irony and the average hipster

It was only a matter of time....

After recently writing about the hate crime in my neighborhood, and titling my post with the "n" word, I knew some feathers somewhere would be ruffled. I'd braced myself for vitrolic emails back, calling me a racist and worse, but none came. I relaxed.

Last weekend, however, I got wind that someone was indeed offended by my "n" word title. According to my source, the offended person understood that I meant no harm but still refrained from forwarding my blog to a black friend. Ouch!

Now there are two knee-jerk reactions to this news. My peace-loving, nonconfrontational side (I would say "the feminine," but I'm not ready for any more flak on matters of political correctness) would immediately change the title, deleting the "n" word forever from my blog. Conversely, the rebellious provocateur in me (the aggression-craving male?) would dig in her heels and never submit to self-censorship.

Fortunately, I'm getting too old to be jerking my knees around--very unyogic, to say the least. So I've been rolling this dilemma around in my head and pondering why indeed I felt compelled to use the "n" word. And this is what I found, thematically categorized for clarity (my own):

a. Provocation

I'd be lying if I didn't fess up to being a provocateur. If my therapist were here, she would contribute something about my need for attention due to a solitary upbringing, an emotionally-absent father, etc. etc., but she got laid off as part of the Katrina downsizing. Since we no longer have a paid professional on staff, I'll have to pinch-hit. Despite my tough demeanor (!), I'm actually a burning tangle of emotions. I am easily provoked--although I don't always show it--and feel that indignation should be shared. Like a chocolate truffle cake--if I were to eat the whole thing, I'd get sick. Therefore, you have some, too.

When I heard what happened to our neighbor, I was pissed. And when I wrote about it, I was still pissed. Pissed enough to provoke my readers with the "n" word? Perhaps so.

b. Absurdity

In this day and age, the idea that someone would leave a note telling a "nigger" to leave the neighborhood seems absurd to me. Please don't write in telling me that racism is alive and well--I know, I know. Still, it's absurd. We all have racist thoughts from time to time, across the board--but to be so uncouth as to call names, and to be so cowardly as to leave it in a note--well, that's just silly. I thought I'd exemplify this silliness by titling the blog "niggaz in the hood," as if this were news to anyone.

c. Linguistic Discrimination and Forbidden Fruit

As a writer, it angers me that some words are off-limits. Granted, many fewer words are off-limits to me as a female in the 21st century than would have been fifty or even twenty years ago, but that makes it even more tempting to use the few bad words left. I'm not talking about curse words, which have become paler and paler as time goes on--hell, you can practically say "shit" and "fuck" at the damn dentist's office these days--but about more specifically-hurtful words, such as faggot or nigger or chinaman or hebe.

Let me say that as a kind-hearted, well-meaning soul, I want to hurt no one. Let me also say that as a writer, these words fascinate me to no end. Imagine yourself a painter who could use all the colors except the ones at the ends of the spectrum. Wouldn't you be dying to paint a sun in infared, even if you risked blinding some of your viewers? Or a filmmaker who wasn't allowed to tape inside a prison? Wouldn't that be the first place you'd want to roll film?

As well, I wonder if I could get away with using the "n" word if I were black. Or, perhaps I'd get even more flak by denigrating (an interesting term, no?) my people. It's a moot point, though, since the darkest I can pass for is Irish, and only with a black dye-job.

d. Semantics

On an intellectual level, I wonder if "nigger" could be redefined in our lifetime. I know some black folks use it as a term of endearment to each other, rendering the word harmless. I like the idea of having an explosive word available to channel supreme anger at someone deserving of it. Regardless of color. Examples could include: "Those niggers at FEMA still haven't sent my check." Or, "That fucking nigger in the white house is going to be the death of us all." (Political messages free of charge.)

Emotionally, though, I doubt this would happen, as I know the "n" word still carries such an emotional charge of hate. It's because of niggers like the person who's been tormenting my black neighbor that keep this word powerful. And it's a crime, because even though the "n" word is just a word that could be defined any old way, the hate is real.

In sum...

I fear this blog belies my English-school past. Ah, well. And I also fear that my exploration of this word might alienate more readers, especially black ones. Hope it doesn't, because I'd love nothing more to hear back from readers of all colors interested in this issue. I've invested several hours of my life so far trying to figure this all out and hope it comes to some good.

I also wonder if not sending my blog to black friends because of my using the "n" word isn't a sort of racism in and of itself. It's a considerate racism, not wanting anyone's feelings to be hurt, but it's denying them a chance to sound off on the issue. Then again, deliberately sending my blog to black friends for the sole reason of their blackness could be defined at racism, too. Which goes to show that the more I write, the more confused I get. And with that in mind, I"m signing off.

getting the dirt

Recently I made contact with an oral historian out of Austin. She’s been recording accounts of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath from the survivors themselves. It’s a wonderful project, of course, to collect stories from the people who experienced this tragedy firsthand. Not only does the story-telling have therapeutic value for the survivors, but their testimonies will serve history by forming a tapestry of truth, as reflected in the project’s name: Alive In Truth.

At least, this is the idea. Feel free to visit www.aliveintruth.org to hear for yourself. I can’t speak with much authority here because I haven’t yet tuned in, the reason being that much of my post-Katrina life in New Orleans already involves listening to the people around me tell their stories. Even before the storm, this part of this country hosted a myriad of story-telling heritages—from the gothic Southerners to the colorful Cajuns to the passionate Blacks to the dramatic Drunks—and it follows that now, after being in the national limelight, no one here can shut up. This is fine by me, since it seems that one of my purposes in life is to hear what the people have to say and then blab it on to the next guy.

So naturally I got behind the Alive In Truth idea, figuring that I could hone my interviewing skills and contribute to the annals of history. And, in post-Katrina style, I am making rapid progress: in the month since I’ve decided to contribute my services, not only have I purchased a tape recorder, but I have done one interview.

However, I am learning what thousands of journalists worldwide already know: it ain’t the same on tape. Let me use Miss M, my lone interviewee thus far, as an example. When we first reunited with Miss M a few weeks ago, she regaled us with tales of staying in the French Quarter during the storm. One of the juiciest tidbits—and dare I say, the most poignant “truth” she shared—involved the SWAT team, a crack house on her street, and the mother of one of the crack proprietors. I would love to share more, except that when I met with her again for the interview, she pointedly did not want this tale retold. She gave me a fine, animated interview, but it paled against the impromptu storytelling we originally got over red wine and a mouthwatering eggplant ragout.

Still, I plan to keep interviewing my fellow New Orleanians. Later this week, I’ll be taping another friend who stayed during the storm and was evacuated by the authorities. I doubt the second retelling of her experience will be as vivid as the first, but I’m still looking forward to recording history as narrated by the common gal.

In the meantime, I’ve been shoveling dirt. The community garden across the street from us has been leveled so that the owner can fence it off for private viewings of his metal sculptures—art trumps vegetables, in an upset—and so mounds of soil sit curbside. Having been a community gardener, as well as the only one left in the area, I have an interest in dirt, especially the rich, dark, mostly-organically fertilized dirt that’s been left for the trash man.

Not to say that shoveling dirt is my highest priority or first-choice chore. That dirt’s been sitting there for days, waiting for a loving shovel to scoop it away. So with rain forecast for last night, yesterday afternoon I rolled my wheelbarrow over. I began shoveling and promptly struck a hunk of concrete with a jolting clang. I began again, lifting and tossing soil littered with grassy roots, oyster shells, and the occasional brick. As glamorous as it sounds, shoveling dirt isn’t something I’d want to do all day, or even more than two wheelbarrow’s worth. But it is a double wheelbarrow.

To keep my spirits up, I considered the value of my dirt-shoveling. I thought about the millions of people worldwide who would jump at the chance to take home such fine soil. Third-world patriarchs trying to feed their starving families on land whose topsoil blew away in a long-ago drought. Grubby city urchins desperate for the nutrients in a home-grown tomato. American suburbanites who drive out of their way to pay several dollars for a bag of dirt. It seems doubtful that anyone would pay cash money for what I was shoveling, knowing that it was Katrina Flood dirt, but I’m confident in its quality. The dude who runs our neighborhood gardening program stayed through the storm and assured me that the floodwaters in our part of town may have been a little salty but not toxic. And in my hour or so of shoveling, I didn’t see any human bones or mutant worms, so I’m not going to worry.

I took a break from my shoveling to coax Maggy out from under the house, which involved going into the neighbor’s yard. This is how I met E. J., leaning up on his truck out front, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. He’d been hired to put up sheetrock on my neighbor’s flooded first floor.

Like everyone I seem to meet, E. J. wasn’t shy about sharing his tragic tale. He owned two houses: one in Lakeview, which got seven feet of water, and one in Chalmette, which was not only demolished, but demolished at the center of the Murphy Oil Spill. True, the good folks at Murphy Oil were cleaning up the mess, but E. J., being a man that worked with his hands, knew that you don’t clean up oil (pronounced by E. J., who grew up in the Nint’ Ward, as earl) with soap and water alone—you need a degreaser. Or a degreezer, as the case may be. And E. J. may be a man who works with his hands, but he knew that the $20,000 Murphy offered him and all the other beneficiaries of the earl was useless without a guarantee that his property would be completely cleaned. Murphy Oil did intend to send out their private environmental agents to evaluate the toxicity, but would guarantee nothing in writing. Still, the Murphy representative assured E. J. that they would adequately clean everything, including his swimming pool and the water in it. E. J. responded that if his pool water was clean, he could rent a pump and pump the pool water into the canal which Murphy already had cleaned for $1.2 million or maybe billion (didn’t have my tape recorder for this conversation). The Murphy rep didn’t like that idea.

