Gentilly Girl- a part of the 99%

April 12, 2010

More of the Hate

Filed under: Federal Flood,New Orleans,Racism — Morwen Madrigal @ 5:57 am

More about the vigilantes who ran roughshod over folk after the Federal Flood in Algiers.

I have no words for what I’m feeling right now. No way to quiet the screaming of my soul over shit like this.

February 18, 2009

City Charter Changes- Battle Lines Are Being Drawn/Racist Dawn

Note- (I’ve been very concerned about certain issues in the City that could prove to only deepen the divide between Black New Orleanians and the rest of us. There seems to be a form of “mentality” (termed loosely) that that expresses an air of “entitlement” which excludes all of those others that call themselves Natives or those who see our place as their home. As a descendant of Native French Creoles, Free People of Color, Haitians and Islenos, I am horrified.  As a defender of the United States’ Constitution and the Social Contract I am sick to my soul. Being a child of the Civil Rights Era and all that it promised, I am agast.

The Louisiana Ministerial Alliance of Churches for All People types desire to set up a reverse Apartheid in order to maintain their voice and control. Many of their churches own different types of property, some not in compliance with Law, but it can easily funnel monies into their coffers for their racist war.

This is not what was meant by “Equality”. This nowhere comes close to being a land where we all work together in order to promote the concept of living in Wholeness… )

I have been receiving the New Orleans Agenda for quite some time and could never really get anything much useful out of it. In fact, often I saw it as a racist attack on the non-Black folks of the city.

This came in today via the Agenda. Its an open letter to the Mayor-

Dear Mr. Mayor, Let ice water flow through your veins. You have learned many hard earned lessons about the ruthlessness of evil and you are fighting the good fight.
You are protecting the interest and power of a 60% African American electorate against an onslaught of temporary white power created by the elections right after Katrina. This four to three Confederate clique on the city council is an imbalance to the demographics of the city and an anomaly. It will never happen again. The “At large” seats will always be split, one black and one white. Districts B, C, D and E are all likely to return to African American control, but for the next two years you must preserve and defend your ability to insure participation of qualified DBE and African American owned companies in this recovery against this onslaught which is really about denying you that.
Trust that all across America, you are a wonder, and they are the clowns, even though local media which shares the white power agenda avoids touting the amazing work that you and your administration has done, even while under siege. The world is back in New Orleans, and they can see that we are extremely functional, and the cranes are rising.
Sometimes even folk in New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward forget that in preserving their rights to return and rebuild you denied the white power move to turn “our space” into “green space” and you enraged those who didn’t want them back. In insuring the inclusion of the East and lower nine in the recovery, you created a greater challenge for your administration. It would have been easier and perhaps you would be better loved by the children of the Confederacy, but fortunately, your bold and courageous stand has maintained the rights of our people to return to their property and lifestyles and citizenship in our city, and that’s the part that makes the white power people stoop to these constant and petty attacks on your administration that have achieved nothing, except headlines.
If they don’t railroad you into letting them control the contracts, they know you will keep the door open for the development of real wealth and power in the hands of independent African Americans, like you did with the sanitation contracts, and that’s too much freedom (power) for the children of former slaves.
I also appreciate the fact that you cannot run for reelection, but are fighting for our interest anyway.
Lloyd Dennis”

(Lloyd Dennis has city contracts- via Big Red Cotton.)

This guy is a nutcase.
He sees the entire social equation of our city as a group of tribal organizations instead of a coalition of people living under the Social Contract. He wants to divvy up the various neighborhoods to different “tribes” as if the land belonged ONLY to one ethnic group. (the constant revenge killings are the logical outcome of just this sort of skewed thinking- tribal warfare)
I see this as a form of racial segregation from the very group that wished to not be seen as separate from the Whole circa 1955. It is a stepping backwards, not a moving forward. Segregation instead of desegregation. It can only lead to a condition of slow decline and stagnation.  In other words, they dig the ghetto deeper and thereby entrap the young from growth, exploration and expansion of their lives from that of the Past. These young will never be allowed to enter the 21st Century and the promises it makes for one to achieve their God/dess-given possibilities.

This will be the result if we cannot get the City Charter changed to a more equitable power sharing between the City Council and the Mayor’s Administration. For those of us with a more modern mindset the thought of living under a “tribal ruler” is abhorrent. It goes against the spirit of the Constitution. It is treason to the spirit of this country.

