At one point or another, most New Orleanians develop a Marie Antoinette Complex (which, sadly, has nothing to do with brioche, big wigs, or brocade dresses). It’s not a terminal condition; in fact, it may come and go quite frequently over the course of one’s life. The Complex often goes unnoticed, until finally one day the other shoe drops.
You’ll be going about your work, minding your own business, innocently making a pot of gumbo or red beans, depending on the day of the week and the weather outside. From next door, you can hear your neighbor listening to some jumpin’ New Orleans-style funk on WWOZ. Needing a bit of a break, you collapse on the sofa, beer in one hand, remote control in the other, and innocently flip over to CNN–only to discover that the rest of the world has gone Stark Raving Mad.
I experience the Complex at least once or twice a year–usually when I visit relatives in Mississippi or Alabama. I’m fine on the drive over, while I’ve got my CDs and consistent access to NPR, but when I step out of my car, things get all weird. Like, alternate universe weird. People walk the streets in curious, acid-washed clothing. They watch something called NASCAR. They eat Twinkies–deep-fried Twinkies. And their music…well, it’s charming, but it’s something we don’t get much down here. In all, it’s like seeing an America I never knew existed.
The same thing happened on Wednesday morning, after all the votes had been tallied.
Here I am, chock-full of red blood, doing my thing, contributing to my community and occasionally, like Miss Antoinette herself, playing shepherdess in the privacy of my backyard, when all of a sudden the masses go and do something utterly befuddling. They pass laws that seem not just protective, but mean-spirited. They veer to the right–though only slightly–and elect officials that ran on platforms of inclusion but have done nothing but divide. It all reeks of the same hysteria that allowed Joe McCarthy to run roughshod over the First Amendment some 50 years ago.
I know I’m partially to blame, what with the constant flag-burning parties in my living room and the way I recruit ten-year-olds through my aggressive gay agenda. But I can’t help thinking that the god of the Red Staters (who also goes by the names of Yaweh and Allah, mind you) is up there thinking, “What in My Name has gotten into you people?”
The one bright spot: Orleans Parish has an almost completely new school board, so when Heather gets to elementary school-age, her two mommies may well be able to send her to public school.
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