Sunday, June 12, 2011

Refreshing honesty

One thing Chalmette has that our New Orleans elites lack.
Here's hoping we can all agree that "racist" is the only appropriate label for the person who spray painted "NO NIGGERS" at a Chalmette construction site for affordable apartments. Ditto for the man who called Provident Realty Advisors' Dallas headquarters and left a voice mail begging the developer to reconsider its plan to "build a nigger project in St. Bernard Parish."


Jarvis goes on to describe the disingenuous alternative approach to opposing the apartments which he implies is the more mainstream tack in the Parish although I'm not so sure about that.
Whenever I've engaged with such people, I've found myself wondering if they've invested as much time and energy opposing the racists they say live among them as they have opposing the construction of these apartments. Or is it that they are more comfortable living among racists than they would be living near apartments for the working poor?
This "I'm not racist but.." hostility to affordable housing is the more common flavor over in Orleans where we're all a bit more sophisticated if not quite so honest.

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