We have a derelict property problem and one of non-profit ownership of some properties that does not conform to Federal laws concerning use of said properties. Our society is being “used”.

They scorn and harm the LGBT tribes even though they are your children. They discard that little bit of their culture that actually attempts to achieve something beyond wherefrom they spring. They hate those who escape the mindless lockstep of a culture that is on the edge of the abyss when it comes to it’s demise. They hate the fact that their children chose freedom of thought over the banality of a dead culture.

And lastly for now, the Ministerial Alliance is now going after U.S. Rep. Joe Cao for his vote on the recent Stimulus Bill, even though there wasn’t anything of import for East New Orleans. This is not about the voting, but about the fact that the Ministerial crowd cannot continence the thought of a US Rep that is not Black. This is blatant racism, no question.

They wish a kingdom within the midst of a Republic… this cannot stand. They wish to be seen as Priest-kings ruling their little regions. That is not what this Republic is about. We have no Priest-kings, we have ourselves and our representatives to a government that is responsible to the All, the future and honor of an united Nation. None are left behind but those who choose to remain in the Past.

The Past is just that- the past. This is the 21st Century and it’s time to embrace the hopes and possibilities that are at hand. Living in the 19th Century no longer counts as “living”. We are a polyglot culture that can celebrate our commonality and the specifics that belong to our various cultures. We no longer must separate ourselves from the Whole.

Welcome to the new New Orleans.

Now tell me what you think please?

December 21, 2008

I Want Justice

Filed under: Crime,New Orleans,Racism — Morwen Madrigal @ 1:46 pm

Another piece from Alternet on the happenings around Algiers Point post-Katrina.

I have seen many horrible things in my life- killings of street walkers in Bangkok, the Klan burning a  Black teenager at the stake, poor people beat to death in Mombasa, but this tale rips my heart out.

December 20, 2008

This Crap Is Getting Deeper

Filed under: New Orleans,Racism — Morwen Madrigal @ 7:27 pm

Lately I have mentioned this report, but things keep getting deeper.

Here’s the latest from Alternet.

December 19, 2008

I Hope This Isn’t True, But I Believe It Is

Filed under: American Culture,New Orleans,Racism — Morwen Madrigal @ 11:19 pm

I’ve been hearing rumors about this, but someone like me, if the Nation publishes it, I must believe it.

There was similar shit like this after Camille hit the Mississippi Coast back in ’69. It fit into things my father had to deal with as part of Civil Defense. (Same crap happened to us when he organized the garbage strike in Mobile.)

A rational person, or a good-hearted one, would assume that 40+ years after the Civil Rights Act was signed shit like this doesn’t happen.

No wonder my tribes face so much violence.

November 17, 2008

I Lost an Idol Today…

Filed under: Aside,Elitism,Fools,Fuckmooks,Gore Vidal,Insanity,Racism — Morwen Madrigal @ 2:05 am

This piece was started days ago, but I kept arguing with myself about finishing it. Much of my belief system stems from what I learned from this man, but only now do I see that my hero has feet of clay…

I lost a beloved hero today- Gore Vidal. In an interview with Andrew Gumbel who asked him about Obama as president, Vidal replied “Slaves have a hard time making poetry,” he said, relishing the shock factor, “unless it’s got a beat.”

Now Vidal makes pithy statements all of the time. It’s one reason I liked him. He has a wonderful mind and the ability to see through the B/S that befuddle others, but this time he showed his fucking soul- he’s an aristocratic, Racist fuckmook.

“Slaves”? Fuck you and your supposed airs. Fuck the fact that you have perfect diction and a good mind. Fuck the assertion that your forebearers helped “shape” this nation since 1690 (and we have seen where that “shaping” has brought us.). Fuck you for believing that you are the ne plus ultra and the rest of us are chattel.

Believe it or not Mr. Vidal, you are a symptom of the sickness that is “Real America”. Your white-bread roots are not America… those of us who toil each and every day taking care of our lives and families are the true Americans, not your effete “distinguished” bloodlines. Even though you rail away about the classicism of America, you consider yourself to be a Patrician. Sorry Darlin’, you are not. You are not far removed from the Racist rednecks that hang or burn Black folk.

