‘Classic’ white supremacy in action

Meanwhile, down in the Big Easy there’s been a call for the City of New Orleans to no longer host the Bayou Classic, the annual matchup between Southern University and Grambling State University.

Why?

Because some folks are tired of the Bayou Classic turning the city, according to them, into a “war zone.”

The petition, which has been signed as of press time by at least 2,342 people, has led to a counter-petition to keep the annual event in New Orleans.

The originator of the first petition wants the game between Southern and Grambling to be played in “their own stadium” and overtime police pay to be funded with “their own tax dollars.”

But apparently this gentleman has no problem with Black tax dollars in this majority-Black city paying for events like the Super Bowl, the NCAA Final Four tournament, Sugar Bowl, the many festivals across the city and Mardi Gras. The last time I checked, Black tax dollars were used to fund the construction and multiple renovations of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome and the construction of the New Orleans Arena and Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. That makes those venues as much “ours” as anyone else’s.

And speaking of mayhem, what about the madness that accompanies events like the Sugar Bowl, where, not too long ago, a gentleman from Alabama placed his private parts on the face of a drunk LSU fan in a French Quarter hamburger joint? What about all of the lewd and lascivious acts that take place regularly when college football fans and Mardi Gras revelers come to town? Why isn’t anyone trying to move the Sugar Bowl or Mardi Gras to the North Shore or, God forbid, Shreveport?

This sounds an awful lot like yet another effort to further whitewash the city and blame Black residents for everything that goes wrong in the Crescent City.

No one seems to have much to say about how Black visitors to the city for events like Essence and the Bayou Classic are treated differently than white visitors. Black visitors are treated like cattle and forced to wear wristbands when they enter hotels in the CBD while white tourists and visitors come and go as they please. It is this kind of double standard and warped mentality that paves the way for domestic terrorists to endanger us all during major events in New Orleans.

With the Bayou Classic filling the Superdome with about 63,000 fans last month and bringing an estimated 200,000 visitors to the city to fill up hotels and restaurants, and an estimated $200 million to the local economy, good luck with convincing those who rely heavily on those “Black” dollars to willingly give all that up.

This article originally published in the December 7, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.