New Orleans Middle Schoolers Are Beating The Crap Out Of Artists and Gays

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It was just after dark when Michael Martin, 56, was walking back to his home in New Orleans’ Marigny neighborhood, after helping a friend move. At the time, Martin was caring for his dementia-ridden mother, and was anxious to get home, as his long-time partner, Eric Webb, was the only person there with her. “I really was walking through a neighborhood that I don’t think the people who live there walk through at night,” Martin said. As he approached an interstate overpass, the division between St. Roch and his Marigny neighborhood, Martin heard laughter from a group of children, no older than 13 he believed. It was summer after all, and while dark, he didn’t think much of the roving group of middle schoolers, until he was struck from behind. He was then thrown to the ground as the children kicked and slammed fists into Martin’s head and chest. Eventually, he was straddled by one of the kids and choked out until he fell unconscious. While Martin is wary of calling the assault a hate crime, he does feel the rapid gentrification happening, in both the St. Roch and Marigny neighborhoods, could have something to do with his beating.

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“That neighborhood is under a ferocious amount of gentrification pressure,” Martin said. “I mean gay is a bonus... if you don’t like gentrification, you probably don’t like old white ****s either.” Martin is a prominent actor and director in NOLA’s theater scene, and he and his boyfriend, Webb, have deep-seated histories of violence in their Marigny neighborhood, where they’ve lived since the early 2000’s. “Eric and I were held up at gunpoint by a young man on a bicycle,” Martin began. “That was on our way to a Harry Potter movie. I had my arm broken with an iron pipe in a French Quarter assault, back in 2002. We also had someone break into our house looking for drug money,” Martin said. “Mother fricker came in through the bathroom window.” “Were there any others, honey?” Martin asked Webb. “Oh, right,” Martin said, glancing over, “Eric found a dead body in the front yard once.”

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