I started reading Sean Payton's book, Home Team, last night. It begins with an intro set during the few days after the Saints' Superbowl win, focusing on their victory parade. Payton manages to capture the essence of New Orleanians in a raving, appreciative manner that you will hear from every New Orleans resident from time to time. When something good -- or even something bad-- happens to bring the people of this city together, it is unlike anywhere else on Earth.
This is a city that celebrates (with cocktails) funerals and tropical storms and pretty much anything else worth thinking about. It is an emotional place where people feel truly connected to each other and to the culture and heritage of the region. It is a place that you absolutely cannot describe to an outsider without washing it out and dumbing it down to the point where it is unrecognizable. Yet, I feel that many of the people who live here have an extremely volatile love-hate relationship with their city.
For years, I have been answering the question of whether I plan to stay in New Orleans in the same manner. "For a while, but I don't want to raise kids here," I would say. Now that I am just months from giving birth to my first child, this answer is not really satisfactory. My plans regarding my New Orleanian citizenship have been brought to the forefront, and I am forced to reexamine what it is I love, and absolutely hate, about my home of the past six years.
An easy explanation for my reticence to raise children here is simply the desire to give my kids everything I had as a child. I was, quite frankly, blessed with an extremely rosy childhood which I would be proud to approximate for my own kids. It is easy for me to imagine raising a few kids in a big house in the rural suburbs where public schools routinely send students to the best universities in the country. I can picture my kids running around on a few acres of land with a bunch of dogs and maybe a pony or two and venturing into the nearby city for weekend outings to the National Museum of [fill in the blank]. I imagine most well-raised parents are motivated to give their children the same upbringing that they themselves experienced. That's not rocket science.
However, I do not think that explanation acceptably addresses my emotional relationship with New Orleans. The few times that I have been away from Southeast Louisiana for extended periods of time since first moving here in 2004, I have missed the city desperately. When I was younger, a lot of the pain I felt at being separated from New Orleans could honestly be explained by the simple fact that it is a hell of a lot harder to party underage anywhere else. That may be a sad and simple explanation, but there it is. Now that I have been comfortably above the legal drinking age for a few years, I find that there are other things to miss about New Orleans as well. The small town friendliness, the heaping pots of boiled seafood, the crashing choruses of "Who Dat! Who Dat!": all of these are just tiny swatches in the quilt that is the beauty of New Orleans.
The problem is that the flip side of that quilt is ugly and torn, and there doesn't seem to be a decent seamstress in sight. This is a city with appalling violent crime rates and an even more appallingly low rate of conviction. The impoverished sections of the New Orleans population often do not even consider cooperating with the police in investigations. There have been DAs in New Orleans' past who brought only 30% of violent criminals to trial and then convicted only 30% of those (cough Eddie Jordan cough). The 30% indictment rate is not unusual. Everywhere else, though, 80% of the cases DAs see fit to try go down in favor of the state. The criminal justice system is so broken here that, looking at our crime and prosecution statistics in comparison to those of other major cities, one might think that New Orleans' files were full of typos.
Similarly, the educational system here is a disgrace. Steps are being taken to improve that situation, and I give props to everyone tackling that monster. Still, the simple fact is that anyone here who is educated and even comfortable financially does not send their child to public school. It is not even a question. Asking an employed, especially white, parent which public school their child will be attending is as ludicrous here as it would be in the richest homes in Manhattan. I mention race here only because an awareness of racial division permeates everything in New Orleans. I don't want to go into this issue at length at the moment, but I have never experienced ingrained, institutionalized racism anywhere else like I have in New Orleans. It's alarming.
Finally, there is a sense of defeatism here that makes me feel like screaming sometimes. All of the flaws that I mentioned above seem to be things that true New Orleans natives view as unalterable. They are used to disappointment and neglect. The lack of government response after Katrina and the horrible response to the recent BP oil spill were outrageous. People here were angry, but you'd better bet they weren't surprised. The people of New Orleans are tired of being neglected, ignored, and killed in gang violence, but more than that, they are tired of caring and fighting. The same people who can celebrate for days after a Saints victory and who hold their heads so high when talking about their culture walk around day to day with their tails between their legs. They are a wonderful, passionate people whom I have grown to love and identify with, but quite frankly, their standards are not high enough. There is a difference between easy living and a complacence in shit, and I think a lot of New Orleanians have lost the ability to make that distinction.
Still, I love this place. I love the lazy Sundays, the live oaks, the big brass bands. I wish every city could have our corner bars and our mom and pop restaurants. Everyone should experience crawfish boils and the soul-crushing madness that is the fuzzy line between Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. I love too many things about New Orleans to do it justice in writing. That is another frustrating thing about this place: it can't be described to outsiders, and once you are away, it feels vaguely like a dream.
So, should my kids grow up here? I'm still leaning towards no. I'd rather give them a home with some grass to play in and a public school where the level of education and discipline is reasonable. Frankly, I want my kids to be safe, accepting, and full of fresh air. I want them to pass some AP tests and climb some trees. But that's not to say New Orleans won't have a place in our life. Maybe it can be the city to which we venture on the weekends. Instead of the National museums, they can grow up knowing every corner of the Audubon Centers and the countless art exhibits in this town. Maybe they will grow up listening to jazz on Saturdays and know how to say "throw me somethin' mister!" by the time they can complete full sentences. It's possible I've come too far in my sordid love affair with this city to deny my children an acquaintance with it.
