Shedrick White: A Force for Good
by Marcus Gilmer

Shedrick White, "The Mayor who won't forget to Care."

Shedrick White is a large, imposing man, his size belying a genial attitude. A straight shooter who has a penchant for poetry, White has a realistic view of himself in terms of the mayoral race, along with an optimistic approach. “I didn’t know there’d be 22 or 23 names on the ballot…I wanted to show I can compete on a major platform.” His inspiration to run for mayor came after he read a quote by Einstein. “He said, ‘The world is a dangerous place, not because of evil men do, but of the good men that sit by and do nothing.’ I couldn’t sit by and do nothing.”

He doesn’t, however, view himself as a politician. “I’m really not trying to be a politician. I’m the only person [in the race] trying to be a humanitarian. That’s really the missing element. I want to bring character and integrity into that office. We need someone to communicate to with the people. There is the city of New Orleans and there are the citizens of New Orleans. Those are two different entities altogether.” One of White’s more poetic slogans to this effect is emblazoned on his pamphlets: “The Mayor who won’t forget to Care.”

White knows the city as well as any of the other candidates. Born and raised in the Magnolia projects, White has lived in Gentilly since he was 11. His background served him well in his volunteer work, which includes working in schools reading and teaching poetry to students as well as community activism. He headed up the “Shoot-Out for Peace” at Unity Fest in 2003, a basketball game pitting a group from the St. Bernard Projects against a group from the St. Thomas Projects. The two factions had experienced violent clashes after being forced together, and the basketball game served as a means to bring the two groups together. “After the games, we all prayed in the middle of the court. You had these young men with tears in their eyes. And the crowd fed off the energy from them.”

He was holed up at an apartment in New Orleans East when Katrina hit. “I was here for the storm. I stayed. The water came up 10 feet. It was an inch below my doorstep. The boats came and got me out.” After he left the apartment, he spent almost two days at the Convention Center. “You had a large group of people expecting busses. Even if they couldn’t get on one, if they saw others being picked up, they would have been okay. But they didn’t have any food or water and there weren’t any busses. At the Superdome, at least you had busses.” He pauses for a moment, shakes his head. “Nobody in their wildest imagination would think we’d face what we did. If the levees had held…People thought the storm had passed, though we’d be back in a couple of days. People were out already cleaning up when the water started coming in.” After leaving the Convention Center, White ended up with family in Baton Rogue, where he continued his studies through SUNO before returning to New Orleans in January.

As for the racial tensions exposed in New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina, White feels it’s more of a class issue. “A lot of those people at the Superdome and Convention Center didn’t have the means to get out of town.” White points out that the gap between the classes “is harder to make up. They don’t have access to certain things,” including transportation that would have made it easier for some to leave town.

The reason for this gap? According to White, it all comes back to education. White claims that there are twenty-seven departments under the mayor’s direction. “Not one,” he says, “is dedicated to [public] education.” White’s proposal to alleviate this problem is to create a department under the mayor’s office that works hand-in-hand with the Department of Education on the state level.

Besides making sure all the schools are equipped with up-to-date textbooks and computer equipment, a focus of White’s is class size. “The public school classes are too big. In classes that big, kids will miss some things.” As goes public education, White claims, so goes the city’s economy. “You can’t attract businesses or factories without the adequate educational system to support it.”

White’s overall approach to the city is the same as his campaign: optimistic in spite of the staggering challenges. When I ask him if he thinks he’ll win, he laughs and simply answers, “I don’t know. I hope so.” Before leaving, White left me with a poem he had written specifically about the mayoral campaign.

If I was Mayor,
A Poem by Shedrick White

If I was Mayor of New Orleans
Life would be fair.
We would be known as the city that cared
Not as the one that forgot.
Not as the one that leads the nation in people getting shot.
Not as the one that leaves people on their rooftops
Or in their attic to rot.
And the education,
You’ll love it.
There will be no difference,
Equality between private and public.
Because every child has the right to learn.
I would value the service worker
Because everybody has the right to earn.
Roll out the red carpet to the displaced residents
Because everybody has the right to return.
And, of course,
I would clean up the police force.
Understand that better living conditions
Is crime reduction.
I would streamline processes in City Hall
To eliminate corruption.
For safety is first.
We have to keep people alive.
I would watchdog the Corp
To make sure they provide
Protection from Cat Five.
Only after making these improvements
Can we truly say
Laisez le bon temps roule.

Marcus Gilmer works, writes, and runs marathons in the UPT.