"This disaster stuff is happening to you, too..."

By Bill Shore | April 16, 2007

On Friday Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu gave a keynote speech at NYU's annual conference on social entrepreneurship. Speaking easily and without notes, lacing his comments with self-deprecating jokes, he was powerfully eloquent on the issues of race and poverty in America:

"If you think you've got Katrina fatigue, what you think we got? A lot of folks think, well, that's what they get for living below sea level and for having corruption. But what happened in Louisiana did not just happen to poor people. What happened down there happened to you."

"It happened to you because the Mississippi River is a major artery. It has good levees. Unlike the levees that protect New Orleans - the levees that failed – most of the levees on the Mississippi can't fail. You need the levees on the Mississippi River and so the Army Corps of Engineers built them high and strong. They can't break because 90 percent of the clothes you wear come through that import-export channel. Forty percent of all of the oil and gas we use comes through our pipelines. If you don't want that oil and gas you better figure a way to get that ethanol stuff in your car tomorrow."

"People ask about all the people they saw jammed into the convention center, how did they get there? But what we should really be asking is how did they get poor? We have not had a forthright discussion about race and poverty in this country since Bobby Kennedy got killed. That is something that is happening to you, too."

"New Orleans is a test case. I hear people say New Orleans is 'a new opportunity.' I hate it when I hear that. What people where I live hear when they hear that is "Someone's coming to take my stuff." When people say its an opportunity, people where I live think those people think they are smarter, better, faster and they are going to be able to come and take my stuff. So I see it not as an opportunity but a responsibility. If there was ever a time and place for social entrepreneurship to stick its stake in the ground, it is in New Orleans right now."

"So come to New Orleans. You need a problem to fix, we got it. I like to say that New Orleans will get all up in ya, and you'll see what I mean when you get there. Great music, great food, and most of all great people. We all got different ways we're vulnerable. I read the 9/11 Commission report and I got some real bad news for you. The problems we had before – they ain't fixed yet. They still don't have what is called inter-operability. They still can't get the guys in the subway to be able to talk to the guys above ground. So this disaster stuff is happening to you, too."