Not Worthy of National Attention: The NOLA Mother’s Day Mass Shootings by David J. Leonard

Not Worthy of National Attention: The NOLA Mother’s Day Mass Shootings

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Amid the celebration of moms across the nation (amid the passage of policies that directly and indirectly hurt so many moms), America was once again reminded that all moms and all people are not celebrated equally; all lives are not worthy of similar mourning and attention.  In New Orleans, 19 people, including 2 children, were shot at a Mother’s Day Celebration. 

Hamilton Nolan reflected on the narrative that has already emerged (can you imagine how many stories about mothers celebrating with their children would have been on the air had this occurred in West Los Angeles or Manhattan, NY), offering a powerful comparison to the Boston marathon bombing:

A couple of disaffected young men in search of meaning drift into radical Islam and become violent. A couple of disaffected young men in search of meaning drift into street crime and become violent. A crowd of innocent people attending the Boston marathon are maimed by flying shrapnel from homemade bombs. A crowd of innocent people attending a Mother's Day celebration in New Orleans are maimed by flying bullets. Two public events. Two terrible tragedies. One act of violence becomes a huge news story, transfixing the media's attention for months and drawing outraged proclamations from politicians and pundits. Another act of violence is dismissed as the normal way of the world and quickly forgotten.

The juxtaposition of Boston and New Orleans is striking given the extent of death, given the violence that occurred within ritualized spaces, and given how each is a communal gathering space.  Of course one doesn’t have to travel down South to New Orleans or West to Chicago to see the hypocrisy in the separate and unequal narratives.  The lack of national attention afforded to violence in Roxbury, Mass; the lack of interventions in the form of jobs, reform to the criminal justice system, investment in education, and economic development is a testament to the very different ways violence registers in the national imagination.  Roxbury doesn’t enliven narratives of humanity but instead those dehumanizing representations.  

Yet, don’t we need to extend the comparison to Newtown, Aurora, and Milwaukee?  Remixing the above:  A couple of disaffected young men in search of meaning drift into spree shootings and become violent.  Flying bullets wound crowds of innocent people attending a movie, going to school, or praying at their local temple.  How is the reaction to Newtown and New Orleans, to Boston and Milwaukie, and to Aurora and Chicago an indicator of who we expect to commit violence, where we expect to be safe, who we see as a victim, and where we see violence as normalized and where it is exceptional?

One comment in the thread made the link between Boston, Newtown (Aurora), and New Orleans in a profound way:

The difference is, of course, that the media and the public focus on Things That Could Happen to Middle Class White People. Bombs placed at a marathon or a plane hitting a building or a gunman mowing down people in Newtown, Connecticut or Aurora, Colorado are things that happened to middle class white people and show the other white people that it could happen to them. Crime is somehow not supposed to happen to middle class white people; it's supposed to happen to black people.

Whereas violence is supposed to happen in Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans, because of “culture of poverty,” because of single parents, because of dystopia and nihilism, because of warped values, gangs, and purported pathologies, the Boston Marathon, an Aurora movie theater, or a Newtown school are re-imagined as safe.  These are places and spaces immune from those issues.

The normalization of violence in inner cities is why the suburbs exist; it is why police work to keep violence from entering into those suburban safety zones; it is why police guard the borders, making sure the wrong people don’t cross into the idyllic homeland of the American Dream.  It is why white middle-class America avoids “those” communities or activities presumed to be dangerous (or go during the right time with the right people); it is why the white middle-class America reacts when those spaces that are presumed to be safe are simply not. 

The movie theater, the school, and the marathon are symbols of Americana and therefore desirable, pure, and the embodiment of goodness.  As such, the violence that happens in these “otherwise safe” enterprises and places occurs because of the entry of “dangerous” and threatening people.  Outsiders enter into otherwise safe and idealized spaces.

It is almost as if the national media, the political elite, and society as a whole expects violence in New Orleans or Chicago and therefore anyone who is the victim is in some ways responsible since they knew the risks.  Whereas watching a movie in Aurora or going to Boston marathon are safe choices, a similar narrative doesn’t guide discussions of attending parade in New Orleans. 