My people have been here in New Orleans since the early 1700′s. My father’s line came over with William Penn to create Philadelphia and Pennsylvania (In fact my ancestor was Penn’s estate manager). My folks were farmers, artisans and fishing people. None of my line were famous, but all of them lived honorable lives. People like them are the true elite of America, not your kind of “elite”. (and no, this is not “Joe the Plumber” shit)

Elitists? I consider my self in that “class”. I am educated, experienced and continue to grow further in that segment of my life. I know much of the World because I have been there, on the ground and in the grind. I have also worked hard to provide service and keep my life together. My life has as it’s main focus to help those who are trying to grow and become, no matter what that entails. I have served my country proudly, but not for the likes of you and yours… I did it for the folks that I truly believe are the heart and soul of America. Often I disagree with them on many social issues, but they have my respect for being just who they are- American folk.

So Mr. Vidal, where the fuck do you get off deriding Barack Obama’s self-made life by that fucking statement, “Slaves have a hard time making poetry, unless it’s got a beat.”? And you consider Harry Truman to be a helot?

You Mr. Vidal, with all the respect that I have left, are just like what my tribes call Triple A Gays- those who look down at most of the community and constantly trashing us. Those mooks couldn’t be bothered to help for the community’s rights, and none of us mattered personally to them. We are just worker bees to the queens. (Examples are evident in the “Tales of the City” series.)

You sir are nothing more than an effete, snobbish, over-educated, connected boor. Yes you know things, many of them, but you come to wrong applications of your knowledge when viewing your fellow Human Beings. I believed that you possesed a spirit that cared for others by telling truth about History and the matters of Culture.

I now know I was wrong. There is something missing from your pronouncements- you hold Humanity in a sense of contempt because we are not you. We are bugs to the likes of your kind. Your kind is the wheat and we are the chaff.

My mother used to say that you can know everything and yet not be wise. Wisdom comes from true experience, not something read in a book or told to you. Wisdom is the harsh gift that comes from facing the daily grind, the murders, deaths from illness and the fight required to live a life in this country. In other words, wisdom comes from real experience, not a slide-show. Life cannot rely just on one’s score on a class exam, it comes from what you do with what you have learned.

And that in turn depends upon the content of your character and the bent of your heart. Remember that we are judged by our works. It ain’t a Bible thing, but a thing those of us who really live use as our guideposts in negotiating the currents of Life. I saw you as a beacon. Now all I see is a shallow, educated  but unknowledgeable fool.

So today we part paths. You just observe, but I live Life. Your sight is only of pages or a screen from your tower… what I see is my hands in the muck and the blood trying to understand and accept it all. The feel, the smell, horror, joy and enjoyment of just being is my gift, but all of those things escape you. The world you inhabit is a fairy place floating in the clouds.

Those of us who live have our feet on the ground.

October 31, 2008

Ignorance = Bliss?

Spare my panty-clad tush. Ignorance is preferable to knowing or at least attempting to “know”?

This explains the whack-job Repugs who are still trying to rule our country. It explains “Voo-Doo” economics, home schooling and the need for a leader to be anointed by some mythical creature. (Yes, a Phouka guards me at all times, but I’d never let him run an entire Nation.) In this day and age people who ascribe to this “Ignorance is Bliss and Sanctity” shit are utter fucking morons. “I have Faith” does not work in a technological world. (In the nuclear Navy some folks just couldn’t get the physics, so the instructors created the “I Believe” button. Thank the Goddess I didn’t have to serve with those fools.)

Don’t get me wrong- I do have faith in people. I have seen this each and every day in my life the goodness, tenacity and heart of many, many folks. They aren’t stupid like the fools that fawn incessantly upon mooks such as McCain and Palin. The folks I like to be around are the ones who actuate themselves and their lives. We may fuck up once in a while, but we can admit the mistake and move forward. The Repug faithful cannot do this- it’s either Fate or an act of God.

So Gentle Readers, where the Hell am I going with this? Well try this one- “The Triumph of Ignorance”.

Here’s a snippet-

“On one level, this is easy to answer: Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. U.S. education, like the U.S. health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on Earth, 1 adult in 5 believes the sun revolves around the Earth; only 26 percent accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of U.S. voters cannot name the three branches of government; and the math skills of 15-year-olds in the United States are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.”

1 in every 5 adults believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth? Sweet zombie Jebus! Didn’t ya’s learn anything from Copernicus or the Space Program? I have no idea how many of these congenital idiots still believe the World is flat. (Psst… for you morons, I’ve sailed the World, She ain’t flat. Never did our ship go over the lip of the plate you think is our world.)

