During the 2006 celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. day, Nagin, either as a result of mental fatigue, thoughtlessness, or sheer stupid bigotry proclaimed, "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans." He continued, "And I don't care what people are saying in Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day."

Is Ray Nagin a black bigot? I’m not sure. But if the mayor of another American city proclaimed its population should be all white, all Hispanic, or all Asian, what do you think the reaction of so-called black leaders would be? And don’t hand me this business that he meant it as a matter of 'black pride'. That term has become as ambiguous and negatively charged as 'white pride' or 'gay pride'. It’s time to lose this separatist group mentality that masquerades as some kind of self-esteem movement. How is it we all acknowledge we’re living in a "global" society and economy, but we insist on drawing racial and economic boundaries for the purpose of living in segregated cities?

Americans of all backgrounds have the right and privilege to celebrate ethnic heritage. We have the freedom to dwell in culturally distinct districts and neighborhoods that are unique; but that’s different from a publicly elected figure like Nagin declaring he has a God-given mandate to govern an all-black city. That just won’t fly, Ray. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." This is the America King envisioned. Not an all vanilla, or all chocolate, or all red, or all yellow United States. It’s the United States most of us envision.

New Orleans is being re-built by people from all walks of life. Is it asking too much that those same people be encouraged to live together? They may have a chance if they ignore the intolerant speechifying of people like Ray 'Chocolate City' Nagin, or rapper Kanye West who, in the storm’s aftermath asserted, "George Bush doesn’t care about black people," or Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan who blamed the flooding on a conspiracy by the U-S government to detonate the levees in an effort to destroy New Orleans' black neighborhoods. These and other prejudicial comments ring all the more hollow when you look at real numbers. Louisiana Department of Health and hospital figures place the percentage of whites killed by Katrina at 36.6 percent, yet whites only made up 28 percent of New Orleans’ population according to census data. Likewise, census data show blacks accounted for 67.25 percent of the population, while death records indicate 59.1 percent of the storm dead were black. 4.3 percent of the dead were other minorities. Whites died at a disproportionately higher rate than all other races. So much for the 'President Bush delayed or ignored the disaster relief because all the victims were black' lie.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin, the leader who couldn’t get residents out of town ahead of the storm-even though he had dozens of idle buses sitting in parking lots-owes every resident of New Orleans and the rest of America an apology for his thoughtless, stupid, insensitive remarks.