Black Landscapes Matter by Walter Hood Grace Mitchell Tada

Author:Walter Hood, Grace Mitchell Tada [Walter Hood, Grace Mitchell Tada]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC001000 Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, ARC008000 Architecture / Landscape
ISBN: 9780813944852
Publisher: University of Virginia Press

The Opening of Cities

Cole’s Open City had no arbitrary title; nor did Lee Sang-Ki’s 2008 film Open City (2008); nor Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945); Ipek Türeli’s Istanbul, Open City: Exhibiting Anxieties of Urban Modernity (2018); Eddie Romero’s Manila, Open City (1968); Samir Habchi’s Beirut Open City (2008); nor Mitra Mansouri’s documentary Bam, Open City (2005).29 Nor were the titles of dozens of other narratives of the same name arbitrary. They sought to examine the complexity and pitfalls of creating negotiated urban environments. Hundreds of narratives under less obvious titles, such as Colson Whitehead’s Zone One (2012), Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949), and even Issa Rae’s Insecure or Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag do similarly, often within a threatening or volatile setting.30 All have attempted to clarify the importance of urban cultural landscapes in improving the human condition. They peel back layers to keep a level of negotiated civility in the process to outweigh the indirect threat, or direct acts, of violence associated with defining cities. Cole examines these layers and histories of New York City: “The site was a palimpsest, as was all of the City, written, erased, rewritten. There had been communities here before Columbus ever set sail. Before Verrazano anchored his ships in the narrows or the black Portuguese slave trader Esteban Gómez sailed up the Hudson; human beings had lived here, built homes, and quarreled with their neighbors long before the Dutch ever saw a business opportunity. . . . Generations rushed through the eye of the needle, and I, one of the still legible crowd, entered the subway.”31

There are facts, myths, and there are truths about cities, their landscapes, their canons, and of course, their cannons. Take, for instance, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Both cities sit along the Mississippi River and benefited, in growth, from plantation life. At first glance, they have much alike, and a similar promise. Baton Rouge is the center of politics, the state capital of Louisiana, and holds a legacy of southern traditions. New Orleans is larger, and its active port has established its position as both an economic and cultural hub—within the Caribbean, and globally. Both cities have a majority population of African Americans in a state that has a 34 percent African American population.

Both, also, have experienced recent endeavors for secession. The wealthier, white portion of Baton Rouge in the southern portion of East Baton Rouge Parish attempted, in an effort to resegregate educational institutions, to form a separate city called Saint George. The secession failed initially, but the bitter divide remained between the southern and northern portions of the parish.32 On October 12, 2019, voters approved the creation of Saint George but have yet to legally sanction it; a lawsuit countering the secession includes residents in the area and Baton Rouge mayor Sharon Weston Broome. In 2017, prior to the tenures of the current mayor and Council member, a movement started in the African American and Vietnamese areas of New Orleans East (the East) to consider secession from New Orleans.

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