A short lesson in Cajun French: Lâche pas la patate.
Literally it’s “don’t let go of the potato.” But for Cajuns it means “don’t give up.” It means, if you’ll excuse the preschool imagery, no matter how hot the potato is, you have to hold on to it if you’re going to eat. It doesn’t matter how badly it burns, or how much longer you think you can grip it. You just do.
Last week, John Houser stood up and started firing a handgun at an evening movie showing in Lafayette, LA, injuring nine people and killing two women before finally killing himself. The aftermath has followed the same script as all the other shootings that keep on happening: people demanding to know how someone so clearly disturbed was able to buy a gun, politicians wringing their hands saying, "We can't do anything, y'all are on your own folks," while members of the community, the people most affected, struggle with a tragedy that's beyond explanation.
As some reporters have been quick to point out, the attack has thrust Lafayette into the national spotlight less than a year after the U.S. National Bureau for Economic Research announced that it was, perhaps objectively, the happiest city in the country. And it's true that Lafayette is most famous for food and music, and the festivals celebrating them, but those are the byproducts of a culture and a region that has survived a history of disaster.
After the shooting, I waited. I spent time with friends as news outlets tussled over the bones of information, planning to come back only when the details were in as neat a pile as possible. Then, the Westboro Baptist Church reared its sphincter of a head to crow that it’s coming here. They unveiled a video of their children marching, poorly, to the UL Lafayette fight song. Why were they coming here? Who knows: Maybe they’re coming to pay homage to Houser, which would say all you need to know. (Governor Bobby Jindal has since announced that state laws prohibit WBC from protesting the funeral.)
But the Cajun language outlasted the ban on French, Lafayette survived every storm and flood in memory, and we will not be cowed by an attention-desperate hate group with tax-exempt status or by some white supremacist, woman-hating motherfucker. You were not our first tragedy. You will not be our last. In crisis we close ranks around our wounded—we bring étoufée to hospitals, stay up after wakes, and we party through hurricanes while generators rumbling in carports keep the lights on. Then we clear the ruined branches from our neighbors’ yards before cleaning our own. We don’t let go of that potato. C’est tout, cher.
Hele artikel hier:
http://www.gq.com/story/on-the-shooting-in-lafayette