(Saturday, February 11, 1995)

Erace To Hit Streets With Parody Parade
By Leslie Williams

(Click here for the printable version)

Despite its many cooks with varied tastes, Erace, the anti-racism group, was able to settle on one Carnival offering. "Flambeaux Gumbeaux" will be served tonight, even though some may find it a bit spicy.

Erace debuts on the parade scene as one of the subkrewes of the always irreverent Krewe du Vieux. And the non-profit group's satirical tribute to Carnival's torch-carrying dancers is about as politically incorrect as most krewe fare. The "pope flambeau" and the "debutante flambeau" will be among the mix of 20 light carriers second-lining as they distribute red, white and blue Eracism bumper stickers and pins as Carnival throws. Bulbs, not flames, will be at the end of their poles to extinguish any possibility of setting fire to historic buildings in the French Quarter.

The idea of using Carnival to spread the word about Erace and its message has been bandied about since Rhoda Faust and Brenda Thompson created the group over coffee during the summer of 1993. However, few imagined the 120-member organization would be parading so soon or dealing with a prickly discussion about racism en route to its first Mardi Gras experience.

Some members of Erace, black and white, complained that a flambeau carrier—a man bearing a torch that illuminates night parades—represents a racist stereotype, a demeaning image of people with African ancestry. Other members, black and white, disagreed. In the end, Erace moved forward with its flambeau plans.

The subkrewe, assembled by Erace member Steve Aldrich, decided it wasn't so important to resolve the debate because Carnival is a time when one makes fun of serious things. "You're supposed to have fun at Mardi Gras," said Faust, one ingredient in the "gumbeaux." "We do have a sense of humor." Faust also took pride in Erace doing what it was designed to do: enabling people from different ethnic groups to talk to each other.

 

 

  

 


 

 

The conversations brought out views and feelings such as those shared by a white woman and by Robert Jackson Jr., a 57-year old black man. The woman, Erace members said, recalled feeling embarrassed as a child in the crowd, watching while some white people threw money to the strutting flambeau carriers. She considered the spectacle humiliating. But Jackson, a retired longshoreman, remembered his coworkers and friends leaving the "hiring hall" to carry parade torches. "It wasn't a put-down. It was a job," said the retiree, who admires the second-lining, torch-carrying art form. "The flambeaux used to get paid good money." In light of history, segregation—more than the intrinsic nature of the job—may be responsible for such work being tainted with racism.

In "All on a Mardi Gras Day," Reid Mitchell writes that "by 1946, the mystic krewes had developed a visible role for black men. They hired them to carry the torches that illuminate the night parades. These flambeau carriers became viewed as an integral part of the parade, yet it would be accurate to say they marched with the parade, not in it."

"They created a black parade alongside the white parade," Mitchell wrote.

These were the days when people of African ancestry could not join their fellow revelers on parade floats. Thus, the disturbing message of the times: good enough to work and perform for white people, but not good enough to fully associate with them. Members believe the opposite message is sent by Erace, which seeks to nurture interaction and association among black and white people by, its credo says, treating "fellow human beings of all colors with love and respect."

"Everybody has not been a hate-monger, a racist," Jackson said. "And many of the people responsible are gone. We look for cures to some of the ills. The cure tonight, members hope, comes in the form of Erace's many-colored members performing, strutting and lighting the way together, not together and apart.