I Love You

Books by Kalamu ya Salaam

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I Love You: Post-Katrina New Orleans

By Kalamu ya Salaam

“I love you, Gabe,” a pagan emotionally embraces a Christian. Our differences are a classic case of otherness-we are not only old/young, male/female, radical/conservative, we are also non-religious/religious. One might rationally assume given all those differences that Gabe and I would end up, if not estranged, at the very least alienated.

Gabe is a young, quiet ebony woman with inquisitive eyes and an enchanting laugh you have to get to know her to hear. She is as serious as the damage done to New Orleans, not just by hurricane Katrina, but also by the neglect and malfeasance of those who are charged with caring for our wounded city, i.e. our elected officials at all levels of governance-and that's serious!

I had asked Gabe whether people who didn't know Christ could know true love. Her face registered her inner turmoil. As she usually does, Gabe took her time in responding to such a dangerous inquiry. I even specified “what about the millions and millions of people who lived before Jesus appeared? Could they know true love?” She uttered a soft but unyielding “no.” I was not surprised.

A strange mixture of sadness and hope roiled inside me. This was sort of a Middle East moment; that instant when the other could easily become not just incomprehensible but also enemy.

Between us, I am the elder who had also been her high school teacher. I am the male within a patriarchal society. I am the more worldly in personal experience. I did not feel threatened by Gabe's response and I tried my best not to appear threatening in my rejoinder. Though we both only wanted the best for the other, nevertheless we were at war with each other; in this weird case the battlefield was the concept of love.

When I responded, “I love you, Gabe.” Gabe smiled. We have it on camera. And Ashley, who was there with a second camera, had immediately also chosen sides.

”I love you too, Gabe.”

We were making a movie about making a movie about post-Katrina New Orleans life. It is not easy. Life in these times is not easy. Making a serious movie about the convoluted truths of these uneasy times is also not easy.

I was not being glib nor merely mouthing a platitude when I told Gabe I loved her. Nor, for that matter, was Ashley simply co-signing a politically correct social conversation. We were sharing with each other deep, deep feelings across a chasm of incompatible beliefs.

I am writing these words on a Mac laptop, sitting on a non-descript, nearly-but-not-quite ugly sofa at Marian's house. Last night I sat in this exact spot and quoted Amilcar Cabral to Marian: the people are not fighting for some ideas in our heads, they are fighting for a better life. The point being, we win the war by offering a better life and not because we offer superior ideas.

I also talked about how Americans are junkies hooked on consumerism and that as long as there is a supply a dope you can not hope to organize junkies because for junkies only two things really matter. One is being high and the other is getting high.

Marian, who converted to Judaism decades ago, laughed in agreement. And then a little later she admitted, “I thought you were going to beat up on me. Why can't people understand?” What she meant was “why don't” not “why can't.”

I am a born again pagan who does not proselytize my non-beliefs. I am used to bumping up against Christian bigotry from friends and associates, from people who don't even realize they want to narrow and restrict the human condition, so I could not resist broadly smiling when Marian threw her head back in delight recalling her visit to Israel, a country where there “was no Sunday. You know it's against the law there to knock on someone's door and ask do they know Christ.”

Earlier in the week I had also reached out to Abram who, in poker fashion, had called and raised my belief that Israel was a European problem that the powers that be foisted on the Arabs to solve. Abram proclaimed he was for Austria being Israel.

“You know Freud and . . .” Abram reeled off a list of reasons why Austria. We laughed and laughed. “I'm serious. Even though I hate it over there, I would move there.”

Abram didn't have to say he wouldn't move to Israel in the Middle East.

“And, the Germans won. They really did. They got rid of most of their Jewish population and now the majority of the world hates Jews.” Abram is withering in his sit-down routine.

So there we were, lounging on the steps of his raised traditional New Orleans shotgun double, commiserating with each other about the hopelessness of a settlement.

“History proves that occupations never win. People will always fight for their land.”

I calmly remind Abram, “that's not true. Look at this country. America is a settler state; they simply wiped out the indigenous people, proclaimed this a democracy, and now want to make everybody else adopt the American way.”

I resist. I may have been born in America, but I refuse to act American. Yes, there are deep-seated problems in the world but we don't have to subscribe to might-makes-right to solve those problems nor do we need to stake the salvation of others on them adopting our personal beliefs.

Gabe inspires me. She manifests a serious commitment to grappling with our city's considerable problems even as fractures and fissures shatter her personal life. She remains accepting of the other even as she is strict with herself. Gabe doesn't avoid the difficult. She is not afraid to face her fears.

Differences do not separate Gabe and I. She is as ecumenical as Jesus in her embracing of others.

I know true love because I know Gabe.

posted 25 August 2006