White Louisiana Residents Revolt Over Naming Street For MLK

[gollygee]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/st-bernard-parish-martin-luther-king

Other white residents had more racially-charged reasons to oppose the name change:

“If you look around the world, every Martin Luther King Boulevard is crime-ridden and drug-ridden. Why the hell would we want that in this parish? All because a few people want it. The rest of us don’t,” said one white resident. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. Martin Luther King was a great man, and all the streets that are named after him does not reflect the content of that man’s character.”

(snip)

But some of the white residents rejected the suggestion that their opposition was racially motivated.

“I’ve never had a racist bone in my body,” said one white resident. “But if you keep pushing me, I’ll show you my racist ways. Mitch Landrieu can go to hell, praise to lord for Bobby Jindal.”

[SheilaT]

1. With all due respect to the late Martin Luther King,

is it really necessary for every city to have a street named after him?

[MH1]

2. Why not? nt

[randys1]

4. Two, every city should have two. One could be north and one could be east or something, going

in different directions.

Or 3.


Then we need to get reparations going...AT A MINIMUM

[Rex]

5. Is there a rational reason why they should not have one?

I can't think of one.

[SheilaT]

11. Surely there are others who could be honored.

How about Julian Bond? Jimmy Carter? Maya Angelou? Elie Wiesel? Just to name a few.

[Igel]

15. That rather implies

we should honor everybody who has no reason for us to avoid honoring him/her.

"If there's a reason not to honor Cathie B. Smith with a street, come forward now, otherwise we'll have Cathie B. Smith Boulevard. Okay, now for John Byrd Boulevard ... Is there a reason not to honor John Byrd? And his wife, Winnie Byrd? Moving on to the Mrs. B. Smith's son, Pete Smith, and the way to be named after him, then to Joe Pete Smith, Pete's father, and his avenue...."

1. Not every great person needs a street named after him. Otherwise I expect a Lafayette Street or Boulevard in every city and town over 1000, and demand at the very least a Kosciuszko Plaza in every town of more than 500. Wouldn't even hurt to have the occasional Martin Luther Street, to be honest, given the role the Reformation played in the Enlightenment.

2. One doesn't name streets after somebody just because there's no reason not to. Unless you're making some sort of development and need to have nifty, placid, computer-generated street names for 100 streets without having to think about it. Saw one community that had a whole neighborhood with street names with the Latin words for trees, but not a soul had an inkling that they were Latin tree names--Acer, Quercus, etc.

3. Even those with blemishes--and MLK wasn't sinless, dying for our sins and resurrected the third day to sit at the Father's right hand, to be sure--can be worthy of being dignified by a community. The difficulty is in deciding where to draw the community boundaries. Currently they're drawn very large when a given community needs to be included, and drawn very small and a specific community needs to be ignored. The principle seems to be power itself. Which is both alluring, seductive, and depressing.

4. Most street names are meaningless. I lived in an area with streets named after the two young men who killed a British commander, the dead British commander who invaded the area, a former state governor, and the town that had a white-separatist uprising back in the 1920s or '30s. Apart from the two young men, nobody had a clue who or what the other streets were named after, when, or why. And I only know now because I found out 37 years after I moved away, when my list of things I was curious enough about to check into got down to that level of trivia. I'd go for naming everything N-S "street," everything E-W "road," and using numbers. "I live at the corner of 212 St and -193 Rd."

[shenmue]

7. What's so bad about that?

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. You bet.

Just like every city should have a Rosa Parks.

[SheilaT]

13. Oooh, I forgot her. Thanks.

My point is that there are many who should be honored and are not.

[KamaAina]

3. What a crock of crap.

“If you look around the world, every Martin Luther King Boulevard is crime-ridden and drug-ridden."

Trader Joe's in Berkeley is at the corner of University Avenue and -- you guessed it -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. (Maybe it's not crime- or drug-ridden because it's a way and not a boulevard? ) The former Grove Street was for years the boundary east of which African Americans could not live in south Berkeley and north Oakland.

Mitch Landrieu can go to hell

Huh? Mitch Landrieu is the mayor of NOLA. I doubt he gives much thought to neighboring St. Bernard Parish.

[Fred Sanders]

6. "Praise to lord"?? Apparently racists with that old-time white religion think God is also racist....as far as I can tell.

[Igel]

16. Or the object of the satire doesn't understand the sarcasm.

Not like that ever happens.

[romanic]

8. While it's true that some MLK blvds are loacted in high-crime areas

that mostly has to do with MLK streets being located in majority black areas that hold a majority of poverty which breeds a majority of crime. So don't blame other black people for wanting an MLK st, blame the city "leaders" that put his name on a shitty area with no opportunities or way out for the people that live there.

[arcane1]

9. Those white Louisiana residents are revolting.

Sorry, someone had to say it

[KamaAina]

10. St. Bernard Parish was hammered in Katrina

it is located below New Orleans, right along the ill-fated Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. The entire parish (county) took several feet of storm surge. To this day it has regained only about half its population. So you'd think its citizenry would have more pressing concerns than a street name.

[mnhtnbb]

14. For those with HBO, check out Spike Lee's two part 4 hour documentary

about Katrina being replayed.

And yes, we have an MLK, Jr., Blvd in Chapel Hill, NC. It is neither drug nor crime ridden
and is a major route in/out of town.

[gratuitous]

17. None of them take the third Monday in January off, I hope?

They all beg the boss to work that day at straight time, none of that time and a half or double time so-called "holiday" pay. Right?