Then again, Annapolis and other such places often sound pretty good. And that's the great thing about life isn't it? Sometimes you just don't know, and usually that's OK.
This is a city that celebrates (with cocktails) funerals and tropical storms and pretty much anything else worth thinking about. It is an emotional place where people feel truly connected to each other and to the culture and heritage of the region. It is a place that you absolutely cannot describe to an outsider without washing it out and dumbing it down to the point where it is unrecognizable. Yet, I feel that many of the people who live here have an extremely volatile love-hate relationship with their city.
For years, I have been answering the question of whether I plan to stay in New Orleans in the same manner. "For a while, but I don't want to raise kids here," I would say. Now that I am just months from giving birth to my first child, this answer is not really satisfactory. My plans regarding my New Orleanian citizenship have been brought to the forefront, and I am forced to reexamine what it is I love, and absolutely hate, about my home of the past six years.
An easy explanation for my reticence to raise children here is simply the desire to give my kids everything I had as a child. I was, quite frankly, blessed with an extremely rosy childhood which I would be proud to approximate for my own kids. It is easy for me to imagine raising a few kids in a big house in the rural suburbs where public schools routinely send students to the best universities in the country. I can picture my kids running around on a few acres of land with a bunch of dogs and maybe a pony or two and venturing into the nearby city for weekend outings to the National Museum of [fill in the blank]. I imagine most well-raised parents are motivated to give their children the same upbringing that they themselves experienced. That's not rocket science.
However, I do not think that explanation acceptably addresses my emotional relationship with New Orleans. The few times that I have been away from Southeast Louisiana for extended periods of time since first moving here in 2004, I have missed the city desperately. When I was younger, a lot of the pain I felt at being separated from New Orleans could honestly be explained by the simple fact that it is a hell of a lot harder to party underage anywhere else. That may be a sad and simple explanation, but there it is. Now that I have been comfortably above the legal drinking age for a few years, I find that there are other things to miss about New Orleans as well. The small town friendliness, the heaping pots of boiled seafood, the crashing choruses of "Who Dat! Who Dat!": all of these are just tiny swatches in the quilt that is the beauty of New Orleans.
The problem is that the flip side of that quilt is ugly and torn, and there doesn't seem to be a decent seamstress in sight. This is a city with appalling violent crime rates and an even more appallingly low rate of conviction. The impoverished sections of the New Orleans population often do not even consider cooperating with the police in investigations. There have been DAs in New Orleans' past who brought only 30% of violent criminals to trial and then convicted only 30% of those (cough Eddie Jordan cough). The 30% indictment rate is not unusual. Everywhere else, though, 80% of the cases DAs see fit to try go down in favor of the state. The criminal justice system is so broken here that, looking at our crime and prosecution statistics in comparison to those of other major cities, one might think that New Orleans' files were full of typos.
Similarly, the educational system here is a disgrace. Steps are being taken to improve that situation, and I give props to everyone tackling that monster. Still, the simple fact is that anyone here who is educated and even comfortable financially does not send their child to public school. It is not even a question. Asking an employed, especially white, parent which public school their child will be attending is as ludicrous here as it would be in the richest homes in Manhattan. I mention race here only because an awareness of racial division permeates everything in New Orleans. I don't want to go into this issue at length at the moment, but I have never experienced ingrained, institutionalized racism anywhere else like I have in New Orleans. It's alarming.
Finally, there is a sense of defeatism here that makes me feel like screaming sometimes. All of the flaws that I mentioned above seem to be things that true New Orleans natives view as unalterable. They are used to disappointment and neglect. The lack of government response after Katrina and the horrible response to the recent BP oil spill were outrageous. People here were angry, but you'd better bet they weren't surprised. The people of New Orleans are tired of being neglected, ignored, and killed in gang violence, but more than that, they are tired of caring and fighting. The same people who can celebrate for days after a Saints victory and who hold their heads so high when talking about their culture walk around day to day with their tails between their legs. They are a wonderful, passionate people whom I have grown to love and identify with, but quite frankly, their standards are not high enough. There is a difference between easy living and a complacence in shit, and I think a lot of New Orleanians have lost the ability to make that distinction.
Still, I love this place. I love the lazy Sundays, the live oaks, the big brass bands. I wish every city could have our corner bars and our mom and pop restaurants. Everyone should experience crawfish boils and the soul-crushing madness that is the fuzzy line between Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. I love too many things about New Orleans to do it justice in writing. That is another frustrating thing about this place: it can't be described to outsiders, and once you are away, it feels vaguely like a dream.
So, should my kids grow up here? I'm still leaning towards no. I'd rather give them a home with some grass to play in and a public school where the level of education and discipline is reasonable. Frankly, I want my kids to be safe, accepting, and full of fresh air. I want them to pass some AP tests and climb some trees. But that's not to say New Orleans won't have a place in our life. Maybe it can be the city to which we venture on the weekends. Instead of the National museums, they can grow up knowing every corner of the Audubon Centers and the countless art exhibits in this town. Maybe they will grow up listening to jazz on Saturdays and know how to say "throw me somethin' mister!" by the time they can complete full sentences. It's possible I've come too far in my sordid love affair with this city to deny my children an acquaintance with it.
Then again, Annapolis and other such places often sound pretty good. And that's the great thing about life isn't it? Sometimes you just don't know, and usually that's OK.
