/downstate issues or Illinois, but add to that the South's recent history, which is not a prosperous one.

The stakes of the political battleground have only increased in the last year, and the stakeholders are playing hardball. The State of Louisiana wants more control over the money coming to New Orleans. Former Lt. Gov. Landrieu ran for Mayor and nearly won. The Federal government has to a large extent washed its hands because it has made so many mistakes already that it would rather let the people here take their share of the blame and just pay the final bill. The competition for contracts is intense and you have to believe that the water is very muddy.

Racial tension between blacks and whites has increased steadily as the political struggle has gained force. Blacks believe that whites in New Orleans are capitalizing on the exodus to put a strangle hold on the city. Whites believe the blacks are playing race politics to grab money. You can feel the relationship in the air. I went to a Rebirth Brass Band show last night, Uptown at the Maple Leaf. I love Rebirth and waited for an hour at the front of the stage so I could be in that holy pocket, in front of the floor speakers, so I could hear the show through the instruments and the stage monitors. The crowd was mainly white and young, many Tulane kids. It reminded me of college, or Georgetown in DC, where rich white kids are partying to a black sound track and sort of making a mess of it. Meanwhile the Rebirth folks are from that part of Uptown and they have their crew there. The two groups do not mix at all and there is the sense that Rebirth gets paid, and as long as no one messes with them it's all good. And the white people don't get thugged or pimped or played or challenged for their behavior in any way, because they are doing the paying. It's not a nice energy, a very familiar one from home, and I left after the last set with the phrase, Fuck Uptown, in my head.

The Quarter also emptied out some, but I would say most of its people have filtered back. The ones that stayed away were probably mostly people who owned two places or were thinking of leaving anyway. The Quarter is the home of Creole culture, which is a mix of French, African, Caribbean, Spanish, and Americans in a place that is constantly changing. Creole culture expresses itself through food, through music, and through a manner of speaking. People will call you cher, babe, honey, or darling, not because they love you but because all relationships begin with that level of intimacy, four notches higher than Yankee courtesy at least. If you fuck them, they will fuck you back. If people don't like how you talk or look, they will just avoid you. The food is what you think of when you think New Orleans, gumbo, creole, meuniere, etc. It usually involves onions, celery, peppers, hot sauce, tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, rice. You will not eat much potato here. The music just is. There's more musicians here and more music per square foot than anywhere else in the world. It does not matter what kind of music it is, it will be infused with the party.

Mardi Gras is the expression of the Creole, a mixed up festival that marks the season of Lent and says that when you sin and have to pay for it, you better get your money's worth up front. What I love about this area is the way people are with one another, and the also the fact that what you do to get by has nothing to do with your status. Also, the law of the Creole. Mix. Mix black, white, brown, poor, good, evil, drunk, soulful, set it to a beat and spin it out until the shit settles to the bottom and the cream rises to the top.

My cousin Henry Cherry lived here for a good while and I'd be interested to see what he has to say. His story Rampart and Dumaine talks is set in a pretty rough part of the Quarter, where it runs up against an old-fashioned black southern ghetto.

Why do people come to the Quarter and stay? People do not want to follow rules here. They would rather take their chances with people as individuals and leave institutions and organizations out of it. Right now, amazingly, all the waste management here is contracted out to private companies, one of which has all black trash trucks with a giant bull stenciled on the back. It is terrifying to think about the power that a private company like that has here. But it is also true that in the Quarter, as long as the trash is gone, they don't mind much who take it away. This is not to say that people are unaware of what goes on. On the contrary every person has an opinion about local politics and you will hear about it when you eat or drink. It is hard to stay out of conversation here, unless you are an asshole or very private.

Why do I like it here? For one, it is the safest haven in this country from the White man's burden, from the knowledge that power and money are related, that both are connected to race, and that the use of coercive force is the bottom line of the formula. In the Quarter, you can be white and not care about money, and feel proud of not caring, instead of feeling lazy. It is a good place to be an artist, because the expression of the soul is respected.

Also, it is beautiful. There are places as good-looking in the world, but not with such a relaxed decaying beauty. The iron grating, the architectural lines of the buildings, the scale of things, the tropical plants, the smell. Spring is the best time of year here, 70 degrees and alive.

I think there is something else, too, that can't be fully explained and that is magic. The closest rational explanation of what I'm talking about is that whereas in every other place in America, people's place in society is determined by wealth and by the power to influence it, here it is determined by how many people you know and what their opinion of you is.

How do people determine their opinion of you? Exactly. Go see the doctor and she will tell you.

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