“But this merely extends the mystery: How did so many U.S. citizens become so dumb and so suspicious of intelligence? Susan Jacoby’s book The Age of American Unreason provides the fullest explanation I have read so far. She shows that the degradation of U.S. politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies.

One theme is both familiar and clear: Religion — in particular fundamentalist religion — makes you stupid. The United States is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing.” (My emphasis)

99% of the World’s population does not live in the Middle East. We haven’t witnessed burning bushes or had a volcano god hand us golden tablets. (Or in the case of Mormonism, Joseph Smith having golden tablets dropped on him. That had to hurt.) Our World is not the world of 3,500 B.C.E.. We have toilet paper and ‘puters.

This article stirred an old memory in me. Kept thinking that this had happened before, and yes, I found it- The “Know Nothing” party from the 1850′s. They started in the early 1840′s and merged with the Republican Party in 1860. Here’s Paul Krugman’s assesment of this in current time-

“Economist Paul Krugman, in a New York Times opinion piece dated August 7, 2008, writes

[K]now-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

Though I take umbrage about the fact Krugman uses the term “men”, he’s freakin’ spot-on with his thoughts. As far as being effeminate goes, the saying “being a girl does not mean you’re a pussy” really has to become a mantra of ALL THINKING PEOPLE. The milk-toast mooks who are trying to run our world and lives from their stupid superstitions and fears are just cowards. They aren’t ready to face the World, that multi-cultural, multi-race Tech-driven World. (and tech is what raised us out of the realm of apes, thank you. Well, except for the Chimp-In-Charge.)

It is time for Reason, thoughtfulness and responsibility to become our virtues. “God” has nothing to do with this. If this belief messes with your mind, so be it. I am after all an intellectual, escargot eating Elitist.

October 13, 2008

No More McDonalds For Moi

Last March I was tickled pink (of course) over McDonalds decision to make a donation to the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC. I ended an eight year hiatus of eating their junk food in order to be supportive of the company’s outreach to the LGBT community.

Today I must swear off spending money at McDonalds- They caved to the American Family Association’s (AFA) boycott concerning the “The Big Mac attack on family values.” The Church of Our Lady of Gentilly has now black-listed McDonalds.

I guess that the rabid cross-bearing fanatics eat mainly fast food, because that boycott would not have worked if they frequented these kinds of eateries in a manner which intelligent people do- which is rarely.  These people must be so short on time to home-cook meals due to their rabid attracts on anything/one that does not swallow their Cultural donkey poop.

I guess I’ll just have to wait until clogged arteries and obesity claim the fools at the AFA. (Maybe this is McDonalds secret and cunning plan- kill the Religious Reich by poisoning them. One can only hope…)

October 6, 2008

“Sterilize the Poor” Rep. Bumped From House Committee

Filed under: Fools,Fuckmooks,Insanity,Jefferson Parish,John LaBruzzo,Politicians,Racism — Morwen Madrigal @ 6:23 pm

Well our boy “Eugenics” LaBruzzo over in Jefferson Parish just got spanked for his B/S over his sterilize poor folks on Welfare-

“Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, who created a public furor last month with his proposal to pay poor women to be sterilized, was removed Monday from his position as vice chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee.”

The Fuckmook is getting what he rightly deserves.

September 25, 2008

The Bushites Are At It Again (Same Old Song)

Will these fucking religious fools ever quit with their putrid freakin’ “Beliefs”?

From the ACLU, and do it today-

Subject: 25 days to protect women’s health services

George W. Bush has launched a new assault on birth control and reproductive freedom.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently proposed regulations that could seriously undermine access to basic reproductive health services — including birth control and abortion.

Instead of striking a careful balance between individual religious liberty and patients’ access to reproductive health care, the Bush administration has taken patients’ rights and their health care needs out of the equation.

This far-reaching proposal doesn’t need congressional approval.  But, it can’t go forward without allowing for public comment.  That’s where you come in.

The deadline for public comments is fast approaching — September 25 — and we have to generate intense opposition to these dangerous regulations.

I just sent HHS my comment urging them to stop efforts to block women’s access to basic reproductive health services. You can do the same here:

http://action.aclu.org/hhs_comment

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