Spare Some Change?

Image. Finders, Looters. Post-Katrina, 2005. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorlizardo/39262718/. Made available under Creative Commons License.

I believe this picture depicts several aspects of New Orleans that relate to crime and culture, one of which is racial issues. One great part of our culture is our melting pot of diversity in terms of race, as well as religion and origins. However, this same aspect also creates a lot of conflict in New Orleans which can result in crime. Racial tension is a serious problem that directly effects crime. For example, because of the racial tension in New Orleans, it can be hard to break barriers of race for communities and police officers to come together and solve crimes in areas of New Orleans, mostly due to lack of trust and cooperation. The lack of enforcement of laws in the community due to inability to convict has made consequences an unlikely threat. There is also a high number of hate crimes in New Orleans on both ends of the race spectrum resulting from this conflict. While I wish none of this was the case, race and diversity is a big part of New Orleans resulting from years of mixing various cultures and peoples but it is a double-edged sword, while this diversity makes Nola the rich, beautiful city it is, this tension is also tearing our city apart. We can always hope for change.