New Orleans: The Word From Troy, Your Working Boy

Mayor Nagin's in trouble down here because of that crack he made on Martin Luther King day about New Orleans remaining a "chocolate city"--i.e. a city of black people. It isn't, and I don't understand the man's political instincts--nobody likes him, so he decides it's time to play "the race card." Most of the black voters and politicians don't like him; they see Nagin as "the white man's black mayor."

So I don't get this "chocolate city" strategy of his; the day after he said it, folks were out in the streets selling "Mayor Willy Wonka Nagin, Mayor of Chocolate City" t-shirts (No kidding, they were; the t-shirts have a picture of him all dressed up like Willy Wonka with the Wonka Chocolate Works in the background. It was a big seller.)

Nagin apologized for saying this was "Chocolate City" and that that was God's will, but I must admit that it makes me and my wife a little uneasy, being the two newest marshmallows floating around in a big cup of post-Katrina urban cocoa.