Ray Nagin and Chocolate?
By: Veronica Kettler
Chocolate
What comes to mind when you think of chocolate? Perhaps Godiva, or even Hershey’s? Both of which get the most discriminating pallet all warmed up. Recently, searches popular in the charts are not the famous chocolate brands but New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Yes that’s right!
So what does chocolate and Ray Nagin have to do with each other? Oblivion comes to mind, and bittersweet. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin made two startling statements in his intonated utterance. Although he has already apologized for his recent dynastical statement on re-building a “ chocolate New Orleans” and saying, “You can’t have New Orleans no other way．” he also said, “I’m really sorry that some people took that they way they did, And that was not my intention，”. “I say everybody’s welcome.” He also said I should have never used the term “chocolate.”
Even if he did not mean the comments to be inflammatory, they were, and plain reveres discrimination. Those before us have fought, pleaded and died in their effort to throw away labels like differencing between one another, class, ethnic backgrounds etc. Now when Mr. Mayor of the new modern century comes in with remarks like “We are chocolate”, referencing to African Americans. His statement does nothing but demote himself, and his race.
He stated his intentions were to try and encourage the city’s poor population to return. I am going to just state the obvious here, but if his intentions was to emphases mixing chocolate with white milk, translation: hoping Caucasians and African Americans will work together to re-build New Orleans. Would it have been better to use the Oreo Cookie ideology?
On Monday, Nagin said “God wanted New Orleans to be primarily black and said he didn’t care what the predominantly white Uptown section of the city had to say about it.” Nagin also said, “We as a people need to fix ourselves first.” In another statement Nagain said, “Why do our young men hate each other so much that they look their brother in the face and they will take a gun and kill him in cold blood?”
Now did he just contradict himself in the same speech? Ok, so I understand this correctly he wants all races to get together and work to together on building a New Orleans, yet he does not give an assiduousness care about what the white Uptown section has to say about it. Yet he stands by his statement “We as a people need to fix ourselves first”?
So making light of the serious blooper he made, should all the white Uptown folks get a tan, and the black lower poor part of town do what Michael Jackson did? Weather good intentions were meant or not I wonder if Ray can really weather the hurricane he just re-created.
VÉRONIQUE MARIE KETTLER` is Editor-in-Chief for She Unlimited Magazine. http://www.sheunlimited.com and heads up the community at http://www.sheunlimited.com/forums
Marie also contributes to various magazines and newspapers.
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