The Mayor and God

As reported by CNN, these are the words of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin in a recent speech on MLK Day: “God is mad at America, in part because he does not approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. He is sending hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it is destroying and putting stress on this country.” Does this mean that Nagin has aligned himself with Pat Robertson in pronouncing every terrible weather phenomenon as a sign of God’s disapproval resulting in horrible circumstances accruing to God’s wrath and afflicting the appropriate people? Would Nagin also consider the tsunami of December 2004 a sign of God’s wrath – 200,000 dead in the Indonesia area – and, if so, what would he consider their awful collective sin in deserving that punishment? Or, what about the earthquake in Pakistan?

Nagin is running for reelection in April and so may be excused for trying to energize his base in a city that has become much more white than it was before Katrina. He also said some tough things about blacks, but insisted that New Orleans must remain “chocolate.” Again according to CNN, his words: “This city will be chocolate at the end of the day … This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be.” This is the sort of arrogance, coupled with extreme criticism of the federal government operating under tremendously trying circumstances handling a catastrophe of proportions undreamed of last August, not to mention that it was doing this in a constricted time-frame encompassing two other destructive hurricanes, that speaks poorly of a government official. Nagin’s words: “How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about.” That definition fits every city in the country, so what’s special about New Orleans?

It’s high time that government officials either watch what they say or say nothing. Nagin is annoyed because a huge segment of the black evacuees from New Orleans have indicated that they do not plan to return. These people are probably not property owners and so have no interest in trying to live in wrecked housing that will remain wrecked for a very long time in a city that could go under the water again, in any case. Many, if not most, are on various types of government welfare and have discovered that they can collect checks no matter where they are. In addition, New Orleans has a record of being unbelievably unsafe with a government steeped in corruption.

The tens of millions of dollars being thrown at New Orleans to benefit a tiny fraction of the nation’s populace and industry seem an unseemly waste, in the first place. Relocation is eminently more sensible for the people and reasonable for the government. Restoring the city to any kind of previous condition, if at all possible, will take years and years. Indeed, one could hope that the city would not be restored to that condition, in the first place.

If Nagin thinks God is mad about Iraq, one wonders what he thinks God feels when viewing the unbelievably gross exercises of Mardi Gras.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark