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RACE
by Lovell Beaulieu
Dillard Mayoral Debate Defines The Campaign
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George Curry
As the starting time approached for the sneak preview of her documentary film, “RACE”, filmmaker Katherine Cecil of CecilFilm Productions waited anxiously to hear what her 58-minute long film would mean for the diverse audience that was starting to gather inside the Lawless Memorial Chapel on the campus of Dillard University.
Would they roar with applause when the film was finished? Would they recognize themselves in any of the shots? Would they wonder whether the film captured the essence of the 2006 mayoral election that pitted Mayor C. Ray Nagin against nearly two dozen opponents, including the city’s current mayor-elect, Mitch Landrieu, all of whom ran in 2006 when they saw the perfect opportunity to recapture the city’s mayor’s office based on a perceived smaller electorate and discontent with the incumbent mayor?.
Cecil saw the sneak preview as an opportunity to gather all types of feedback from locals toward the more than 100 hours of film footage and countless interviews she conducted. She also considered it an opportunity to tackle the albatross of race by someone who had neither a vested interest nor any political agenda. The fact the preview came within an academic setting (sponsored by the Dillard Political Science Department) presented the perfect backdrop for what remains New Orleans’ most talked about hot-button topic, race.
In the end, Cecil’s film won. It won big, based on early reactions by most in attendance. With the chapel nearly full, the film instantly grabbed the audience’s attention as it zoomed in on Mayor Nagin’s victory celebration the night of his hard-fought win over Landrieu four years ago.
Even with the results well known, however, the film kept members of the audience patiently waiting for an outcome long decided. To be sure, the audience was one of the most remarkable inclusions of racial, ethnic, gender and sexual preference diversity ever to be found in New Orleans but mostly lost in the annals of the city’s daily and weekly media. This was not an orchestrated poll sampling. People who attended wanted to.
Dr. Gary Clark, chairman of the political science department at Dillard, moderated the panel, which took questions from the audience at the end of the film. Four panelists, including two professors from the political science department, one female student and Cecil, gave their impressions of the film, each mostly positive. With the exception of three individuals who expressed negative comments which seemed to be based more on the fact that that film was made than they were with the contents of its scenes, the audience was extremely supportive of Cecil’s efforts.
For her part, Cecil (pronounced Ses-sel), believes she managed to capture the essence of the mayor’s race four years ago without being strident, something local media have either ignored or missed. To be sure, she handled the negative comments diplomatically.
“I think that I was trying to say that as long as we don’t look out for each other – especially post-disaster – that people will vote race,” Cecil said after the sneak preview. “That an accumulation of exclusionary actions (WSJ article, Dallas meeting, and MOST OF ALL – the “green space” plan – all made registered African-American voters vote for Nagin in overwhelming numbers (83%), and of course this was a sharp contrast to 2002 in which white voters overwhelmingly voted for him (86%). Many African-Americans did not feel welcome back here.”
That historical fact may have been lost on a few people in the audience. While the film clearly demonstrated the dichotomy in two separate racial political camps, a few still managed to come out thinking the film wrongly portrayed African-Americans and how they vote, even as several speakers in the film, from political consultants to elected officials, all pretty much documented the opposite. Race was a factor in both camps.
The first speaker (none of the speakers were required to give their names) said he didn’t understand why the film was even made. He said the city’s recent mayoral election shows the city is ready to move beyond race, although a number of people in the audience shook their heads in disagreement.
Another speaker who expressed negative comments said he moved to New Orleans from Tampa recently, and found the film portrayed African-Americans as voting along racial lines and not always in their best interest, despite the fact there were large numbers of African-Americans who expressed the opposite viewpoint in the film. Indeed, former District B Councilman James Singleton, whose political organization BOLD (Black Organization for Leadership Development) enthusiastically endorsed Stacey Head, the racially polarizing White incumbent, against a highly qualified African American engineer Corey Watson, in the recent February 6 District B. City Council election, said Blacks often vote in large numbers when they fear something, as opposed to being for something.
Political consultant, the late James Carvin, when he was interviewed for the documentary, essentially concurred with Singleton’s assessment that race played a major role in the Nagin-Landrieu election, and that Nagin may have been the one to lead the charge, if not directly, with direct appeals to displaced New Orleanians
None of that was lost on Cecil.
