Culture Post-Katrina

There was a fun little story on NPR this morning about a rodeo put on by Angola, a maximum security prison in Louisiana. Click HERE and take a gander (this is a print version of the radio story).

At the end of the story, one of the organizers of the event said after Katrina, she was worried that all of Louisiana's culture was going to be lost to that tragic hurricane, but only two months later, there was Bayou Culture again in the rodeo. We'll never lose our culture, she said, because a good portion of it is locked away in a maximum security prison.

I couldn't figure out whether to laugh or cry at that statement.

Laugh: Haha, well, at least you don't have to worry about it running out on you.

Cry: Wow, are those really the people that are your best representations of culture? rapists? murderers?

Here's a question: what is culture? Is it just the combination of entertainments and cooking style of a group? If so, Angola's rodeo has that in spades.

But what responsibility does the culture have in getting them in prison in the first place?