TIMES

On Sunday we drove up to Washington, Louisiana, a little, old, bayou town north of Opelousas. It’s off the interstate so you have to want to go there or you drive by and never know. In old times it was a major steamboat port for shipping cotton and sugar down the Opelousas River to the Atchafalaya, Morgan City and the Gulf. They changed the river's name to Bayou Courtableau after a local man who accumulated great wealth, property and owned many slaves. Washington is kept clean and freshly mowed. All that remains is the village, a gas station, antique shops and the Steamboat Restaurant on the bayou; we had crab stuffed catfish. 

Only a few shoppers in the antique stores and not much buying. Every store had a half price sale going on, even the business and buildings were for sale. Like so many southern towns, bypassed by the interstate all that’s left are old people, a destination restaurant and history. Everything has a story. I’d bet Mr. Courtableau’s descendants know their legacy even if the money’s all gone; and his slaves’ people, they have their own problems in the new times. Most of them have scattered up to Alexandria or east to Baton Rouge but they don’t have the luxury of a quaint village, a destination restaurant or a pedigreed backstory. 

In the morning on Interstate 12, on our way out of Baton Rouge, we passed over Airline Hwy. The exit was blocked off and there was a lot of first responder activity on Airline to the north. An angry, black man with a rifle had just killed three policemen and wounded three others. He was killed in the melee but we would not learn any details until we were farther up the road. This, just a week after a similar shooting in Dallas, Texas; these are the stories of new times, in cities full of angry people. There is plenty of blame to go around; nobody can shake off their own little piece of the ugly. Leaders are pleading for calm and control but denial and culture go hand in hand; it has to be the other side’s fault. Placing blame and changing the subject are top priorities in these times. People of color dying at the hands of police is not news; it’s the norm. When that equation goes upside down it’s not the norm and there is hell to pay. There is no just cause for this violence, the ambush of police officers, and nobody says otherwise. But on the other side of the tracks they look and nod as they grieve, they grieve for dead black men and dead white men, feeling a sort of release. Not celebrating anything, nothing there to feel good about but somewhere, some white someone is being touched by the same pain that has been eating them up forever. 

‘An eye for an eye and the world goes blind.’ We don’t have the stomach for the hard work of reconciliation. New times aren’t that much different from old times. Old Courtableau made his riches on the backs of his slaves. He could work them to death, sell them for profit or kill as punishment for any reason, as he pleased. Old times, for all the times, heroes took what they wanted, by stealth or by blunt; whatever it took. It was good business after all, they served a god that helps those who help themselves.