E. J. didn’t sign for the $20 grand. Even though I’d never met him before, I was proud of E. J. He planned to wait things out and focus his efforts on his place in Lakeview. Like everyone else here, it’s all he can do: wait and distract himself in the meantime.

So I’ve been shoveling dirt. And I would have offered E. J. some, seeing as his Chalmette soil will be leaking oil for years to come, but he’d already been ribbing me about my manual labor. “Your man should be doin’ that,” he told me, nodding towards the wheelbarrow.

I said that I didn’t mind, that it kept me in shape. “Aw, come on,” E. J. said, trying to be my friend. “You shouldn’t be workin’ like that.”

He pointed to the low-rent section of the neighborhood behind my house. “Get one a’ dem niggers over there to do it,” he mumbled, hiding the words in his mouth.

here comes Santa Claus

Christmas is here as much as it's going to be here, says me. Bob and I were walking the pups Saturday night when we spied a big hoo-ha going on at the Catholic school on the bayou. Spotlights were flashing and a crowd had assembled.

As usual, I wanted to go towards the crowd and Bob wanted to move away from it. So he stayed on the edge while I, accompanied by my trusty dog Maggy, ventured into the fray. We found a bunch of schoolkids and their parents watching a small girls' choir singing Xmas songs. Their voices were fairly weak but pretty. Maggy got plenty of attention from the kids who all wanted to pet her--Pyro, like his daddy, prefers to stay out of the limelight.

Then I heard the emcee announce that Santa was coming down the bayou in his pirogue. (For you un-Cajun types, a pirogue is the swampland term for a canoe) He's kidding, I said to myself, as such a sight would be too strange even for New Orleans.

Of course I was wrong. For what to my wandering eyes did appear but five canoes floating down the bayou clear. Decked with red and green Christmas lights, the canoes came single file, the last one towing a boat where Jolly Old St. Nick sat! Like the rest of the crowd, Maggy and I moved to the shore to greet Santa. Strangely, Santa didn't have any toys in his boat, but a child next to me said that Santa was coming to take orders. We'd have to wait until Christmas Eve for our toys. With Santa's shaky disembarkment from his pirogue, though, I was a little worried about getting my toys. For if Santa fell into the soup, surely he'd get eaten by a gator and Christmas would be destroyed. Fortunately, the old guy made it safely. He staggered up to the mike, a little winded from his excursion, and the emcee had to remind him to wish the crowd a Merry Christmas, but Santa was on the bayou and that's what counts.

On our way home, we wandered by Chad and Michael's house. Another surprise--they finally got their FEMA trailer! It had towels, blankets, dishes: the works! They weren't supposed to use it, as they were instructed to wait for another FEMA subcontractor to hook up the electricity, but an extension cord fixed that dilemma. (Did you know it takes 4 different crews to install a trailer? No wonder no one has them yet.) I believe they're going to have a trailer-warming soon, so I've been scouring the trash for cans of Campbells' Cream of Mushroom for a trailerworthy recipe. No luck yet, but the Red Cross did bring Jello for lunch, which I'm saving for their party.

It was an evening of miracles. My only concern now is that Santa can get to us in Vermont, where Bobby and I will be on Christmas Eve. Will his pirogue filled with toys be able to navigate through the snow? Let's pray that Santa has a backup plan.

niggaz in the hood

Oh. Lord.

So here we are, living amongst the garbage, trying to make do without heat or phone or internet service--I'm slowly spending my life savings at coffee shops just to check my email--and we're adapting the best we can. Just when I think things might be okay, as I'm selling cards and collecting eggs and not getting overwhelmed by depression, I get this slap in the face one morning:

We have friends living a few blocks away from us, across the street from a black woman who's "devacuated" and is back at home. This week, someone not only stole her Christmas lights but smeared dog shit on her car and left her a note saying that half the niggers have left this block--you need to get out too. Or something to that effect.

Now many things pain me about living down South, and I admit that racists live everywhere, but at least where I come from, if you don't like black people, you stay away from them and that's it. With these dogshit-and-scare-note-tactics, however, I feel like I'm trapped in some bad afterschool special on racism. I mean, who does this sort of thing? Was the perpetrator someone who'd lived here before the storm and feeling bold now that there are fewer black people around? Or--and this scares me more--was the perpetrator a newcomer, attracted to the idea of a newer, whiter New Orleans?

