Five hundred days after Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood washed over this region in all of their fury, New Orleans faces a more violent and immediate threat than tropical weather and poorly-built-and-maintained levees: Murder.
If you are in the New Orleans downtown area tomorrow, please join us in the Anti-Crime March from the foot of Canal Street to City Hall. I will be there in my corporate garb to show that not just “disgruntled hippies,” “union workers” and “underemployed artistes” take to the streets with picket signs in the call for change. As the murders since New Years Eve have shown, gun violence in New Orleans doesn’t color within its pre-ordained lines any more. We are all (and should have been) in this together, and it’s about time. I simply wish Dinerral Shavers and Helen Hill didn’t have to be our wake-up calls.
Let the custodians of this city know that
– they haven’t been doing their job, which is to serve and protect.
– their latest crime initiative is what they were already supposed to be doing and that the community has been speaking for a long time, if they would only listen.
– giving us their ear and relinquishing total control is the first step towards a responsible community which polices itself. Help us help ourselves, please!
– their lip service is not enough. We demand accountability and progress reports or they’re fired.
– this will not just be one day of visible outrage.
America, if you’re out there and watching, Schroeder sums up how a lot of us feel:
For those around the country who might doubt us, we didn“t all vote for Ray Nagin (or Bill Jefferson), but one thing is certain: New Orleanians are in total solidarity in saying, “Stop killing people!“
Uh oh, Mr Gloomy Pants will denounce you for being a yuppie who are apparently the root of evil. I did not know that.
I’ll take Mr. Gloomy Pants seriously when he puts his Hershey’s Kisses where his mouth is and takes to the streets between 2 and 6am on MLK Day, whether anyone goes with him or not.
Don’t hold your breath. He’s all talk…
More all type. Kind of the shy quiet… angry… alcoholic.. recluse in real life, you know.
Uh… Maitri… The above comment isn’t me.
Adding… It would actually be pretty funny if its author would claim it.
Interesting … I will fill you in on the WHOIS details.
Or maybe that is me…. this post is from last year after all. It seems to be generating some new site traffic for me and since the topic is back in the news… and since everyone’s on my case again lately I figured somebody was having fun.
But it is something I am likely to say so…. it might have been me after all.
Nevermind.