Hi everyone. My name’s Mark. I’m a freshman and
I’m from New Orleans.
That’s one of the most painful lines I can utter these
days. Say it in a small group setting and a gasp goes up around the
room. Silence. Then, tremulously: “Wow, um … wow. I’m
so sorry. Um … how’s that going for you?”
Well, to be honest, it’s been better. Not every day does
your city get turned into a lake, y’know? But hey, it
happens. You deal.
Many people approach it as though my child has just died in a
horrible car accident and they’re bringing me the news. I can
imagine their thoughts: “What will he say? How will he react?
Will he fly into a rage? Will he break down sobbing?”
It’s understandable that they’d fear the subject, but
such suffocating political correctness only hurts where it tries to
help. It chokes off any real sympathy.
Come on guys. I know full well what happened. I watched CNN
religiously as Katrina hit land. And I’ve been home;
I’ve seen the destruction. Let’s be honest ““ New
Orleans is devastated.
No media you read, hear or see can possibly convey what’s
happened to my city. Driving through those flooded neighborhoods is
like being pummeled in the stomach, each sight a fresh blow. Cars
stand stacked atop one another; husks of houses teeter, gutted by
floodwaters; entire structures have been moved down the street or
smashed to matchsticks. Every house has a waterline showing how
much it was flooded ““ sometimes, as high as the second story.
At sections of the broken levees, the concrete wall is missing
entirely, while at others, it’s merely ruptured. Steel rebar
juts out of the concrete, twisted and shorn, writhing like an angry
nest of snakes. Though the papers attribute the levees’
failure to shoddy construction ““ not to the strength of the
storm ““ it’s hard not to be awed by forces that can
twist steel and tear concrete like paper. It’s ugly.
It’s very, very ugly.
And yet, despite all the horrendous destruction, all the pain,
suffering and tears, the best response I’ve ever received on
informing a new acquaintance that indeed I am from New Orleans was
simply this: “Do you still have a house?”
Hallelujah.
Such rare, genuine, refreshing honesty! Such a refusal to avert
one’s eyes, to hang one’s head, to let it all wash over
with nary a whimper.
Maybe it’s a cultural difference. People don’t seem
aware that, tied up with the jouissance and joie de vivre of New
Orleans ““ with Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, bare breasts and
all ““ is a gleeful defiance of death that reveals itself in
the city’s oldest traditions. Witness Mardi Gras itself. At
its heart the tradition has far more to do with affirming life and
defying death. Mardi Gras says Carpe diem!
Witness the t-shirts available at any roadside shop in
post-Katrina, New Orleans. One, in imitation of the “got
milk?” ads, reads “got fema?” Another features a
grainy map of hurricanes Wilma, Rita and Katrina, and says
“Girls Gone Wild: Hurricane Season 2005.” Yet another,
in reference to the looting in the aftermath of the storm, reads,
“I stayed for hurricane Katrina and all I got was this lousy
t-shirt, a new Cadillac and a plasma-screen TV.”
Politically incorrect? Yes, of course. Honest? Yes, beautifully
so. That’s what makes them so refreshing. They inject some
honesty into an atmosphere so hazed and confused by political
correctness that all meaning becomes lost.
Let’s keep it meaningful instead. Don’t be afraid or
shy. You can look me in the eye and tell me how much the Katrina
situation sucks, how awful the destruction and diaspora wrought by
the storm are, because believe me, I know. I’ve been
there.
So come on, let’s talk. I won’t bite.
Honest.
Holden is a student at Columbia University and writes for
the Columbia Daily Spectator.