Rude Pundit Still Pissed, Two Years Post-Katrina

The Rude Pundit is pretty rude, but he talked to some people down N'Awlins way:

Jean has had it. He's done with New Orleans. Most recently, he wrote to the Rude Pundit to say that things had become "very disheartening" for him and his family. He fought for two years to try to re-make his life into something like it was pre-Katrina, but he's done. As of now, he's decided to stay one more year to get his affairs in order, as they say, and then get the hell out of the fallen city. "Had enough...There is no plan, no mayor, black people fighting, no federal money...they can keep this cesspool."


Yeah, Jean is angry, that kind of palpable anger that spills over and infects even your most righteous feelings and open-mindedness. He writes, "I am fucking tired of the black people shooting each other...when their lazy asses get out of bed, then the productive black people getting stomped on by their 'brothers.'" You may look at that and you'd be perfectly justified to read it as latent racism spilling out, with your offended liberal sentiments pointing to how Jean stereotypes (at least some) blacks as "lazy." The Rude Pundit reads it as disappointment, disillusionment, and disgust, as the emotional response to unending betrayal; he reads it as sad. And the truth of the matter is that a majority of the crime in New Orleans is committed by African Americans, as befits a majority black city. And the truth is that black-on-black violent crime is one of the main eruptions of the plague of criminality in New Orleans. And the truth is that more than likely you haven't lived in the heat and trash and fetidness of New Orleans for two years. In other words, get fuckin' real.

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This was a city in America that was left to fend for itself after the largest natural disaster in U.S. history, with money tossed at it like it was a sidewalk drunk with a cup. It is part of America. You fail New Orleans, you fail the nation. And while Mayor Nagin and President Bush talk about people returning, Jean says, "We are moving...I'm tired."