After blaming America for Hurricane Katrina and calling for his city to become a “chocolate New Orleans”, Mayor Ray Nagin has issued the standard political apology. His original statements belie his true motives, and his mea culpa is digging him into a deeper hole.

Here’s what Nagin said about America and its African-American citizens:

As we think about rebuilding New Orleans, surely God is mad at America. He’s sending hurricane after hurricane after hurricane. . . Surely he’s not approving of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America, also.

Nagin has yet to explain what Iraq has to do with hurricanes, and hasn’t presented any evidence of “false pretenses.” He also urged that the Crescent City’s residents should

…rebuild a “chocolate New Orleans” and saying, “You can’t have New Orleans no other way.”

The UK’s Guardian presented a sanitized version of Nagin’s apology today:

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, has apologised for a speech in which he predicted the city would be a “chocolate” city once more and asserted that Hurricane Katrina was a sign that “God was mad at America” and black communities for their violence.

“I said some things that were totally inappropriate … it shouldn’t have happened,” Mr Nagin said, explaining that his speech was meant to convey that black people were a vital part of New Orleans’ history and should be encouraged to return.

But CNN presented more revealing insight into Nagin’s mea culpa:

“I don’t care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day,” he said. “This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be.”

After the statement, he insisted he wasn’t being divisive.

“How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about,” he said. “New Orleans was a chocolate city before Katrina. It is going to be a chocolate city after. How is that divisive? It is white and black working together, coming together and making something special.”

One New Orleans resident presented the best rebutal to the mayor’s comments:

Resident Alex Gerhold called Nagin’s remarks “stupid” and “pitiful.”

“He used the wrong dairy product to describe us. We’re more Neapolitan, not chocolate,” Gerhold said. “It doesn’t do the city any kind of justice.”

The Boston Globe revealed Nagin’s true motives:

If God is intent on wreaking havoc on the Gulf Coast, as Nagin suggested, who could blame the mayor if the response to the disaster was ineffective or if rebuilding plans haven’t advanced very far? God, it would seem, is being used as a shield for individual shortcomings.

It is quite awful for Nagin to speak so harshly of the Big Easy’s Garden District (Uptown). Wealthy or not, the residents there have stayed on, and continued to pay their taxes, despite being subject to the city’s rampant crime and corruption.

It is also inexcusable for Nagin to invoke God and point fingers instead of accepting responsibility for his own mismanagement of his city.

What New Orleans needs is not apologies, but a new mayor.

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Related: Political Correctness

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