Posted on 09/08/2005 9:44:40 PM PDT by MRMEAN
College town takes in city folk
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Chillin' on the levee by the Mississippi River on a sunny Monday morning, Nutty and Slim Nine and Doughboy Jr. admitted that they are already homesick for New Orleans.
"This ain't like the city, where everybody got a nickname that everybody knows you by," said Nutty, 18, whose tattooed nickname was spelled out in two-inch high block letters between his right shoulder and elbow. "I'm trying to get back home -- back to the N.O."
"I don't like the curfew here," said Doughboy, 16. "And I don't like the police. They make grown people stay inside at night."
"We got gangs -- 'Catch, Catch, Get A Little Bit', 'Suicide', a bunch of others," said Slim Nine, 20. "And we know the police crew. People here just don't understand us. New Orleans is a fun city." They did not want to give their full names because "people might be after us."
While not typical of the thousands relocated here from New Orleans, they do reflect part of an emerging culture clash in this normally unhurried Southern college town and state capital that has become the largest city in Louisiana with a population that may triple to about 750,000.
A local news report quoted a Realtor telling of rich refugees from the Big Easy bringing suitcases of cash and buying houses on the spot. There are no rooms to rent anywhere in any price range. Families have taken in kinfolks who have no plans to leave. Suddenly there are traffic jams and lines of cars at gas stations. There's been a run on guns and tear gas by wary residents.
"It's totally related" to the influx of refugees from New Orleans, said Geralynn Prince of Securitas Security Systems, an agency that has many "immediate openings" for security guards. Prince's business supplies armed guards for retail stores and supply warehouses.
The feared outbreak of crime has not occurred. But unease was dramatically illustrated last Wednesday when a fight broke out at the River Center, the downtown convention center across from the levee. With about 5,500 refugees, it is the largest shelter in Louisiana.
After the fight, Baton Rouge Mayor-President Melvin L. 'Kip' Holden beefed up the police presence and blasted the state for sending "New Orleans thugs" for his city to house.
"We do not want to inherit the looting and all of the other foolishness that went on in New Orleans," Holden said. "We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."
While the Big Easy is known for the French Quarter, Mardi Gras, great restaurants and letting the good times roll, the city's populace is actually separated at the extremes. Baton Rouge is largely middle class.
"In New Orleans, especially in the place that's really inundated with floodwater, it's dominated by rich and poor," said James Wilson Jr. of the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. "Baton Rouge is pretty much your ... all-American Southern city."
The changes are likely to escalate.
"Everyone is settling in here realizing that they're not going anywhere," said Jason Golden, a Red Cross official at the River Center.
Copyright 2005, commercialappeal.com - Memphis, TN. All Rights Reserved.
Prayers for the good people of Baton Rouge. Hope the vermin will be gone soon.
And I'll take a wild guess and say that Baton Rouge would be happy to see Nutty's dream come true.
CG, hang on...
---"I don't like the curfew here," said Doughboy, 16. "And I don't like the police. They make grown people stay inside at night.---
At 16, you're not exactly 'grown', no matter how big the chip on your shoulder is.
Many cities and towns will soon get very ugly, and very long before it gets better.
I grew up in Big B.R. and still have many friends there. The situation is quite serious. Baton Rouge is majority white, mostly middle class, and lacks the huge hardcore underclass of N.O. The races and classes simply are not polarized to the same extent, and there is less corruption and crime. The last thing the Baton Rougeans want is for their town to become more like New Orleans. May they get their wish!
Dispersing the thugs far and wide is simply like spreading disease.
We need to quit pretending that anyone who was flooded out is automatically a good, deserving citizen.
Baton Rouge Mayor Melvin L. 'Kip' Holden
Right on Mr. Mayor. Hang in there.
"...this normally unhurried Southern college town and state capital that has become the largest city in Louisiana with a population that may triple to about 750,000."
Is this for real? Red Stick the new metropolis of LA?
IOW, they have rules here.
The weekend after the flood N.O. was to host the "Southern Decadence Festival", aka, "Gay Mardi Gras". 100,000 gays a lesbians were to descend upon the city, where they parade down the streets in lewd costumes and perform sex acts in public without a word said to them by the "police".
Two years ago they marched one of their lewd parades through a church while the service was going on. Not a word was said to them by local authorities, and of course there was no negative press coverage.
This is the atmosphere this fine young American citizen longs to return to.
They aren't vermin, they are poor people. And the kids are playing gangsta.
BR has a huge black population, poor and nearly a majority if I recall right. BR has a racial divide as wide as you can imagine.
This article is feeding the fears of a fearful people and I do believe expresses the darker side of this provincial self congratulating town.
I really don't think this article serves anyone any better than al sharptons race baiting on the other side.
The problem here is traffic, created by white flight for the most part from NO prior to the storm. And the crowding of families into people's home causing nerves to be on end.
There has not been the much anticipated crime wave. Although many seemed to be anticipating it with glee and barefly disguised racism.
I don't like gangs and criminals. But so far the Hurricane people have been peaceable but I can't speak for the residents whose homes are bursting at the seams with relatives.
I find it hard to believe that Mr. Nine would have enemies.
I don't won't to burst your bubble but I think you're going to have more problems than just the traffic.
Hon, I live here. I am not in a bubble at all and know we will have problems.
But I still think this article is meant to heighten racial tensions.
The real problems are on the interstates and side streets where it take twice as long to get to work. Not with teenage black kids trying to play gangsta roles. They will be dealt with if they act up.
But what are you going to do when you are exhausted from driving, having near misses, poorly timed redlights, no parking places.
BTW, these young bucks from N.O. don't play gansta they live it...
First they "play" it,,have you seen kids doing that.
Are you patronizing me? Not sure, but I think you are. Let me know if that is the case so I can deliver a good southern smackdown, okay?
Hahahaha....
U bad hon?
Stay that way and stay safe in B.R...
:-)
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