Nerves

Yesterday's site traffic was reminiscent of the days following the Jessica Hawk case. Google searches and emails. We've logged over 140 murders this year alone, but we rarely see spikes in readership like that one. We could make all sorts of guesses as to why certain deaths generate more interest than others. It could be that through her travels she made a wide array of acquaintances. Could be that her socio-economic class has more access to technology. Could be that things like this scare us a bit, we feel like this little war in our streets doesn't touch us, only "them". We want to be reassured that she was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. Buying drugs, or sticking her nose in business that didn't concern her.

We're mad. Or sad. Or we say things like, "That's really sad that the people talking about her don't understand that being a white girl, no matter what your intentions are, in a bad black neighborhood in New Orleans, will get you killed," because we feel like those kids who set up shop deep in neighborhoods like St. Roch are trying to live some post Katrina adventure, sometimes with little regard to the realities of the situation in the city. Running on ideals and egoism, instead of concrete techniques and true altruism.

Or we say we just miss our friend. Or we're just sick of all this nonsense. Maybe we need something to read. Maybe we could say the media just give these ones more coverage and that generate more interest.

We could say it's cause she's white.
We could say it's cause she's from out of town.
We could say that this happened to another girl not a week ago, in a car, off of Amelia St, and the reaction was not near as strong.

We could say a lot of things, but here at NOMB, all we got to say is we're sorry.