2025 Resolution: Make a difference!
30th December 2024 · 0 Comments
We eat, drink and party each New Year’s Eve with family and friends. It is undoubtedly a time to celebrate and give thanks for being alive and witnessing the dawn of another year.
As in years past, we celebrate the state and, specifically, the city of New Orleans. Here, legendary musicians and artists have earned the highest awards in the U.S. We offer unique cuisine and architecture, and the city is a top tourist destination. Additionally, both the state and city host festivals nearly every month. Simply put, we are Party Central of North America.
Making resolutions is also a New Year’s Day tradition. The top resolutions include losing weight, exercising more, getting better-paying jobs, seeking higher education, spending more leisure time with family and friends, paying more attention to children, attending church or wellness classes, multi-tasking, stopping bad habits – including smoking and procrastination, keeping promises made, finishing projects and just becoming a better person.
Those resolves are heavy lifting, but victory over vices is obtainable if they are adhered to for more than two weeks!
Self-improvement resolutions are an excellent way to start the New Year. Celebrations, parties and gatherings with family and friends are appropriate. But after the parties, merriment and “Auld Lang Syne,” we must put partying aside, roll up our sleeves and actively engage in our civic duties.
We can start by adopting Bob Marley’s advice: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.” Marley’s lyrics in his “Redemption Song” are based on a 1937 speech by Marcus Garvey, in which he said, “Whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind.”
Marley’s message is that people should align their actions with their core values and beliefs and that true redemption comes from freeing our minds. Put simply, don’t think small or about what you can’t do; rather, if you can conceive and believe it, you can achieve it. That goes for the giant’s slaying. Didn’t David use a stone to fall a giant? The point is that he believed in himself and resolved to do something.
And that’s what we must do…something.
Louisiana people of color must be clear-eyed and resolved to continue the constant struggle for equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion that began when our ancestors stepped onto this nation’s soil.
Now more than ever, we must urgently combat domestic terrorism, oppression and abuse by those we choose to lead and represent us and the people in our communities. What is more terrifying than being subjected to random shootings? What is more oppressive than purging voters off the voting rolls and using at-large districts for voter nullification? What is more abusive than elected officials allowing corporations and service providers to charge ridiculous rates?
The Louisiana Legislature’s law removing all gun safety laws in homage to the NRA has put us in grave danger when going about our daily lives. Every day since the law passed this year, we are experiencing wanton gun violence by people who couldn’t care less about their own lives, let alone the sanctity of the lives of others.
It’s not just a matter of personal safety but a collective responsibility to demand safer communities.
We still must confront and reject marginalization and voter dilution in the form of gerrymandered districts and fight for equal representation on court benches in Louisiana.
We must also stop the Orleans Parish School Board from playing musical chairs with our children. It’s been reported that the elected Board purports to shutter four of our schools, including Martin Luther King Jr. High School in the lower Ninth Ward, which offers a progressive vocational-tech curriculum. Why?
This is undoubtedly due to the irrational test-scoring system that the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) implemented in 2000 to justify the state takeover of the Orleans Parish public school system. In writing the law – to further the conspiracy to convert the Orleans Parish public school to an all-charter school system run by the now-defunct Recovery School District after Hurricane Katrina – legislators called the charter system “an experiment.”
Nearly 20 years later, the charter school system is a failed experiment. Ironically, the system used to take over our public schools hinges on test scores, as if our children’s educational advancement is determined by one test with content many adults couldn’t pass.
The charter school system is decentralized and without books. Every charter corporation is a separate Local Education Authority with no oversight or accountability. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
It’s funny that educators and the OPSB can’t figure out what is working at the top-achieving schools and replicate that throughout the charter system. It’s even sadder that board has no power other than to renew or yank a school’s charter based on performance.
Then there’s One App. Parents and stakeholders can choose from 12 schools for their students to attend. But guess what? Ultimately, the NOLA Public Schools (the former centralized school operator) assigns the students to schools that need seats filled.
Moreover, retaining children in the same grade is back in 2025; if a third grader can’t read, according to the test that measures critical thinking and comprehension more than reading, that child will be held back.
Allowing children to print lessons and their names was idiotic from the start. It’s only been eight years since legislation mandating the teaching of cursive writing became law. Some say cursive writing is obsolete, given the emphasis on digital signatures in the 21st century. However, some documents requiring signatures are not digital. Moreover, a person’s signature is unique to each person and protects against forgeries.
Next, we must resolve to hold accountable governments and corporations that take advantage of us by allowing utility bill rate hikes, property tax increases, high auto and property insurance premiums, and increased sales taxes.
Those utility rate hikes, insurance, property and sale tax increases are making it very difficult to live in Louisiana, especially New Orleans, the state’s economic engine. We know someone who pays $400 monthly to Entergy and has a running bill of $2,000 that never decreases no matter how much the person pays the Sewerage & Water Board. Those bills can amount to a car note and a mortgage.
The recently announced average billing option for Sewerage & Water Board customers until the so-called “smart meters” are installed and a moratorium on rate hikes for the next two years is a band-aid that, when it’s ripped off, exposes a rate hike.
Our Entergy bills will increase after Entergy sells its natural gas business to Delta States Utilities.
What can we do to stop the economic defacto robbery of citizens based on necessary services?
We can write letters, attend City Council meetings, and join like-minded groups, e.g., Alliance for Affordable Energy, Justice & Beyond, A Community Voice, and the Power Coalition. We can post our opposition to these increased costs on the company’s and governments’ social media accounts and call them out on major media’s social media.
Finally, we must vote out those who side with corporate bandits and choose and support candidates who share our core values. Assess the candidates’ platforms, and for officials seeking reelection, investigate what they’ve done for their constituents.
Check out the New Orleans City Council’s budget priorities and each councilperson’s district priorities here: https://council.nola.gov/news/november-2024/new-orleans-city-council-approves-2025-executive-b
While the New Orleans council members’ budget offers investments in infrastructure, health care, affordable housing and quality of life issues, one glaring omission must be addressed.
What we need statewide, but specifically in New Orleans, are new corporations coming in and providing good-paying jobs. Currently, tourism-related businesses are not paying living wages. Why don’t we have manufacturing plants, like those making computer chips, computers, medical equipment, or seafood processing plants?
Where are pop-up shops and farmers markets (outside the French Quarter) where small businesses sell their goods?
We need innovative-minded officials who go beyond the ordinary to bring extraordinary job opportunities to the city. That message should be parlayed to officials via email, town hall meetings, in-office appointments, or city council meetings. First and foremost, we must have officials committed to creating a living wage job. Consider that before you go into the voting booth. To quote Mahatma Ghandi, “Be he change that you wish to see in the world!”
This article originally published in the December 30, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
