The Loss of NOLA through the eyes of Anne Rice.

Not Afraid · 09-03-2005, 03:30 PM

September 4, 2005- New York Times
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
By ANNE RICE

WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?

Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?

The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month.

This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other. It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city.

Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor-length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm.

Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day.

The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.

Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.

And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.

Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.

•

I share this history for a reason - and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days. Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds.

Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another?

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.

And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Anne Rice is the author of the forthcoming novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt."

Motorboat Cruiser · 09-03-2005, 04:28 PM

Thanks for sharing that, NA.

Scrooge McSam · 09-03-2005, 09:45 PM

Quote:

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Anne, take heart. Our country hasn't failed us. Ordinary citizens, stunned by the inaction and downright incompetence of our leaders, are stepping in to fill the gaps. Late? Certainly! We ALL, even those who have historically opposed this administration, wanted to believe that our leadership simply could not be this inadequate. Our trust in them, no matter how grudgingly given, was misplaced and valuable time was lost. For days, people, ordinary working joes, doctors, fishermen, air boat drivers, engineers and on and on and on have been begging to get into the city to help, while FEMA lays the blame for the crisis on the very victims it's there to assist.

Our country is not the swaggering grinning psuedo cowboy in the White House. It's not the network of political whores on K street. It's not the profit driven media, who until this week were willing to play the game in exchange for cocktail party invitations and private audiences with this week's designated liar.

Our country hasn't failed us.

Our government has failed us.

Our elected leadership has failed us.

It's up to us to change it.

PanTheMan · 09-13-2005, 11:42 PM

Glad this made it over here... A truly great piece from a great person.

Jazzman · 09-14-2005, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anne Rice

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Oh please.

The outpouring of support and aid from everyone in this country has been tremendous. Within a week just one news channel here in Portland raised $500,000 in contributions. That's one channel in one town raising one donation at a time; a hundred bucks here, two hundred there, thousand there. Countless semi trailers around the country have been packed full and sent on their way to the area to distribute supplies, all given freely with love and caring by everyday citizens, regular people, Americans. Businesses have opened their checkbooks and donated millions in cash. Families nationwide have opened the doors to their homes, offering shelter to those left homeless. Texas public schools have also opened their doors and hearts to thousands of displaced children, giving them a chance at some semblance of normalcy and hope. Thousands of volunteers have left their own lives on hold to take up the Bourbon Street call of "Let's drive down! Or fly down. To New Orleans!!" and do what they can to help, whether it be handing out water and medicine or caring for lost animals or pulling people from the waters. And for months, maybe even years, they'll all be there. We'll all be there, in body and in spirit, rebuilding our beloved New Orleans until we can once again parade down Bourbon street, seeing all the hot spots and meeting all the big shots.

Sorry Anne, but you just lost all credibility with your whiny, "woe is us, you all abandoned poor old us" crap. If there is any place in the world right now that is in the center of American hearts, prayers and thoughts, it's New Orleans. Throw your pity party somewhere else, we’ve all got better things to do right now.

wendybeth · 09-15-2005, 12:13 AM

The outpouring began after the horrendous failure of FEMA and state and local government. Anne has a right and a reason to be bitter, and I am too. I'm not even a resident of NO, but I recognise it's importance and place in our history books and culture. As I stated before, NO will be fine, but only because the citizens of this country will make it so. No offense, Jazz, but had this happened to Portland or Vantucky, I never would have responded to a local citizens editorial with an "Oh, please". You're not there, you're not from there, and this isn't personal for you.

sleepyjeff · 09-15-2005, 12:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wendybeth

The outpouring began after the horrendous failure of FEMA and state and local government. Anne has a right and a reason to be bitter, and I am too. I'm not even a resident of NO, but I recognise it's importance and place in our history books and culture. As I stated before, NO will be fine, but only because the citizens of this country will make it so. No offense, Jazz, but had this happened to Portland or Vantucky, I never would have responded to a local citizens editorial with an "Oh, please". You're not there, you're not from there, and this isn't personal for you.

