For the greater good
27th April 2020 · 0 Comments
The demonstrators who assembled before the Michigan State Capitol to protest Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s continued lock down of her state, and with their protest blocked access to one of the most important hospital emergency rooms in the state, compared their gathering to Rosa Parks’ refusal to relinquish her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus. Simultaneously, they praised Donald Trump at the rally as an ideological ally. Never one to miss an opportunity to heap praise upon himself, the president likewise tweeted his approval of their protest.
The irony seemed lost on all participants that they demonstrated against the very same social isolation policies recommended by Trump’s White House. Using their logic, it would be as if the famed civil rights leader refused to give up her seat in 1956 and then went on to praise segregationist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond for being an advocate for her civil rights. Rosa Parks would not find common cause in either case, it is safe to assume.
Such “hubris,” the ancient Greeks believed, invariably led to “nemesis” from the gods, so the Hellenes might have considered a pandemic to be such a supernatural response to restore mortal humility. Robbed of such a ‘supernatural’ perspective we suggest that simple common sense mandates that maintaining a certain social distance is the only way to keep an incurable disease from spreading.
Sequestering ourselves in our homes has caused the coronavirus’ rate of growth to level off, but the number of deaths have not begun to decrease either in Michigan or in Louisiana. Nevertheless, the debate has begun over whether Mayor Latoya Cantrell’s mandate to keep Orleans Parish closed until mid-May and cancel our most sacred music festivals stands as a preferable method to the resolution of the suburban parishes to fully reopen to commerce on April 30.
No one doubts that the economy must restart soon. The unemployment rate rivals the worst days of the Great Depression, and countless small businesses – here and elsewhere – teeter on bankruptcy. Moreover, as the early evidence of the second wave of the coronavirus afflicts South Korea and Japan, a frightening possibility exists that those previously infected by COVID-19 could be re-susceptible. The much vaulted “heard immunity” could be further away than any expert ever suspected.
“Was the mass quarantine pointless,” people have started to whisper? Did we inflict potentially irreparable damage to our economy just to see our loved ones die – just a little later? Are the morons in Michigan right?
The answer is…We just don’t know. However, of one fact, we can be sure. If New Orleans had not shut down a month ago, the death rate would have skyrocketed far beyond the nearly 1,550 whom we have lost.
Everyone longs for Crawfish Monica and the melodies of Jazz Fest this week, yet if the mayor and governor had allowed the Fairgrounds to open for it (or the Vieux Carre’ to host French Quarter Fest), NO doubt exists that thousands more would crowd our ICUs, and the bulging body bags would have multiplied exponentially.
It hurts not to celebrate Spring, to gather for crawfish boils, barbecues and bands. It pains us not to patronize our restaurant halls or have our theaters reverberate again. It soul-wrenches to separate from our church-families, no closer to a tabernacle than an internet stream or television screen.
No words exist to stem the tears of closing a decades-old family business, perhaps for the last time. Neither greed, nor “love of money” as was suggested at City Hall, motivated a group of business people to buy an advertisement in the daily paper urging the mayor to reopen the city. They longed for their legacies and livelihoods to survive.
The mayor was wrong in her reply, but what if she’s right about everything else? African Americans have borne the brunt of COVID-19, with death rates two to three times more than any other U.S. ethnicity. This Passover, it was the fathers and mothers of Black folks who were taken first by the petulance, and in every night since, the angel of death has visited this community more than anybody else.
Is two weeks more at home not too much to ask – if it allows us to see if the death rate can really begin to decline? Canceling the rescheduled Jazz and French Quarter Festivals this Fall, as Mayor Cantrell suggested to slow infections, harms the economy, yet the move could save countless human lives.
We must practice prudence facing the unknown. We urge Governor John Bel Edwards, Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Shang, and all municipal and parish leaders in the Pelican State to follow Mayor Cantrell’s lead and say closed until mid-May. Be safe rather than sorry. Understand that a “new normal” exists for a while. Not forever, but until the death rate truly falls, and a vaccine seems possible, we may need to restrict our celebrations to hearth and home.
Critics worry that the closures will irreparably harm that social fabric which makes Louisiana unique, yet our joy of life developed – in part – amidst the likelihood of death by disease. Yellow fever epidemics once behaved much like the coronavirus, and for months families had to stay away from their fellow men and women. However, when the pestilence passed, the celebrations commenced once more with even greater fervor. Patience brought survival of everything most precious – and then we played in thankfulness.
This article originally published in the April 27, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
