Comments on: Who is with these debutantes?

Question: Who is with these debutantes?

Steve3 — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:45:19 -0800

Can you explain this picture of debutantes from the recent 60 minutes interview with Ray Nagin? What's with the hoods and masks?

By: occhiblu

occhiblu — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:52:19 -0800

Google searches imply that the men are part of a krewe, masked for the Mardi Gras parades.

By: occhiblu

occhiblu — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:55:49 -0800

(My source for that.)

By: ericb

ericb — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:46:53 -0800

This photo indeed appears to be from 'The Twelfth Night Revelers' krewe in New Orleans during Mardi Gras:

"...all of the adult males at the ball wore masks, and what appear to chef hats. In general the masks are strips of white cloth with eyeholes cut in them. So if you're flipping quickly through the paper, you a page of photos that on first glance appear to show very young women in fancy white dresses, posing with Klansmen. It's a little creepy."

[source]

By: Brian James

Brian James — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:15:32 -0800

I'm glad someone asked about this. I thought it was odd CBS showed the photo without any explanation. My New Orleans friend said it wasn't a KKK thing, but couldn't explain what else it could be.

By: Steve3

Steve3 — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 07:06:25 -0800

Happy to oblige. I knew what I saw just *couldn't* be what I thought it was, but I couldn't explain what was going on there either. I knew MeFi could.

By: thinkpiece

thinkpiece — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 08:54:03 -0800

Whoever they are, they should come up with a new costume/outfit/uniform. That's provocative and even offensive.

By: slenderloris

slenderloris — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:22:33 -0800

FWIW, that black-and-white photo makes the costume look much more Klansman-like than they actually seem in real life. Usually the outfits are made of brightly-colored satin (with glitter and spangles worthy of Liberace), but this picture makes them look like white cotton.

Also, masking at Carnival is a pretty ancient tradition, dating back well before the Klan was even a twinkle in Nathan Bedford Forrest's eye. So although I can't defend some krewes' racial sensibilities, I don't find masking offensive.

This is speaking as a native Louisianian, however, and I can definitely see how people who aren't familiar with the tradition would find that photo kind of shocking.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:23:50 -0800

thinkpiece: "Whoever they are, they should come up with a new costume/outfit/uniform. That's provocative and even offensive."

Given that the Klan ripped this off from the Krewes, and not the other way around, it would appear, to the unbiased observer, that anyone who judges their outfits to be "provocative and even offensive" is simply uneducated and uninformed, and probably shouldn't look at photos of New Orleans, the South, and foreign countries in general, as they might be laden with 'painful' or 'incomprehensible' images.