I totally disagree. The outpouring started before the storm even came ashore. We all were glued to our TVs hoping and praying the worse would not happen. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when it looked like the storm was losing power and it was downgraded to a cat 4.

We all were horrified when the levy broke and I believe not even hours later donations, volunteers, soldiars, and more prayers were sent that way.

Anne has her oppinions and I won't judge her but I do strongly disagree with her take on it all.

Ghoulish Delight · 09-15-2005, 08:10 AM

Yeah, I'm kinda with Jazzman there. She's mixing her targets. "You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music." That would be the populace of the country that wants and appreciates those. "Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs." That would be the government failing to uphold its promises.

Don't blame ME for those mistakes. Don't call ME a hypocrite just because I had no way to help.

wendybeth · 09-15-2005, 08:48 AM

Yeah, upon reflection I agree, but I get where she is coming from. Her city was destroyed, and when something or someone you love is going through a crisis of this proportion, who's to say what any of us would do in her place. The appearance of neglect is there, but it is largely due to beaurocratic ****-ups and not the fault of the general public. I think when she has more time and perspective she'll amend this statement, but I certainly will cut her some slack.

Motorboat Cruiser · 09-15-2005, 08:59 AM

I think it is important to note the date of the article. It was only day five after the hurricane. Much of what you refer to, Jazzman, has occurred after the article was written.

09-03-2005, 03:30 PM	#1
Not Afraid HI! Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 17,108	The Loss of NOLA through the eyes of Anne Rice. September 4, 2005- New York Times Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? By ANNE RICE WHAT do people really know about New Orleans? Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land? The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month. This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other. It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city. Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor-length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm. Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day. The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed. Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy. Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs. And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs. Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii. • I share this history for a reason - and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days. Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?" Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds. Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another? Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn. What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled. And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees. And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question. I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance. They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago. But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs. Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you. Anne Rice is the author of the forthcoming novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt."
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09-03-2005, 04:28 PM	#2
Motorboat Cruiser Cruiser of Motorboats Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: So Cal Posts: 3,665	Thanks for sharing that, NA.
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09-13-2005, 11:42 PM	#4
PanTheMan Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Somewhere between you, and just over there. Posts: 258	Glad this made it over here... A truly great piece from a great person. __________________ What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about? ....
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09-15-2005, 12:13 AM	#6
wendybeth Nevermind Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,847	The outpouring began after the horrendous failure of FEMA and state and local government. Anne has a right and a reason to be bitter, and I am too. I'm not even a resident of NO, but I recognise it's importance and place in our history books and culture. As I stated before, NO will be fine, but only because the citizens of this country will make it so. No offense, Jazz, but had this happened to Portland or Vantucky, I never would have responded to a local citizens editorial with an "Oh, please". You're not there, you're not from there, and this isn't personal for you. __________________
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09-15-2005, 08:10 AM	#8
Ghoulish Delight I Floop the Pig Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Alternative Swankstyle Posts: 19,348	Yeah, I'm kinda with Jazzman there. She's mixing her targets. "You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music." That would be the populace of the country that wants and appreciates those. "Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs." That would be the government failing to uphold its promises. Don't blame ME for those mistakes. Don't call ME a hypocrite just because I had no way to help. __________________ 'He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.' -TJ
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09-15-2005, 08:48 AM	#9
wendybeth Nevermind Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,847	Yeah, upon reflection I agree, but I get where she is coming from. Her city was destroyed, and when something or someone you love is going through a crisis of this proportion, who's to say what any of us would do in her place. The appearance of neglect is there, but it is largely due to beaurocratic ****-ups and not the fault of the general public. I think when she has more time and perspective she'll amend this statement, but I certainly will cut her some slack. __________________
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09-15-2005, 08:59 AM	#10
Motorboat Cruiser Cruiser of Motorboats Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: So Cal Posts: 3,665	I think it is important to note the date of the article. It was only day five after the hurricane. Much of what you refer to, Jazzman, has occurred after the article was written.
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