My older brother, a former New Orleans resident, invited me down to Mardi Gras this year. I went down with him years ago, and found it to be too decadent, too crazy. New Orleans was lively enough without being so packed with out of town youths agressively drinking for a week.
When he invited me this time, I think I said, "I don't think I want to drink excessively in NOLA while many of its former residents are still struggling and unable to return. Maybe if we can find some of the black New Orleans Mardi Gras rituals..."
Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans resident and union organizer with Left Turn published a piece "Nothing Stops Mardi Gras." This piece captures my ambivalence well, and details many of the alternative Mardi Gras rituals I didn't know about.
Jordan also appeared on Democracy Now today with Amy Goodman.
On Friday Feb. 24th, Andrei Codrescu published another piece called "Mardi Gras After the Deluge."
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