What a Weekend

This morning I realized that it was September 11th, and for the first time since 2001, I was not in New York. It was a bit odd, really.
Thursday night was the Saints' opening game against the Vikings. For those of you who don't pay attention to football, this was a re-match of the NFC championship game. Basically, the only thing to do Thursday was to go watch the Saints game since the entire city shuts down when they play. Businesses started closing early in the afternoon so that people could go to the pre-game parade. I went to the Central Business District at that time, and I felt sorely out of place since I was wearing a brown dress and nothing black or gold.
Last fall I appreciated this complete focus on the game. If I was out somewhere and riding my bike home, the experience was wonderful because I would generally be the only vehicle on the street. Everyone else was watching the game. Now I realize I've become more local, so I too went to a neighborhood bar where there was barbecue and mac & cheese for everyone.
Friday I went to see Swimming Upstream, a collaboration between Eve Ensler and several New Orleans women. It's a play about the experiences of these women during and after Katrina. It'll be showing in New York in a week or so, and I wonder how it will be received since so many of the issues referenced are really local. For example, there's a dig at the Times-Picayune, and a scene about contractors who cheat a woman who's trying to rebuild her home. Being there, though, also made me feel more connected to the city because I know what they're talking about, even if I didn't live through it.
Today I briefly sat in on a strategy session for some national organizing around racial justice. Being present for that was also moving. One participant reminded us of the legacy of oppression in the South and the institutions that have disenfranchised and exploited Black people for centuries, institutions now being focused on Latinos. I couldn't help but think of Howard Zinn and how racial lines have been used to divide poor folks for centuries. So, yeah, it is inspiring to see some of the work happening to create a just and welcoming world.
I also heard an interesting story on the BBC today about how some Greeks are using new strategies to protest the government's austerity plan. Marching in the streets isn't changing things, so one group is targeting businesses and, en masse, asking for discounts since the government is cutting wages and social services. I like this creative approach.

This is Not the Northeast

My friend Ivana invited me to the Black Men of Labor Second Line parade yesterday. The group is a centuries old Social Aid and Pleasure Club, one of the mutual aid societies formed by African-Americans. The day was sunny and, as always, humid. The parade started in front of Sweet Lorraine's, a renowned jazz club. The street was packed, and the music was hot. After following the procession along up and down St. Claude Avenue, running into a variety of people I know along the way, I peeled off as it wound through Treme' and headed home.
These parades are one of the traditions that make clear the distinct cultural history in New Orleans. For anyone interested in how African, French and Spanish influences came together to create a very different culture from the rest of the Eastern US, check out Ned Sublette's, The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. I read it earlier this summer, and I can't recommend it enough.
You all know that this is a different world in many ways, and I continue to get an education about that. One of the things that I am encountering here that really gets under my skin is the sexist and conservative attitude towards women's reproductive issues. A couple of months ago I had a heated discussion with a group of tween boys who were in a public square trying to proselytize support for anti-abortion measures. The fact that I identified as an agnostic and not as a believer in God was probably a wrench in their script. As was the fact that I mentioned to them something they had probably never heard: that one reason abortion was legalized in this country was to stop the death and serious injury to women having backroom abortions.
So, one of the things that I have learned is that anesthesia is not allowed during abortions performed in Louisiana. Knowing this, when I found this article at the start of the weekend, I was disgusted. What the article does not make clear is that the reason this clinic's license was revoked is that, presumably, someone chose to permit the use of anesthesia during an abortion. To me, this seems only humane. Clearly, to the lawmakers of the state, most of whom will never run the risk of being pregnant, the choice of terminating a pregnancy must be accompanied with pain. This strikes me not only as misogynistic, but also in line with the sort of backward religious views that see the pain associated with menstruation and childbirth as God's punishment to women for Eve's desire for knowledge, and, consequently, as pain that should be left unmedicated.
For those interested in this topic, I learned fairly recently that the Catholic Church, and others, generally accepted that pregnancy did not begin until "quickening," the point when the fetus begins to make itself felt moving. If this doctrine were brought back, what a revolution it would be.