The questions keep coming

26th November 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund W. Lewis,
Editor

If you thought you might be able to breathe a little easier or get a few more minutes of sleep after this month elections, think again.

Since Obama shocked the world and Mitt Romney on Nov. 6, it’s been one thing after another. The CIA scandal. Romney’s explanation for why he lost the presidential race. The controversial Crescent City Connection vote. Louisiana Gov. Piyush Jindal’s dressing down of Mitt Romney and the powers that be in the GOP. And finally, rumblings about disgruntled white conservatives who would rather attempt to launch another civil war rather than bend to the will of the people.

For the record, we the people have spoken. For better or worse, we decided to continue to roll with President Barack Obama rather than take a chance on a presidential candidate that, frankly, did not do a very good job of presenting his plans to the voters of the United States.

That’s why elections are held, debates are organized and people are given a chance to freely express their views, beliefs and opinions. When the smoke cleared, the majority of the nation’s citizens had cast their ballots for the incumbent.

The only chance this nation has of moving beyond empty rhetoric and undergoing lasting change is to keep the lines of communication open and actively address the issues that continue to divide the people and block the proliferation of justice, democracy and equal protection under the law.

Can we talk?

• Why do so few young people graduate from college these days with the ability to think critically and a hunger to learn more?

• Is a Black institution of higher learning of any use to communities of color and Africans around the world if its purse strings are controlled by someone who is not part of the community and its administration is filled with men and women who are not at all interested in uplifting and empowering people of African descent?

• Why does every disgruntled white person who didn’t get into one of the nation’s top law schools always assume that “their” spot was taken by an unqualified Black applicant and never an unqualified white applicant?

• Why has no one admitted that the Republican Party lost the recent presidential election because it failed to identify and nominate a candidate with the intelligence, integrity and dynamism of Presi?dent Barack Hussein Obama?

• If Mayor Mitch Landrieu doesn’t have the time or determination to collect more than $8 million in delinquent sanitation taxes, why is he so adamant about imposing draconian reforms on the city’s taxicab drivers and owners and trying to eliminate many of City Hall’s civil service jobs?

• What is Louisiana Governor Piyush Jindal going to do next to convince racist whites that he detests people of color, working-class Americans and the poor as much as they do?

• How thankful would you be if someone who believes in justice more than they believe in political party solidarity decided to launch an investigation of Louisiana Gov. Piyush Jindal and Education Super?intendent John White’s handling of the state’s voucher system?

• Isn’t it amazing that New Orleans can launch the careers of some of the world’s most gifted jazz musicians but those same jazz artists aren’t “allowed” to own and operate world-class nightclubs in their own hometown?

• Who would have ever dreamed that events as tragic and sinister as the Danziger Bridge shootings and the murder of Henry Glover would lead to such a lucrative financial opportunity for the group that will ultimately be chosen to oversee the implementation of the NOPD consent decree?

• How many people think that the same New Orleans Police Department that covered up the murders of Henry Glover, Ronald Madison, James Brissette, Kim Groves, Adolph Grimes III, Steven Hawkins and many others and has violated the constitutional rights of residents for more than a half-century is going to be transformed in four short years by a watered-down federal consent decree?

• Isn’t it time for us to take a page from the other tribe’s handbook and start pinpointing what members of the City Council have been indifferent or hostile to the needs of the city’s Black and poorest residents and begin grooming candidates to challenge and eventually replace them?

• Why do we as a community let so many Black elected officials get away with doing so little to empower and uplift communities of color?

This article was originally published in the November 26, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper