Monday, January 11, 2010

I'd like to apologize to James Perry

For the longest time I've viewed Perry's campaign as less an actual attempt at becoming Mayor and more as a networking project for the "candidate" to parlay into some sort of well-compensated but benevolent enough sounding advocacy and/or punditry position on the national professional do-gooder circuit. And because of this, I never really considered Perry a "serious" candidate for Mayor of New Orleans. Of course, I still think those things about Perry but I feel compelled qualify the "un-serious" label with the question, well if that's "un-serious" then what the hell do you call John Georges?


Georges rejected the notion that the growth of the city's biggest suburb was driven by desegregation of city schools and other racial anxieties.

"Why does Jefferson Parish exist? Why do people leave this city? You call it 'white flight.' How about the failed taxing policies of the Landrieus?" he offered. "Moon Landrieu's policies. People moved to Jefferson Parish because property taxes were lower."

Asked if there wasn't a racial motivation for some, he said: "No. Come on. You really think people think like that? No. They moved because of fear of crime and property taxes."


Wait. I'm going to try and type this just to see if I can. John Georges, in a speech intended to curry favor with black voters in New Orleans, having just recently declared himself "an African-American candidate" in an interview with the L.A. Times CORRECTION: Associated Press article, presented us with the very novel theory that the nationwide demographic phenomenon known as "white flight" had less to do with race than "the taxing policies of the Landrieus".

Got it?

I'm not sure I do. I'll type this one more time. Georges on race and 20th Century urban migration patterns: "You really think people think like that?"

Okay.

Wow.

Again, we've already used up "un-serious" What exactly do we call this?

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