A Microcosm

The infamous French Courter in New Orleans is like stepping in to another city that perhaps could be found around the corner in a small, 'quaint', 'charming' city in France. It was built up higher than the rest of it's surrounding area.

Well, because New Orleans is surrounded by water, there is the Lake, then the river, then the marshland, then the ponds. If you dig but 2 feet you will run in to water.

(I felt like I was driving through the back country when in vehicles in New Orleans because the roads are literally and forever marked by the water that sits threateningly underneath the ground - yes before Katrina, just a trademark of the landscape. In fact the graveyards are quite beautiful as most of the tombstones are built up and when walking in one you feel as you are walking in a city as some tombstones are two stories high - I wondered though where are the people buried who couldn't afford them?)

So now you see why the people who could afford it, built their homes up, their businesses up, and literally, thier graves up. If you look around, most homes are built a bit up, but it doesn't help if you live in the lower 9th ward, or the 9th ward or Gintilly or Treme or (list goes on) It is a class thing, which most often coincides with a race thing. So even if your home is built up a bit, you most likely will be under water.

Asides from the water one must wonder how much of a complex the 'upper' class really has...

The French Quarter is a tourist attraction, it has character, there are tours speaking of the history, the architecture is amazingly beautiful and there is a street that never sleeps basically called bourbon street where people I think drink 24/7. With all this going on, I unfortunately find it a bit tacky, especially when you are looking at it and observe closely. The sleazy men, the white owned businesses that appropriate black culture and hire black people to represent the food, the tourists running to voodoo shops giggling at the deities and dolls and most disgustingly those who are culture whores and literally live in the buildings that were once slave quarters, but are now upgraded condos.

Oh, what a dream.

But just outside the French Quarter is one of the, if not the oldest black community in North America - Treme. It being right outside the French Quarter says a lot about how the neighborhood was conceived by itself. The French Quarter being a place of bondage and enslavement and Treme signifying the the 'freed slave' who literally bargained, bought and aquired land literally blocks away from their enslavement.

This is significant in consideration to the idea that slavery did not end, (did it ever end?) closer to 1865, especially being in the south and Treme was essentially established as a free area for blacks in the 1700's. I am not a historian and I am in complete acceptance that this is just a blog and I am probably missing many points on many factors pertaining to black history in general. But I am just trying to get to a point of how this community had a head start from most black communities. A free place for black folks, a place of early economic growth, one of the most, as one may say, pioneers of black culture in North America in general, the creation of jazz, of creole food, language and many other art forms in general and by art I do not mean frivolities, but craftsmanship and community and growth in itself.

I am not here to be an expert or to write an essay, but it brings up many questions of how such an early community, no not a community that was thriving in the 60's and was destroyed, but a community that literally set the tone for free blacks in general, a community that was thriving and vibrant in the 18th century, and sure there is tremendous history and culture that is still celebrated to this day and in fact Treme was affected by the flood, but still was able to keep the 2nd liners that run every week TO THIS DAY. But how, the forces of white imperiliasm and colonialism are omnipotent and strong. It is this force of evil that I am still trying to disect. Ha ha, okay, I haven't had much sleep and am obviously overwhelmed at the magnitude of oppression.

And of course one could ask the same thing about natives and how civilisations were literally wiped out.

Why doesn't colonisation in it's different periods and timeframes and gentrification have names like Katrina and why are they not compared to natural disasters themselves?

Man made disasters of America...

A community that was black owned in the 1700s but still has survivors. Treme, is now mostly white owned.

So where is the story in the media or even in the many books that came out after Katrina or even the more progressive graphic novels that came out - where is that story of a man I met who stayed in his home (a home he rents) that is owned by a white man. Who stayed in his home and endured the flood for 3 weeks? The one who was alone and made a light out of three car batteries, the one who didn't get the money that was promised to him because he is not a home owner and the damage was 'not that bad' and as long as FEMA comes around every year to check on the house and it looks okay, the owner can get away with providing atrocious living conditions and get that large pay cheque every month.

Yet still, people go on and they keep telling their stories and they keep living, and it is quite symbolic of how the white man's world really is just the French Quarter and just outside, and a bit lower, where the paint is chipped, what appears to be on the margin really is the culutural force that is forever resilient and has more history and celebration and meaning then the French Quarter ever will. People come from all ove the world to see the French Quarter, but really, they are coming to see Treme.

The French Quarter is in black face and there will always be tickets to the show.