Feel free to ask questions

By Edmund W. Lewis, Editor
The Louisiana Weekly, Editor

On Monday, May 30, New Orleans joined the nation in celebrating Memorial Day, a holiday set aside to honor those whose sacrifices make freedom, justice and democracy possible. But just because those things are possible, that doesn’t mean they will automatically be manifested. Justice, democracy and freedom require vigilance, courage and a dogged determination to bring them into existence and protect them from those who seek to “secure the blessings of liberty” for only a select few. Part of that effort involves exercising the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of expression.

In honor of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep this nation free from tyranny and taxation without representation, I pose the following questions:

• When Mayor Landrieu promised to bring the city’s residents together, who would have ever imagined that people from all walks of life who call New Orleans home would come together to protest the mayor’s refusal to fire NOPD Supt. Ronal Serpas and the administration’s struggles with transparency?
• After Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal almost succeeded in doing away with Southern University at New Orleans, how many New Orleans residents of color under the age of 30 are still not registered to vote?
• Why is it easier to spread the word about a second line than it is to get people to come out and support a Walk Against Corruption?
• What does the United States Department of Justice think about the city’s handling of the NOPD off-duty detail scandal and its investigation of the superintendent’s role in it?
• Why does it seem that we still have a City Hall that is ultrasecretive, suspicious of anyone who has the audacity to ask it a question and slow to share information with the public?
• Is anybody out there itching to rush out and buy a copy of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s tell-all book?
• What ever happened to the book an LSU professor was writing about the former mayor that was titled An Oreo in Chocolate City?
• Who gave right-wing conservatives the right to decide who is and isn’t an American?
• What do those patriotic Americans who wanted to relax federal rules that would have prevented California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger from running for president of the United States now think about the embattled politician now?
• How do those on Capitol Hill who trample upon the U.S. Constitution every day justify their actions on days like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July?
• Why does FEMA think it is okay to terrorize and harass survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in order to recoup financial assistance that the agency mistakenly awarded these people?

This story originally published in the May 30, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.