Shreveport welcomed into the association of civilized entities by Los Angeles comic Bruce Vilanch, fresh from the 3rd Annual North LouisianaGay & Lesbian Film Festival

Cedric Glover, Shreveport, a photo by trudeau on Flickr.

"I met the mayor of Shreveport, La. recently. He weighs 400 pounds, is about as black as it gets, and is straight. His name is Cedric," writes Hollywood wit Bruce Vilanch in a Huffington Post column.

"I met him at the Lesbigay Film Festival. That's not its real name, of course, although his real name is Cedric. Its real name is something far more exotic and abbreviation-able (SLBGTFF, or letters along those lines), but it's a lesbigay film festival, all right, and I was one of its opening-night attractions. In Shreveport. Louisiana. Where people once wore hoods and strung 400-pound black men up, and probably just left the bodies of other undesirables to be be disposed of by crocs in any of the many neighboring lakes."

More on Shreveport's perceived evolution here.