No crust in my eyes, just pain
I need to get this off about the New Orleans attack
From someone who calls New Orleans ‘home’:
This week was long and short at the same time. I concluded my annual week-long family visit to Atlanta for the holidays and flew home to New Orleans the morning of New Year’s Eve with a bit of anxiety for an unknown reason. When I was asked by my mother later that evening about my prospective party plans while on the phone I told her, “Well I’ve already done my annual Bourbon St. walk-down, but it seems like there’s nothing else to do so if you do see me out, I probably will be somewhere ‘round the French Quarter.” We carried on the conversation as we giggled about the annoying local perspective of New Orleans tourist attractions1. I had asked a friend what her plans were for the evening and when she responded that she’ll be with her family, I accepted my fate with ease that it was just not my turn to leave the house again, watching the fireworks from the top of my apartment building and resting my eyes after the deliverance of my New Year’s prayer.
It was a startling surprise to wake up to a phone call from my mother and usherings of texts blowing up my phone at 5 am New Year’s Day ensuring my safety. In complete discombobulation, I immediately check my Twitter—with the current news no longer available at the top headline anymore (Elon, you WILL pay for your crimes)—only to be left with a sea of tweets about the truck that was driven down Bourbon St. killing 14 and injuring 35. The perpetrator drove down Bourbon St. at a fatal speed, while simultaneously shooting people and had placed multiple IEDs2 around the French Quarter (which were detonated by the police the following day). My eyes were barely able to conjure up tears because of how dry they were from my eventless slumber as I went to my Instagram checking everyone’s stories and ensuring their safety. Thankfully just about everyone I know who was down there left before the tragedy, and that all my family here in New Orleans were okay participating in other festivities.
It is disgusting, discouraging, and defeating to know that my reality is no longer the truth to those 14 victims who lost their lives this week, and their families who’ve lost more than just a number to a death toll count. These people deserved to live. To have fun. To bask in the rhythm of breathing. I am NOT getting into the race relations of the perpetrator being a Black Muslim man, that discussion is too vast and my emotions are still getting the best of me in the case of the current circumstances. However, the absolute visceral reaction I had when I saw his face for the first time has made this tragedy even more disgusting. Now knowing that it was at the hands of a Black man has been the most disappointing aspect of this tragedy aside from the absolute horror of the deaths themselves. I am praying for peace and comfort for all 14 victims, their families, those who survived the attacks, and to the Black men who will continue to face scrutiny and bias for the uplifting of the narrative this will bring as a battle toward them.
The City of New Orleans and the FBI’s response has been the least shocking in the turning of events. The Sugar Bowl between the University of Georgia and Notre Dame was due for 7:45 pm that evening and instead of postponing it completely and/or quickly moving it to a different stadium a substantial distance from our city, they pushed it back less than 24 hours—with it kicking off at 3 pm CST the following day, just hours after Bourbon St. was reopened for business. To the Mayor’s office, this swift cleaning and reopening of Bourbon St. was essential to showcasing the city’s resilience. Mayor Cantrell’s leadership of the City of New Orleans is a microcosm of Blackness in America. If you’re a Black American reading, many of us have experienced the essence of being broken down to a traumatic extent and being met with the abrasiveness and ungenerous nature of the Black parent. This essence that was built as a means of defense has constructed a culture that’s been manufactured in our systems that we’re all forced to participate in.3
For Mayor Cantrell and The City of New Orleans to bring a Second Line down to commemorate the lives that were lost without the blood from their bodies having had enough time to seep into the bricked path while the other thousands of abandoned homes and properties have been waiting for intervention since Katrina is yet again another microcosm for the larger problem of the city prioritizing everything but it’s own citizens. They wouldn’t DARE let tragedy steep for too long, but the suffering of their citizens can be dealt with later. The speediness with which they’ve recovered from this was only for political gain, with it being an election year for the mayor’s office in October.
Natives I know are recalling these bollards and other protections on Bourbon St. that had a high probability of preventing the vehicular tragedy. But leave it to the Orleans Parish Police Superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, who said “…I didn’t know about them, but we have them, and so we have been able now to put them out.” as a response to where the newfound L-Shaped Archer barriers that were being installed the morning after the attack (Strickler & Silva, 2025, NBC News). They were found in storage, collecting dust instead of on the streets during one of the busiest times of the year for the city.
I don’t really have much to say to conclude this, as I no longer want to subject myself to listening to the people who are running my local government, nor researching and regurgitating their catastrophes of statements. They all suck. I’d rather focus on hearing more stories of the victims, but honestly, my capacity for it is wearing thin. It’s giving me flashbacks to 2020 and I’m getting so enraged to where I’ve had a lingering headache about it since it occurred. I understand the privilege it is to be able to turn my phone off or ignore traditional social media to feel better, whereas other families and communities are living in this hell currently full-time in an attempt to lay their family members to rest the best way they know how. I will be linking resources at the bottom for those who’d like to seek services out. The people killed are not martyrs, they are victims.
A white woman smoke cleansing Bourbon St. of “gross energy” is a part of the “gross energy” she claims the space of having. White women believing that they are the vessels for achieving spiritual cleansing in a space of blackness where it was an epicenter for black enslavement is utterly INSANE. That’s all she gets from me.
Background: My father is from New Orleans and my mother is from a small town in South Georgia. I moved around all my life (spending my first ten years all across the south), so I’ve always registered ‘home’ as both of the cities where my parents are from. New Orleans has always been my home even though I was never a resident until I decided to go to university here in 2021.
Improvised Explosive Device
Of course, white supremacy is the overarching issue, but how we as Black people participate in these systems with the agency we do have is penultimate and that’s what I’m focusing on here. If you’re reading my blog, you likely already understand the context in which we exist, hence my putting this here and not addressing it fully in the article.