New Orleans culture is labor. It’s been stitched, played, danced, and shouted into existence by generations of Black, Indigenous, and working-class communities. But today, that culture is being sold back to us—often by people who had no hand in creating it.
Culture as Cash Crop
Every year, millions visit New Orleans looking for “authenticity.” They pay for second lines, swamp tours, ghost stories, jazz brunches, and parades. But the neighborhoods that created these experiences—Treme, the Lower 9th Ward, Central City—rarely see the profits. The culture is extracted, repackaged, and sold, while the people who made it are priced out of their own blocks.
Tourism agencies use Mardi Gras Indians in ads. Liquor brands use second lines to sell product. Bounce gets sanitized for halftime shows. And through it all, the original artists, costumers, and culture bearers struggle to make rent.
This isn’t just appropriation. It’s cultural extraction—where community identity becomes a product, and profit flows everywhere but home.
Cultural Resistance Is the Foundation of New Orleans
What’s now marketed as entertainment was born as resistance.
Second lines originated from Black mutual aid societies—organizations created to bury the dead, support the sick, and care for the community when white systems excluded them. These parades weren’t performances; they were affirmations of life and dignity.
Mardi Gras Indian traditions emerged as acts of reverence and rebellion. Black men honoring Native Americans who sheltered runaway slaves began masking in elaborately beaded suits—a painstaking, spiritual labor passed from generation to generation. Today, those suits are displayed in galleries and festivals, while the neighborhoods they come from face disinvestment and displacement.
Even bounce music started in New Orleans’ housing projects as a grassroots expression—joyful, raw, and unapologetically Black.
This culture was never meant for tourists. It was survival. It was identity. It was home.
Mardi Gras for the Few
Mardi Gras was once a celebration of neighborhoods. Now, it’s dominated by exclusive krewes, expensive balls, and corporate floats. Riders pay thousands to throw beads, while the city’s Black masking Indians and high school bands often fundraise just to participate.
The parade rolls, but the people who built it often watch from behind barricades, priced out and left out.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Mardi Gras generates over $1 billion in economic activity every year. Yet many of the people behind the spectacle—seamstresses, costume designers, musicians—are underpaid or not paid at all.
Meanwhile, the short-term rental (STR) explosion has accelerated displacement in historically Black neighborhoods. From 2015 to 2020, STR listings more than tripled, according to the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, pushing up rents and hollowing out communities that are now used as backdrops for cultural tourism.
Tourism accounts for nearly 75,000 jobs in Greater New Orleans, but most of those jobs are low-wage and non-union. The biggest profits go to hotel conglomerates, national event sponsors, and out-of-state investors—not the residents whose culture is being sold.
If culture is the city’s most valuable export, then why are its creators struggling to survive?
Who Gets Paid? Who Gets Left Out?
When major events roll through—French Quarter Fest, Jazz Fest, Essence Fest—who gets booked? Who gets vendor slots? Who gets sponsorships?
Too often, it’s national acts and corporate vendors, while local culture bearers hustle to get on the lineup or are overlooked entirely. What gets rewarded is access to money and marketing—not authenticity or community ties.
New Orleans Is Not a Theme Park
Culture is not a backdrop. It’s not for rent. When we treat New Orleans like a theme park, we turn living communities into caricatures and push out the very people who make this city what it is.
Preserving culture means protecting the people who carry it. That means:
• Fair wages for artists and cultural workers
• Affordable housing in cultural corridors
• Access to vendor slots at major festivals
• Investment in youth programs that continue traditions
Reclaiming the Narrative
New Orleans doesn’t need another tourism slogan. It needs policy. It needs equity. And it needs respect for the people who keep its heartbeat alive.
Don’t just celebrate the culture. Fund it. Protect it. Stand with the people who create it.
Because if we keep letting others cash in on New Orleans, there won’t be anything left to sell—only the memory of a culture that was never meant to be for sale.
