Photo by Andrew Kolker.
Councilwoman Stacy Head and her friend and political advisor Barbara Lacen-Keller.
Getting Back to Abnormal, a documentary film that depicts a polarizing political race between a white woman and a black man in post-Katrina New Orleans, opens with a quote by Alexis de Tocqueville, nineteenth-century French political thinker and author of Democracy in America. In an 1832 journal entry chronicling his American journey from the Eastern seaboard to the Gulf Coast, Tocqueville writes:
“They say that a mixture of every nation is to be found in New Orleans. But in the midst of this confusion, what race should dominate and give direction to the rest?”
The quote carries both truth and discomfort, two ingredients still floating to the top of this sunken Crescent City and its perpetual racial stigmas. The truth is that social and economic disparity between races is still a fact of life in New Orleans. The discomfort stems from the fact that no one wants things to be that way, but no one knows how to fix them without causing more trouble. The result, as captured in this film by the four-man team of producer-directors Louis Alvarez, Andrew Kolker, Peter Odabashian, and Paul Stekler: too many people staying silent, or too many people speaking too rashly.
The answer to Tocqueville’s question, of course, is that no race need dominate or direct another. The idea seems sillier and sillier with each glance. And yet, the New Orleans of Getting Back to Abnormal manages to take the issue seriously enough to lead one radio show host to declare on-screen, “It doesn’t matter who’s the better candidate. Are we going to be white or are we going to be black?” This idea of racial representation paints an intriguing and dangerous picture of the false relationship between majority and authority in New Orleans, and the documentary offers the entire bitter pill without an ounce of sugar, while still leaving plenty of room for compassion.
That the film chronicles both race and a race is no coincidence. Within the small slice of New Orleans political history observed on screen, the two worlds remain inseparable despite the regressive attitudes that join them. Stacy Head, an incumbent running for reelection to the city council seat for District B, is white, a fact with which a few members of the district have a problem. Her opponent, Corey Watson, a black pastor with strong support from his congregation, has not stopped some of his supporters from believing Head to be a racist, despite evidence to the contrary. Still, neither candidate is without his or her own virtues, and they most often appear more similar than dissimilar. Footage of Watson singing with his congregation, for example, climbing on pews and other structures with microphone in hand, easily parallels Head’s passionate, physical displays during heated council meetings.
But there’s also another player at bat. Like one of those instances in cinema in which a supporting actor out-performs her leading man or lady, Barbara Lacen-Keller, Head’s director of constituent services, steals the show in terms of emphasizing the kind of patience and understanding required to heal the wounds of racial scars. A black professional more than familiar with the rhetoric of local prejudice across all social strata, Lacen-Keller is completely confident in her candidate, but also in herself—the true beacon of reason on a raging sea. Viewers should make special note of a scene filmed in Lacen-Kaller’s home, where she recalls the story of being asked to give a eulogy for a certain friend. Nowhere else in the documentary is the enlightenment of cross-racial friendship more evident.
In one particularly moving segment, a multiracial crowd gathers to witness the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the desegregation of McDonogh #19 Elementary School in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. The plaque reads “Civil Rights Pioneers” and honors the plight of three women—Leona Tate, Gail Etienne Stripling, and Tessie Prevost Williams—who at the age of six required U.S. Marshall escorts to and from their place of education so that they might be protected from the sneers and jeers of protesting white racists. The fact that this happened just over fifty years ago should mortify any American, but the overwhelming emotion of the event bares no negativity, and instead brings the ladies and many onlookers—including myself, as I watched the film—to tears of pride.
The scene also foretells later footage of football fans celebrating before the impending 2010 Super Bowl championship between the Saints and the Vikings. The streets of the city undulate with people of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Speaking about the hoped outcome of the match, but accidentally about something much deeper, a woman smiles. “This is our destiny,” she says.
The film certainly suggests that it is. Walking viewers through harrowing stories of evictions and rehabilitations, poverty and presidents, the story at large is not limited to tales of failed relationships, but rather embraces the possibility—nay, the presence—of peace and reconciliation. The social wilderness is still messy and dangerous; take one wrong step and you’ve crossed the line of political correctness, never to return. After all, says Reverend Tom Watson, father to Corey Watson, “The nature of politics in Louisiana is ugly.”
That’s not always the case, though. The closing phone conversation between Watson and Head—the latter of whom goes on to win the race with the support of a key percentage of black voters—is a key example of this. Nowhere in their call is there a hint of the excuses and explanations littering the minefield of their competition. Instead, a brief moment of camaraderie takes over, in which the audience sees two people not at odds, but looking forward to the same, shining future.
The full film, which was the Official Selection of the 2013 SXSW Film Festival, is available to stream free on your computer until August 12 at pbs.org/pov/abnormal; more information can be found at gettingbacktoabnormal.com.