The violence of New Orleans and Chicago are instead imagined as the result of violent places, cultures, and communities; there is no penetration of violence from the outside but instead manifests from within.  This explains the varied reactions whereupon the suburban spaces and those of the white middle class need protection, and insulation from those outside dangers.  With inner city spaces and those of the black under class, the focus rests with protecting and containing those outside from entry into the good parts of America.

In the aftermath of the Mother’s Day shooting, Mitch Landrieu cited the shooting as yet another reminder of the violence plaguing New Orleans.  Describing it as evidence of "the relentless drum beat of violence,” Landrieu quickly located the discussion within the narrative of New Orleans. "It's a culture of violence that has enveloped the city for a long, long period of time.”  Whereas James Holes or Adam Lanza were bad apples, this shooting was evidence of rotten trees, a rotten orchard, and worse a blithe destroying black by black.  The FBI similarly isolated the shooting, positioning it apart from Boston or even Newtown.  It said they "have no indication the shooting was an act of terrorism. 'It’s strictly an act of street violence in New Orleans.'"  Did Boston not happen on a street?  Even Aurora and Newtown, while occurring inside, occurred on a street, No?  Prior to any investigation, the shooting in New Orleans had already been profiled to fit a particular story of violence, guns, race, and safety. 

As pointed out in 2010, this is nothing new, as the shootings in New Orleans, during second line parades, have been used as a moment to demonize and pathologize culture as explanations for violence.  For example, Red Cotton, who was tragically shot at the Mother’s Day parade, laments this Fox News Report:  “Violence at second lines is nothing new, especially post Katrina. In 2006 alone, there were seven people shot during three different second lines, prompting former police chief Warren Riley to double permit fees to try and beef up security. But Riley's new fee structure was struck down in court, leaving many feeling vulnerable.”  The author goes on to argue:

The unfortunate murder that occurred on Sunday is not symptomatic of second line culture. On the contrary, its directly attributable to deep social ills that New Orleans has yet to get a firm grasp on: a broken criminal justice system that allows murderers to get off easily and maintains bad cops which in turn undermines resident's faith in cooperating with authorities; a broken education system that leaves citizens unable to function as adults in the professional world; and a economy based on two sectors that thwart ambition and opportunities - tourism and government.

The tragic murder  also highlights these issues but also demonstrates the cost and consequence of a culture of violence; one entrenched by narrow constructions of masculinity and gun culture.  It also reflects a failure to see the various manifestation and locations of violence through a shared narrative, instead racially profiling each toward very different stories, conclusions, and interventions. 

This isn’t simply abstract differences, or even the very different media coverage seen when we compare New Orleans and Boston, Chicago and Newtown. It isn’t simply reflective in the mere 10,000 dollars reward offered for information in New Orleans compared to 50,000 offered with Boston bombing or the ridiculous 2 million in the case of Assata Shakur.  It is embodied in fact that the police shut down Boston in search of suspects yet no such mobilization in New Orleans.  It is crystal clear as we examine the very difference responses, governing legislation, and the services available with each community.  Brentin Mock highlighted this important point, noting Governor Bobby Jindal’s decision to “allow a behavioral health program in Louisiana that served “at-risk,” low-income children to close.”  He writes:

Local attorney Samantha Kennedy, who’s also a capital mitigation specialist who worked in Tucson and Aurora after their mass shootings, questioned if trauma services would be available to the New Orleans communities as they were offered in Arizona and Colorado. “We have a multigenerational multi-layered PTSD in this community,” wrote Kennedy on Facebook. “Violence begets violence because trauma begets trauma. We live in a highly traumatized community. When are we going to take the biopsyhochemical and emotional needs of our people seriously?”

The tragic shooting in New Orleans is yet another reminder of America’s gun problem. Gun violence, from Newtown to Chicago, from the killing of youth in Aurora to those in New Orleans, continues without intervention. Societal failure and ineptitude in addressing gun violence at political, cultural, or social levels results from the very real ways that race impacts these discussions.  Just as every person within America is profiled as guilty or innocent, as desirable or undesirable, violence is profiled as well.  Gun violence is profiled racially. We have to look no farther than the responses from the FBI and the Mayor, from the news media and the political elite to see this at work.

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness was recently published by SUNY Press.