You ever seen somebody tryin to impress people by using street talk, but they say it wrong or even if they're down with the talk, no body buys what he's sellin because because everybody knows that he hasn't walked the walk?
I think that's part of how Black folks are takin this Nagin/"Chocolate City" thing. One response:
"So now you wanna use our talk to prove you're down with the Black folks? Yeah right. Talk is cheap. Show me the monay.
For a sense of who Nagin is and who he's beholdened to {clue: it ain't the people in what was New Orlean's Ninth Ward} check out this excerpt from an article in the Sunday January 15, 2006 The Observer, "The Day The Music Died" by author and critic Nik Cohn:
"...The uptown wealthy, whose mansions stand on higher ground, may feel secure, but the middle class has had enough: 74 per cent of buildings suffered serious damage; 115,000 small businesses are still out of commission; the city's population has shrunk to 70,000. Desperate for workers, Burger King is offering a $6,000 signing-on bonus, but there are few takers. Nagin keeps promising that all will be well. No one I've talked to believes him.
Nagin is a contentious figure. After the flood, when it became obvious that the city's disaster plan had been hopelessly inadequate and he might be held accountable, he posed as a firebrand, accusing the powers in Washington. He had a point: the performance of those in power was a crime. Government at every level failed utterly to help its own citizens in need, and it continues to do so. But Nagin's efforts have been nothing to brag about and his posturing fools few. 'Ray Nagin was never black until Katrina' is a popular line among his constituents. Formerly owner of the local cable-TV franchise, his loyalty has always been to business. He has made a show of organising televised forums on New Orleans' future, at which community leaders can berate each other to their hearts' content. The serious brainstorming, though, goes on at private luncheons beforehand, reserved for Nagin and the developers and demolishers who are the true powers behind his throne.
Nagin, like most of the city's black mayors, is light-skinned; the majority of project dwellers are dark. In a city where the 'brown paper bag test' has held sway for 200 years as a guideline to social status, this is no petty distinction. The reshaping of New Orleans, he seems to feel, is not a matter for the mass of its people. Like most things in America, it will be determined by dollars, and dark-brown dollars aren't many..."