Comments on: A Tale of a Roux and a Rue

By: Kristina

Kristina — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:50:08 +0000

Thanks Vicki – keep us informed on the “mood” in the city.

By: V Mayer

V Mayer — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:50:32 +0000

So I spent most of the day talking with ten of my neighbors (white and black), many of whom I didn’t know except we shared coffee together this morning at the same communal table. A couple more interesting insights:
– most were not longtime football fans but, like me, got into the Saints, narrative and all, over the course of the season;
– as I said, the narrative here was not isolated but in the context of the most important election here arguably since Katrina;
– half of us were still wearing black and gold and will do so for the next 10 days;
– even the one without a TV listened on the radio;
– everyone is sick and tired of the racial narrative that seems to have been the first one, the remaining one, and the one that some ‘new dats’ seem to think was overcome with a game.
Over the course of the conversation, we talked about the Saints’ miracle, along with the costs of trash collection, the lack of recycling, and the corner grocery store that wouldn’t sell more than one newspaper per person because “these are for the neighborhood.” They all have to be looked at together.

By: Myles McNutt

Myles McNutt — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:13:16 +0000

I saw a few minutes of Diane Sawyer this evening, and they hunted down some of the people who featured heavily in their media coverage of Katrina in order to see where they were when the Saints won the Super Bowl. My immediate thought when I saw the piece was not the people who agreed to do the piece, but rather those who did not: all that were interviewed were wearing Saints clothing, or speaking effusively about how great it was for the city, but I wonder if there were some people they contacted who potentially didn’t care, or even had a more cynical take on the role the Saints are playing.

I missed the end of the piece, but I have to wonder if these people would have been included, should they have been found.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:33:58 +0000

Interesting first-hand insights. Thanks. I’ve been interested in this question of the Katrina narrative–how this Saints’ run had been appropriated as a narrative of civic healing, which I find problematic since it feeds a kind of feel-good political ignorance amidst the larger US population, and risks conflating symbolic with real material and political concerns locally. There’s no question that this narrative has also been appropriated and repeated by Saints fans’ at times, even though the roots, as you note, run deeper.
I’m curious what you see as the Katrina narrative beyond the bliss of victory–in both the larger media landscape and in dialogue with local political issues. That’s to me the interesting question.