Either way, if you are reading this, you feces-fondling facist, please hang yourself from a tree so that the rest of us can get on with recoloring our city. Not that there's any chance of you reading my humble little blog, but you never know. Bob's planning on mounting a surveillance camera, so if you come back, we'll find you and stuff you so full of white-bread-soaked-in-mayo that you'll be puking up white. Afterwards, you'll get to find out how this angry white lady plans to use a flaming cross on your behind.

Yes, yes, I'm trying to learn to be compassionate, etc. and even have compassion for the angry and disillusioned. But really, folks, I've got to stand tough on hate crimes in the hood. And inthe meantime, I'm going to bring our neighbor some flowers.

Speaking of frightening infiltrations, this will be the first Mardi Gras ever to get corporate sponsorship. As down as I am on taking ugly money, Mardi Gras has got to roll. So this year, we'll be wearing Nike shoes to the parades, drinking Bacardi and Coca-Cola, and wearing Pampers so we won't have to use the ad-plastered Port-A-Lets. The upside, though, is the potential for costuming--breasts emblazoned with corporate logos? Buttocks bearing Budweiser branding?

For more enlightened commentary on topics New Orleans, check out my friend Dale's blog, at:

floodandloathing.blogspot.com

And keep an eye out for white supremacists carrying smelly garbage bags....

the birthday blog

Funny--no matter how much computer experience one has, the machine is still in charge. I'd just penned several paragraphs and suddenly, thanks to one stray keystroke, they're gone. So today, on my 32nd birthday, my computer reminds me that nothing is permanent, ever.

Last night we gorged on Italian food with my birthday buddy, Cat, and her husband Joe. Cat turned 32 on Dec 1, so we decided to split the difference and celebrate our birhtdays on the 2nd. Nothing like good Italian food to make one feel fatter and older. :) And for dessert, I turned Cat on to Nocello, giving her the gift of knowledge of a damn festive liquer.

My birthdays have become so much happier now that I've given up on the reciprocity principle--giving gifts with the expectation of receiving them in return. It never works that way, so why pretend? And why not just give gifts for the joy of it? Besides, I've pulled so many treasures out of the trash in the last few months that I already feel abundant with stuff. Fortunately, I've stopped measuring my friends' love for me on what gets wrapped up and handed over. What a relief. We were raised in a very gifty household, where we were always encouraged to give a lot, and if you were uncertain, go ahead and pick up a little something. I'm glad we were raised that way, except for the downside: so hard not to judge others who aren't as generous. Or to measure generosity in material terms, when giving takes so many forms.

A little food for thought as Christmas descends upon us. Raise your hand if you're tired of Christmas, the buying and the wrapping, and the parties and the cards. Stand up and do it differently this year! Give yourself the gift of leisure! Jesus would want it that way! Trust me, as a fellow Decemberite, I've got a pretty good handle on how Our Lord likes His birthday. Instead of going to the mall, take your cash to small businesses, local artists, or the homeless shelter. Adopt a kitten and use it as an excuse to duck out of the festivities. What's more festive than a kitten and some Xmas ribbon?

Bob and I are trying to be festive. We've got our cards and will be at Festivus For the Rest of Us (yes, ripped off from Seinfeld) next week to sell our wares. I decorated a palm tree and put it in our livingroom. I hung a few ornaments on the bamboo plants I rescued from the office. And we're flying to Vermont, to keep the snow in Christmas. There will be a new baby and a six-year-old, so we're hoping Santa will show up. (I know I said I didn't care about gifts, but I beat the jolly fat man at cards and he owes me $50 which better show up Xmas morning....)

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to process this whole post-Katrina world, and rebuild the garden, and tend to my chickens, and stay sane. Also, now that I've gotten over 10 donated yoga mats, I'm ready for my next venture: Yoga Relief. Take note, locals: I'm offering FREE yoga classes at my house on Ursulines on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 5 pm. Bring a mat if you have one. Bring water. Wear clothing which allows you to be flexible. Be patient, as I'm not an experienced teacher, just a willing one.

This year, my birthday wish is to be focused and follow through with my goals. I've been feeling so scattered, like my chickens, pecking all over the place in hopes of finding something tasty. Today, I resolve to follow one dream at a time. And I send out great thanks to my mother, who not only went to all the trouble to birth me, but also taught me that I'm not allowed to quit. So stay tuned, dear friends: stay tuned. In the meantime, have yourself a happy birthday!