NAACP protest march pics...

[henricus]

Oh good grief!

[rich815]

Oh good!

[Eddie1664878514]

Very enjoyable, particularly 2, 4 and 6.

[Uhooru]

Very interesting. Good job Dennis. Relatively speaking, the ills of slavery in this country

have been well explored and hopefully the lessons learned although the repurcussions still

reverberate. But much more dimly percieved is the fact of the lives lost in transport. I

never realized it was so many. This makes a holocaust much greater in numbers than that

suffered by my people, or the Gypsys, or Ruwandins, Cambodians, Armenians, and

presently Africans in Dhafur. The main difference is most of these more modern tragedys

were fueled by fear and hate, whereas the Slave trade and in another way the Irish Famine/

Holocaust were more the product of greed and indifference. Righting the balance is a

proper subject of photojournalism as practiced with the Leica camera in the past and

hopefully in the present and the future.

[ray .]

<i>The main difference is most of these more modern tragedys

were fueled by fear and hate, whereas the Slave trade and in

another way the Irish Famine/ Holocaust were more the product

of greed and indifference.</i><p>

 

Barry, the distinction you make is not, I don't believe, a great one

to most of the people who died or were mistreated as slaves.

Some blacks found an imprisoned life so miserable that they

committed infanticide so that their children would not be

subjected to slavery. We cannot blur the edges and give this

holocaust the face of something approaching a natural disaster.

It's not a fire, earthquake or unavoidable boatwreck, but

something as essentially cruel and heartless as any crime

humans have committed on each other.

[Alex_Es]

Dennis, this is some of your best work. As one might expect, this

touched off some political discussion, some of it unpleasant. Your

photographs hit on what remains a major problem in our country, like

it or not. This is Leica photography at its best. Keep at it!

[rick_waldroup3]

Dennis, forget all the political crap. These are great photos like I stated before and they really do tell the story of what is going on. Bravo!

[dennis_couvillion]

Thanks, Rick... but I'm not bothered by any of that. Once you start a thread you have no control over where it goes and if there can be some civil discussion about matters that people feel strongly about then I guess that's a good thing.

 

Anyway, I enjoyed shooting these pics and thank everyone for the nice compliments. I'm not one of those people who finds it offensive when someone says "Nice shot". :>)

 

FWIW, I still have another roll that I haven't developed yet. If there's anything decent on it I'll be sure to share it here.

 

Thanks again...

 

Dennis

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

Really fine fine street/documentary pics Dennis. I love #3, the colourful woman in the straw hat. This wouldn't be her first demo nor will it be her last. She's a great American.

[dennis_couvillion]

"This wouldn't be her first demo nor will it be her last."

 

You know, Jack, that's exactly what I thought to myself. FWIW, I chatted briefly with her before the march and she was a very sweet lady.

[eliot_rosen1]

If you really want to bring politics into it (in a civil discussion), I look at these pics and think that the NAACP is clueless, stuck in a 1960s mentality, and is not serving black people well. This is about three white men who killed a black man about a year ago. They have already been indicted for this crime, and the underlying racist practices of some local businesses are under investigation.

 

The real problem in New Orleans is black on black murders, dozens and dozens of them. In one month, there were four drug related murders of blacks. Rival black gangs are killing each other on a regular basis in black neighborhoods. This and the underlying povery are problems of far greater magnitude than that event. Some of you should do some reading about what is going on in NO. The NAACP doesn't seem to care about the much more serious issues and instead chooses to make headlines and divert attention to serious systemic problems for which it has no answers.

 

Ray this is the 21st century. Focussing on slaves on ships, which some politicians do, is not relevant to the very real problems faced by African-American communities. It's time to look at the present and future, not the past.

[dennis_couvillion]

"(drug related murders) and the underlying povery are problems of far greater magnitude than that event."

 

Eliot, you are absolutely right about that, but those are far deeper problems that many have tried, and many have failed, to cure. Poverty and poor education are the greatest underlying causes for many of the problems in the black community here in New Orleans. The school system is in a shambles and the state is trying to take control of it from the school board.

 

The incidents that precipitated the march were extremely offensive to the black community and they wanted to draw attention to them. I have no way of knowing with any degree of certainty whether the NAACP does, or does not, serve the interests of its constituency well. All I know is that the people gathered there last Saturday felt very strongly that further attention needed to be directed to those incidents so that they did not happen again. By their very nature protest marches are more symbolic than substantive, but I am sure that businesses on Bourbon Street have gotten the message.

 

I don't mean to sound like an advocate because the issues are far too complex and, in some respects, far to alien for me to profess any expertise or authority.

[michael s.]

Not sure if anyone had a chance to see the "Times-Picayune" article I linked above, but two pertinent paragraphs read as follows:

 

<<<<< " The marchers' demand for changes from people working in this vital sector of the local economy drew support from Steve Perry, executive director of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau, who told the crowd that French Quarter bar owners must "elevate their standards and consciousness."

 

"We stand with the NAACP today," he said. >>>>>>

 

Looks as though NAACP did something right if a government official with responsibility for convention and tourism took the podium and asked the business he deals with to do better. (Conventions and tourism are a *big deal* in New Orleans, are they not, Dennis ?)

 

The other problems mentioned by Eliot and Dennis cannot be ignored, but it's not either-or in my opinion. Violent crime must be addressed; poor schooling must be addressed; *and* racial intolerance must be addressed. NAACP is most certainly a voice of experience in that last category.

 

No photos at all in that online story by the "Times-Picayune." I'm sending a letter to the editor suggesting that the paper missed the boat and needs Dennis, at least on a freelance basis -:)

[ray .]

Eliot, the present and future don't live in a vaccum. If history is

useless, then let's stop teaching all American History in schools.

The fact that most Americans are not aware of the dark secrets

of the past is very relevent, because it distorts their view of the

present. Do you actually think even a successful black person is

today exempt from the indignities of racism? Get real. What

track record of justice involving investigation of racist acts should

blacks look to for comfort?

[al_kaplan1]

After investing over a decade of my life helping raise a couple of black boys (now 23 & 26)I'm very aware of racism, having gone down to the jail to bail one out on what a white kid wouldn't likely be arrested for. The judge dismissed it immediately. Another time I saw the boy stopped by a white county cop and I confronted him, wanting to know what the problem was. "Who the f*** are you?" was the courteous reply. "I'm his step-father, officer. What's the problem?" After being convinced that we shared the same address he replied "He was driving at a high rate of speed weaving in and out of traffic" and when I asked where he gave an address 4.5 miles away. I then said it looked to me like a classic case of "driving while black" because if the kid was really doing that, driving recklesly, he should have been stopped immediately, not followed for 15 minutes without a call for back-up. Then the cop said he wanted to search the car for drugs. I told him that I hoped he found 10 kilos of coke in the car because it would be inadmissable as evidence, an illegal search the result of an illegal traffic stop. Then he'd have 10 kilos of drugs AND the problem of concocting a story at the station as to how he came by it. He gave the kid his license back, told him to drive safely, and he left.

 

Unfortunately that's the reality, that even here in Miami, a fairly well integrated multi-racial community, we still have a few idiots, both with and without badges. Not every black kid has a crazy old white step-dad to confront the cops in his behalf.

[johns1]

The LHSA Spring Photo Shoot was in the Big Easy this past April. Not a whisper was heard about this unfortunate incident anywhere in the quarter. All the local people we encountered were very cordial and welcoming; all we Leica shooters had fun!

 

My condolences to the citizens of this historic American city for their tragic loss.