It took a hurricane to reveal the dirty secret New Orleans was trying to hide. Behind the costumes, street music and shrimp creole there was a sea of poor black people with little hope and low-paying jobs or no job at all. These children of the children of sharecroppers constituted an underclass that was largely neglected and left alone as long as they didn’t make waves. Well, the waves that came peeled away the mask, and the result was not pretty!
The poor of St. Louis are also predominantly black with poor wages, if any wages at all. The City of St. Louis and its “ambassadors” rightfully boast about our economic development and growth. But no one wants to talk about the sea of poor black St. Louisans who would find themselves in the same position as their counterparts in New Orleans if an earthquake or serious tornado came through.
It’s time for a new paradigm where it is possible to promote what is good about St. Louis while also addressing what is ugly. Hopefully, the tragedy in New Orleans will cause us all to be honest. The poor cannot be hidden within the statistics; our negligence will be revealed. Why wait for a disaster to happen?
C.A. Nadal
St. Louis