Low in downest Central City, the truth shelters in shambles and shadows. The blown-out abandoned row house on S. Robertson Street, between Thalia and Martin Luther King Blvd., offers open air accommodations stoop-by-sidewalk: brothers and sisters wedge around the rim of an urban drain strainer, choked amid the of scrapings from Broadmoor and Gert Town. A mere minutes long bike ride from the haughtiest haunts grants free admission to the daily horror-show ceaseless pounding of the pounded and pummeled.
Pain and punishment versus privilege and power face-off in the final rounds. The wearying, heavy hands flail the air for more advantage: additional prisons, less public education, another recipe to smother social activism in an etouffee of non-participation and disaffection? So close to the crown, but no white flag from the row house corner. Only a banner scrawled on the weather boards: "death to the sistum."
Perhaps, some will remember Ali coming off the ropes to topple a tired giant.
New Orleans Labor Voice
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