So the mayor of New Orleans wants a chocolate city to emerge from the sodden ruins of his broken city, a city smashed by the wrath of God due to America´s dishonest involvement in their attempted conquest of Babylonia. He´s sorry he said it, of course, but presumably he believes it even if he wishes he hadn´t said it.
Flabbergasted doesn´t quite cover my reaction to this astonishing collection of bizarreness. To think a major public figure would even allow such crackpot thoughts head space is in itself startling, but to actually allow such wayward nonsense to exit his mouth is quite beyond my comprehension. Firstly, however much he may desire a “chocolate city” populated entirely (or largely) by persons of colour, it´s not a first class way of endearing yourself to the non-black population. Asians and Caucasians must wonder if he really has their best interests at heart, or will he pray for further hurricane attacks, but focussed solely on their neighbourhoods, to increase the chocolateness quotient? I can´t see him polling very highly outside of the black community. So, even ignoring the racist aspect, it´s just stupid politics to alienate vast swathes of voters due to their skin colour, and should someone that stupid be sat at the controls of a major city?
And God – now, I´m no expert – I have never met Him, and do not subscribe to any religion, but I genuinely respect anyone who does. However, not only do I not believe in a vengeful God who would strike at innocent citizens in recompense for decisions made by their government (in this regard, identical to the 9/11 attacks), but I am also rather shaken by the fact that such beliefs are obviously mainstream enough in an intelligent and developed nation like the US that a city mayor believes in such a God, and also believes it´s okay to talk about it.
As a liberal, I´m all for free speech – but when you´re a public figure, everything you utter has consequences. In some ways it´s good he was honest and spoke his mind, now people know not to vote for him again, and I am not in favour of sanitised politicians speaking careful party line – but, by golly, with this chunk of balderdash he showed true colours which should see him looking for alternative employment in the not too distant future
1 Comment(s)
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
I just watched The Daily Show on Tivo from last night, and they showed the video of the New Orleans mayor delivering the Chocolate City speech.
He said New Orleans would be rebuilt a ‘Chocolate City’. The irrepressible John Stewart said, and I paraphrase: “Now I’m not a contractor… but chocolate is not the best material to be rebuilding New Orleans… It’s hot and…” Hilarious.