New Orleans will again be a chocolate city
I am still digesting what Ray Nagin the Mayor of New Orleans said in a Martin Luther King Day speech.
Why don't you listen to him in his own words.
Nagin quotes:
"God is mad at America."
"We are in Iraq under false pretenses."
"This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. . .it's the way God wants it to be."
Ray Nagin's words are in sharp contrast to the teachings of Martin Luther King, who called for a person to be judged ". . .not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
We are a polarized society. One's label is more important than the contents of their soul. If I, a white man criticize a black man; chances are I would be branded a racist. Never mind if the criticism is valid. This works the other way around too.
Are we a people so ignorant, we only listen to someone if they are black, white, Democrat, or Republican? Instead of exchanging ideas, we hurl accusations of racism. There is no debate only name-calling.
Until we can focus on content and behavior over and above race, religion, and political party, we are doomed to quibble and trifle about things which amount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
The problems of this country are problems of character. No one group has the market cornered on bad behavior or for that matter, truth.
Some blacks will defend Mayor Nagin solely because he is black and they don't like whites criticizing blacks.
Corporate crooks get off with light jail sentences in dorm like prisons. Sure they stole a lot of money, but they did not use a gun.
Priests who abuse children slip away behind the veil.
Crooked politicians, celebrities, and people with money escape the fate a common person would endure for the same offense. The injustices go on and on.
Until we demand more of ourselves and those around us, we will continue to reap the fruit of greed and sloth. Injustice will reign.
Today in New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin dishonored Martin Luther King by invoking his name to endorse his own small, ignorant, racist ideas. Instead of seeking to unify the people with his speech, he chose to insert a racial wedge and hammer away at it with a post mal.
Until the next time
John Strain