I wanted to know if a celebrity dies who is generally despised (like, I don’t know, an politician, or his buddy) — do people in New Orleans twirl hankies in a second line as a celebration of their life, or is it a celebration of their death?
That brought me to the answer that, New Orleans doesn’t just spontaneously dole out second lines. They have to be organized. There was even a controversy surrounding a second line for the actress Carrie Fisher.
I was in Nelson Mandela’s second line, and I didn’t care if it was a genuine expression of love or a tourist commodity. (It was probably both.)
So back to my original question: let’s say a president succumbed, say, to a virus. And let’s call him a difficult president. My guess is his second line wouldn’t be approved, bypassing the life or death celebration question.
I saw a call Jimmy Carter to have a second line. I don’t know if that will happen.
2 responses to “TWIL: Second-line rules”
(it is my understanding that any [at least Black?] funeral can have a second line [… kind of like weddings can have receptions, but different?], but super-giant collective ones are a bit different; that’s really interesting re: the organizational aspect of it)
KC – I saw an interesting thing on reddit where a man was chastised for joining a second line by a man who explained, “This is a private family second line.” Reddit agreed the man claiming there was such a thing as a private second line was not right. However, if I lived in NOLA I would probably be a purist and say only people sponsored by social aid and pleasure clubs could have second lines: anything else is appropriation.