In trying to keep with my narrative that the blame for this lies mostly with the insensitivity of the city's institutions.. NOPD in particular... might I recommend the latest Offbeat for Katy Reckdahl's article on the antagonism displayed by the police toward local parading organizations.
A snippet:
The NOPD’s role in these parades needs clarification, says Louisiana State University anthropology professor Helen Regis, a member of the task force who has written about second-line culture. The sirens at the Family Ties parade were not an isolated incident, she says. “All second-line parades have at least one dirge to honor members of the club who have passed since they last paraded.” Often, when the parade slows, the NOPD escorts get impatient and switch on their sirens, ruining the dirge. “Why is it up to the police to determine the pace of these traditional, sacred events?” Regis asks.
There seems to be hostility toward the second-line tradition, she says. Regis says that it’s “not unusual” for squad cars at the tail end of the parade to hit pedestrians. Some cars, she says, drive up and push paraders with their bumpers; Regis herself has had her foot rolled over at a parade. “It’s difficult for me to understand as an observer if this is due to individual officers’ behavior or general police policy,” she says. NOPD’s Johnson says that he knows of no such contact and emphasizes that, in general, officers have respect for the clubs and any other group they escort.
In her academic work, Regis argues that each club, whether it be made up of 60-year-olds or 20-year-olds, is expressing what it means to be black in New Orleans today. “When the NOPD interferes in unnecessary ways,” she says, “they’re interfering with that expression.”
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