NOLA calling! 3 Degrees of Relation to Hate and Hope

(Tw: NYE New Orleans attack)

As someone who was a child during 9/11 after they wheeled the CRT television stand out of the classroom that they had wheeled in during the events of the twin towers, I vividly remember the teachers delineating the many reasons we as a school needed to drill for lockdowns and terror response: New Orleans even then was identified as a target, because of our shipping and trade hub status, because we are a huge tourism city capable of holding 1000,000s of people from all over, and most of all, because we have become a symbol of the unchecked unique Joy of America.

In many ways, the purchase of Louisiana from france not only symbolized a new era of industrial and military stability+expansion in the US, but also serves as one of the largest singular additions of culture to mix with the largely WASP culture of the 13 colonies. (White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant like the pilgrims)

It is this amazing weaving together of different cultures to unite under the new identity of American that in many ways was what was attacked on NYE on Bourbon Street. 

Today, us exhausted and scared native Orleanians went to work- and all around us there is yelling and outsiders infiltrating our local online spaces to politic on a soapbox from hours away, about what if and could have beens, about ID politics and the 'Gossip' surrounding both many victims and of course the killer himself, all serving to further mythologize this tragedy as opposed to supporting us as we support each other.   

Orleanians themselves, by and large, are quiet today- Lots of small short check-in, concerned only with the practicality of figuring How Close someone they love was to being destroyed by radical hate.  I am blessed, for being in service industry it was likely someone in my sphere would be a victim to some capacity. 

Instead, it was my team's dishwasher, a sweet old man who is around 60- his adult granddaughter was one of the revelers and was grazed during the firefight.  She is okay, but it goes to show how close this "city" that operates like a giant town is.

Like a hurricane, borne upon the contrast between the heat of the raging winds of hate, of vengeful thinking and the icy pindrop stillness of grief and loss, this conflict will only reach higher heights if we do not allow for the peaceful mixing of these emotions without becoming a storm of self-destruction.

Tomorrow, on the 3rd day of the year, we must be flexible, so that the unique diverse tapestry of our culture stays intact and unharmed by the active attempt to edit us: to make us fear each other, to make us squabble over "How" to be with each other-

There is no right answer, there is only respect and understanding.  

Tomorrow, Dancers and Bartenders will be returning to their posts, largely willingly; 

Tomorrow, many people will be staying home to grieve in prolonged silence, largely willingly;

Tomorrow, friends, neighbors and strangers will still be moving on, in different ways and at different speeds.  It's not a race, there is no "winning" or "looseing" there is only survival.

There is no one way to grieve, no one certain path to find new hope, but we must allow everyone the room they need to do either or both without incendiary behavior or judgment.

If someone you love is clamming up over this, or conversely becoming uncharitable to others do what you can to support them without policing them.  There will be time in the future to bridge gaps, but first we must all help eachother to even begin to stand back up.

If you made it this far, thanks from the irish channel.