Almost two weeks ago, I ventured down to New Orleans, LA to witness one of the greatest annual celebrations that takes place in the United States—Mardi Gras. Although it has become an ornamented secular event, Mardi Gras started through religious means as a festive ceremony for one last indulgence before entering a time of sacrifice, or we what they refer to as Lent. However, Mardi Gras is now associated with immoral indulgences and debauched activity, but while I was there, during a historic moment in which the New Orleans Saints celebrated their first ever NFL Super Bowl Championship victory, all I could see was life and death.
All throughout downtown New Orleans, exuberance filled the people! I could hardly walk a block without hearing jubilant screams and joyous chants of,”Who Dat!” I witnessed a moment in time in which the bliss from fellowship and victory (and maybe also inebriation) brought people together of different colors, creeds, socioeconomic class, and places to which they call home. After all, is life not supposed to be about union, community, and happiness? Many of you may not condone actions that take place every February in New Orleans, LA, and there are some that with too I do not agree. However, we cannot deny the type of life that breathes in this atmosphere, especially in a place that has endured so much pain for the last few years.
This snowballing of pain came as an aftershock of Hurricane Katrina, and through this pain, I saw death. New Orleans sits at an elevation so low that people cannot dig the grounds. Therefore, the people are forced, ironically, to entomb the dead atop the Earth’s surface. Meaning, I spent those jubilant moments occupying New Orleans’s swampy coast alongside the dead—men, women, boys and girls ceremoniously decorated in beds that lie on the same surface on which I stepped . Then, before leaving I saw the Ninth Ward Community, and witnessed another type of death on the surface. Through the battered and abandoned houses, poverty-stricken and malnourished environment, and signs of endless struggle, I saw the death of a “more perfect union”, a death in community and happiness, and a death in hope.
This snowballing of pain came as an aftershock of Hurricane Katrina, and through this pain, I saw death. New Orleans sits at an elevation so low that people cannot dig the grounds. Therefore, the people are forced, ironically, to entomb the dead atop the Earth’s surface. Meaning, I spent those jubilant moments occupying New Orleans’s swampy coast alongside the dead—men, women, boys and girls ceremoniously decorated in beds that lie on the same surface on which I stepped . Then, before leaving I saw the Ninth Ward Community, and witnessed another type of death on the surface. Through the battered and abandoned houses, poverty-stricken and malnourished environment, and signs of endless struggle, I saw the death of a “more perfect union”, a death in community and happiness, and a death in hope.
If I learned nothing else from my trip down to New Orleans, I came away with a deeper sense of urgency. I do not believe a human being could and should be able to see other people drowning and feel nothing, and that is what I saw in the Ninth Ward. The floods were long gone, but people were still drowning. Something needs to be done for these people, and people like them all over the world who lie dead atop the Earth’s surface. I believe I saw life and death in New Orleans because it sums up the situation of our generation. We are in the midst of a matter of life and death! Be a part of the Solution!
OxyJon
