Don’t Put My Name in It!

I wasn’t going to post anything about the current e-mail foofaraw down at City Hall, because I figured I didn’t have anything to say about it. I don’t aim to just regurgitate news from other sources here. I write about my life. Of course, the headlines that I read daily affect me and become a part of my life in a sense, and some of the recent headlines certainly do stoke the fires, but still, I didn’t think I had much to say.

There was a line in a recent Times-Picayune story that caught my eye:

White is black. Head is white.

That’s a complete paragraph from a front-page story on Wednesday. I’m sure Frank Donze and the editors must have had a chuckle over that one. It’s a reference to the race of Veronica White and Stacy Head. The only thing that could have made this better is if the council member’s name was Stacy Black. That would have summarized the topsy-turvy spirit of things perfectly.

I actually clipped that paragraph out of the paper. But my wry little observation didn’t seem substantive enough to share with the world. Better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt, as Einstein or Twain or Lincoln or somebody once said.

However, I just realized there is a personal connection to my life after all. Over the past three years I have sent and received plenty of e-mails from members of the City Council and their staffers. That means that my name has been put in this mess. My communications are (presumably) amongst those which Sanitation Director Veronica White handed over to activist attorney Tracie Washington.

Now if you’re wondering what the Sanitation Director is doing handing over e-mails, you’re not alone. Mayor Nagin recently stonewalled a request for his e-mails, and the City Council has gotten a judge to command Washington not to publish the e-mails as she apparently planned to do, and this is all about those garbage contracts, and the whole thing is incredibly polarized and polarizing along racial lines.

Oh yes. It bears mentioning that White and Head had an ugly confrontation a few months back. Which brings us to the following flashback mashup: Hate Rock White-Head [MP3, 5.4 MB]. That’s just a little audio I mashed up back in December but never shared until now. Tip of the hat to HTRK for providing the perfect background music.

There’s far more to this story which continues to develop, but I don’t aim to provide coverage. If you want more substance check out We Could Be Famous or any number of other local blogs. If you find this all convoluted and confusing, don’t worry. Some people say this is all a distraction from the real scandal, which might be crime cameras, or housing issues, or who knows what. I just wanted to take this opportunity to say to the world, as many a student in Xy’s classroom might say:

Don’t put my name in it!

That’s all.