Dark Chocolate, White Chocolate, or Chocolate Milk?
By Brantley Smith
Posted On January 25, 2006

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has a genius for bad imagery, bad judgment, and inept governance. His statements last week commemorating the birthday of Reverend Martin Luther King bear no resemblance to anything the civil rights leader stood for or espoused. Mayor Nagin, amazingly, was able to offend white America, black America, God, and the people of New Orleans in general, all in one short speech.

Are the good people of Louisiana sure this is the leader they want to oversee the rebuilding and recovery of their largest and most historic city? Does Mayor Nagin really believe God sent a hurricane to destroy New Orleans because he is mad about Iraq and the plight of African Americans? Did he destroy an already predominantly black Big Easy to make it more “chocolate”? Is the shock-jock mayor serious and if so, does anyone else find this disturbing, coming from the elected leader of a major American city?

Racial and cultural diversity, long a mantra of liberal politicians, is apparently no longer in vogue.

Is it any wonder that the people of New Orleans floundered in a flood of incompetence, rampant crime, and corruption in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? The unnatural disaster that followed natural disaster in New Orleans is a shameful testament to poor leadership, incompetent management, and cowardly finger pointing by the Mayor and his administration. No one should be surprised by the lack of judgment, common sense, common decency, and self-discipline shamelessly displayed by Mayor Nagin on a day set aside to celebrate the pursuit of racial harmony and equality.

Apologetic one day later, the would-be black Pat Robertson and self-appointed prophet of doom both qualified and retracted his remarks. The apology was as adolescent and immature as the indiscretions.

One would think that the Mayor would have learned by now that his audience transcends the black community of New Orleans and that there are a whole lot of Americans of all races whose sacrifice will be required if New Orleans, and the dikes that protect it, are to be rebuilt.

I believe it is safe to assume that the milk money of the American taxpayer, regardless of race, will be welcome in New Orleans as it seeks resurrection. I would even go out on a limb and predict that Mayor Nagin will welcome, with open arms, the return of the white tourist to the popular French Quarter, as long as they do not set up housekeeping. As the Mayor said in qualification on Tuesday, “white milk” is a key ingredient in chocolate milk. I suspect the Mayor is also thinking, as he apologizes profusely, of another color: Green. My apologies to the dairy industry.

Brantley Smith lives in Tullahoma, TN.

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