Chocolate New Orleans: Anti-Latino rhetoric?

Tue17Jan2006

Chocolate New Orleans: Anti-Latino rhetoric?

18:56 H | Topics: Immigration - Race - Society

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is at it again. He's surfacing now to promote not just the rebuilding of New Orleans (I thought he had moved to Dallas?), but the rebuilding of a "Chocolate New Orleans".

WTF?

"I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day," Nagin said in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech. "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."

Is this continuing along his post-Katrina anti-immigrant line, meaning "chocolate" represents blacks and that he doesn't want any, say, "cinnamon" contaminating his 100% pure dark chocolate confection...er...city? Why try to confuse (or in my case amuse) people with allusions to cacao-based victuals when what you are really saying is NO MEXICANS? I mean you can't be referring to whites because are whites really "invading" your city in a bid to rebuild it?

Nagin quickly corrected his position on candy...or immigration...or something:

"How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about," he said.
"New Orleans was a chocolate city before Katrina. It is going to be a chocolate city after. How is that divisive? It is white and black working together, coming together and making something special."

Via / CNN.com

Katie Couric Tries to Boost Sagging Ratings on the Backs of Immigrant Women (Tuesday, Apr 08 2008)
In the Voice of Immigrant Women : They Wanted to Take Away My Baby (Tuesday, Mar 25 2008)

Jennifer

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1. Maegan la Mala ~ Tuesday, Jan 17 2006 | 19:25H:

I think this just points to the fact how the race iisue continues to be looked at through a strictly black/white spectrum.

2. Jennifer Woodard Maderazo ~ Tuesday, Jan 17 2006 | 20:25H:

Amen. For whatever reason, "race" equals black and white, and every other group is just part of the "immigration problem".

3. sista ~ Wednesday, Jan 18 2006 | 09:52H:

How is it that this modern day sodom and Gomora is suddenly turned into a black & white issue. Duh ! There is a rich diversity of peoples in Louisiana Do you know the ancestry of Louisiana? They include the original Indian inhabitants, plus the descendants of a variety of settlers, among whom were the French, Spanish, English, German, Acadians, West Indians, Africans, Irish and Italians and now include almost every nationality on earth.

What's the problem? Just rebuild and thank God that although many were lost, those that survived are blessed so just take care ofthem and quit it with all these retarded racial remarks. These words are amunition for those who believe we know nothing about effective communication.

4. Maegan la Mala ~ Monday, Jan 23 2006 | 11:55H:

I do know the ancestry of NOLA and have had the pleasure of visiting it. It's not a black and white issue and I think that is exactly the point and why Nagin's words were so ill chosen.

Sodom and Gomora? Well that's a whole separate issue.

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