Culture and Race in New Orleans

Cheryl asks for comments on rebuilding the culture of the city. My experience here, knowing a lot of musicians, some writers, an artist or two, and some filmmakers, is that the culture of this place is rebuilding itself even better than the economy, and far better than, say, the political culture. Any city with the remotest claim to a culture will have responded to an event like Katrina with a flood of work, and New Orleans has complied. Aside from Cheryl's book, there have been literally dozens of novels and non-fiction accounts, poetry, and an impassioned polemic ("Why New Orleans Matters") arguing for the city's continued existence. There have also been songs, paintings, photographic exhibitions, and screenplays galore.

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