Just finished one of my weekly walks through the French Market Flea Market from a meeting, where I ran into my old friend and vendor Oscar. Oscar is the guy who makes the iridescent earrings, jewelry, fridge magnets and various handcrafted tchotchkes and sells them from his kiosk in the Market. I met Oscar when he did the same thing in the Jax Brewery many years ago, and I’ve worn his earrings for probably 20 years.
I asked him how business was, and he said it was pretty dead, despite the weather being fantastic. “If the Saints had won, the city would have already been popping for Mardi Gras,” he said, “but now I guess we’ll have to wait a few weeks before things start going again.” Deadsville.
So the dearly beloved Saints have much more of an impact than filling the Superdome and Bourbon Street. They send folks out to even the little retailers in the Quarter. We always have next year!
Speaking of dead: Like anyone who lives and does business in New Orleans, I’m really concerned about the violence that we’re experiencing these days. If you’re thinking about coming to the city for a visit, have no fear. Most of the shootings are taking place outside tourist-frequented areas, and I suspect that almost all of them have to do with drugs. I have personally experienced how horrible it is to see a young man bleeding to death on a sidewalk, just a few steps from my front door. A toddler was accidentally shot two blocks from my house. This is not acceptable in any city, in any location.
Drugs as viable business ventures, readily available handguns (and assault weapons!), poverty, and young male “entrepreneurs” are a heady mix for continuing crime in our city. What is awful about this is these poor knuckleheads are shooting and killing—or injuring—not only their intended targets (usually other young guys they have a beef with), but innocent bystanders. A young boy and a woman suffered injuries from random bullets inside their homes during acts of violence outside their houses. A two-year-old baby girl was shot and killed accidentally a few weeks ago by a stray bullet while she played outside her aparment. This is outrageous.
I disagree with the methods that are currently being considered to stop the violence.
The local citizens, the mayor and the police chief can decry gun violence as much as they want. They can have neighborhood meetings. They can get their ministers and priests to preach against violence, but I have news for you: the knuckleheads aren’t listening, and they don’t care.
As long as they find that they can make more money selling drugs and make a damn good living by working three or four hours a day, you’re not ever going to convince them to stop what they’re doing. As long as there are inadequate educational, moral and parental resources for these kids, they will resort to violence and killing to solve their everyday problems.
I do hate to sound defeatist on this issue, but I believe that yesterday’s morality is gone, and frankly, I don’t believe it’s going to come back. You have two generations of youngsters who have grown up in largely violent environments, some of whom have had very little, if any parental care, love or discipline. They have poor education, poor or no job skills, and they know that most of the time they can get away with it. And, they have ready access to all sorts of handguns as well as assault weapons. To make matters even worse, the judicial system can’t get witnesses to testify against wrongdoers because the witnesses are afraid of the consequences–being hunted down and shot. It happens all the time in New Orleans.
As the usual voice in the wilderness, I’ll say we need to funnel kids when they’re young into music and arts programs. We need better educational resources. We need more parents who pay attention to their kids. And most of all, we need to stop this ridiculous drug war and find a way to take the underground commerce largely out of the equation.
The other issue is to remove the guns guns. All the Second Amendment people out there will certainly disagree with me, but not having easy access to weapons will at least be start. Yes, there will still be guns out there. This isn’t going to be a quick process. It’s going to take some time to accomplish. IMHO, the entire city of New Orleans should be a gun-free zone. We’re not going to be able to solve the tendency towards violence that’s one of the hallmarks of American culture, but if the guns aren’t there, at least there won’t be any more people watching TV in their homes, or little babies outside playing who will take a bullet either. We have to start somewhere.
