Saturday, November 19, 2005

Is This Racist?

Here's a poem I found posted on the blog "Swanky Conservative." For the record, the name of their blog is half correct. I'll leave it to you to determine which half.

So, my question to all of you is...Is This Racist?

‘Twas the Night Before Katrina (Cajun style)

Please note that the title indicates the poem is told in a "Cajun" accent. This will become important later...

‘Twas de night before Katrina, when all tru da state
Not a gas pump was pumpin’,
Not a store open late
All da plywood was hung, on de windows wit care,
Knowing dat a hurricane, Soon would be dere.

Yes, it's a humorous poem about a storm that killed many many citizenes of New Orleans. So the poem is insensitive. But that's not why I've asked you all here...The title of this post isn't "Are Conservative Blogs Insensitive?" It's "Is This Racist?"

Let's go a bit further:

Da chilren were ready wit deir flashlight in hand
While rain bands from da hurricane covered over our lan'
And Mom wit her Mag-lite, and me wit my cap
Has jus filled da battub for flushing our crap.

Rhyming cap with crap! You devilishly clever anonymous satirist!

Anyway, do you see where I'm going with this? Sure, there's such thing as a "Cajun" accent. You may recall it being used by Gambit in that old "X-Men" cartoon, or Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target. ("I weel halp you find your daddee.")

But all this "dat dere" stuff sounds more like, well, like a minstrel accent. And the overall tone of the poem, about panicky, bewildered Louisiana citizens fleeing the massive storm on foot...And the fact that the overwhelming number of Katrina refugees were black...

De wind how it howled, de storm very scary,
Myself and my family were all too unwary.
Da dangers of hurricanes are serious ya know,
Dey are taken for granted as Betsy did show.

Seriously, maybe I'm being oversensitive or something...You tell me. Is This Racist?

3 comments:

Horsey said...

Nah it seems ok to me. Maybe it's because I've seen much worse.

Never Guess An Email Address. said...

It seems like it's meant to be racist, but I have to say that a lot of people native to New Orleans speak like that, black and white. If you've ever spent time there, the Cajun accent sounds like that.

Anonymous said...

I am a New Orleans native, and many whites and blacks in south Louisiana talk this kind of Rural-Speak with a heavy French accent. It may sound like ebonics to the rest of the country, but in Louisiana its not an unusual way to speak.