BS: Black looters, white finders

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 06:56 PM

Jacqui, I was in New Orleans little more than a year ago and I came home telling people that the city appears to be a great place to be black. The very air is/was vibrant and alive with music and the other arts. Lobbies and street corners were peopled by musicians and dancers. A saxophone player busked in the plaza at my hotel. Laughter and brass instruments resounded. Murals everywhere depicted musicians, mostly black, in a lovely atmosphere.It seemed to me that it was an area where the African American is respected by all. Of course, I wasn't in residential areas as such, just at a hotel and in the French Quarter.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 06:57 PM

Jon, You'll have to answer that one. It's an argumentative straw man in this discussion of rescuing stranded citizens in New Orleans.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 06:57 PM

I don't think that at all art. I think it's just a case of those worse off suffering the most.

I see I'd slightly misread SRS before and that the black population does make up 67% so could be a majority in any class. Still there does seem to me to be more than that % in what I would imagine are the poorest people.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 06:58 PM

missed my name in my 6:57pm post

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 07:00 PM

It's an argumentative straw man in this discussion of rescuing stranded citizens in New Orleans.

I thought this discussion was about black looters and white finders?

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 07:27 PM

"it's just a case of those worse off suffering the most"

My point too. That is what generally happens everywhere. It's not that anyone plans it that way. It's not some big conspiracy. It just happens. That is how the system works.

It worked exactly that way on the Titanic, too. The rich people boarded the lifeboats first. Many of the poor were trapped on the lower decks, sometimes behind locked doors! Many of those poor were Irish immigrants to America.

Let's face it...if you're rich and there's an emergency, you have a number of advantages, right? You have better access to information, transportation, and every other kind of support. You can buy a bus ticket for $100, no problem. Makes no difference whether you are white or black. You just need $100 in your hand.

That's why I say there's a caste system, and it's based on money. If black people and hispanics made up most of the richest 10% of present day North American society...why...they'd be the most admired and powerful people around, wouldn't they? They'd be in control of the society from the top down. They'd get their sons elected president. That's how it works. Money. Nothin' else. Money.

And Money ain't white or black. It's green.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 07:37 PM

" That is how the system works."

Precisely.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 07:37 PM

Yes, but it's so open ended. Someone remarked that New Orleans was a great city in which to be black. I don't know if I can clearly articulate this distinction that I'm trying to make now, it'll take some pondering. Are we presuming that all of the people left behind are poor? White and black? In the U.S. there are more poor white people than poor black people because overall there are more white people. In New Orleans the figures are different. If the journalists covering this were representative of New Orleans' population, would they be calling the white folk looters and the black folk finders? Or would they be calling anybody anything? Hard to guess.

The problem is that the reporting is being done by outsiders. The gaze of the world (in the "judgmental" meaning of the word "gaze") is being turned on New Orleans but with imperfect understanding of American Culture, of Louisiana Culture, and of New Orleans culture.

I'm certainly open to suggestions. But in a city with the population characteristics of New Orleans, is it more of a rich/poor or educated/uneducated question when considering who left in time, or perhaps one of privilege, tied to degrees of blackness? Will it be revealed that all "high yellow" citizens escaped, but others didn't? Time to be quiet for a while and watch and read and think.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 07:55 PM

SRS, my assumtion certianly is that the majority of the people left behind would be poor or otherwise disadvantaged. I don't doubt others will have stayed behind for other reasons but I think they will be a minority.

My question is really one about equality of oppertunities in NO. Is for example the poorest 1/4 of the population 95% black?

As for the looting vs finders in the opening post, I do as I indicated before find that a bit of a red herring as we don't know how the different writers may have captioned the other's photo. It could be as simple as what one views as looting, another views as finding.

Outsider, yes I'm certainly one in any context - UK here. As one looking on and as another issue, while it is easy to criticise from away, I would have thought the disaster planning for this catastrophe which it seems was more of a probability that possibility of happening some time would have been better.

--------
LH, yes, the dreaded money. We would be so much better off if money was scapped and everyone did things for everyone else and enjoyed doing it, etc. but I don't think we will ever reach that stage. I know I for one am too flawed as a person for that...

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 08:03 PM

Maybe the Bush administration will wake up and realize the impact of poverty in their own back yard ... this tragedy is a fine example of how the poor and disenfranchized (white, black it doesn't matter what colour) are always the unforunate victims ... always left behind to fend for themselves. It's makes me angry beyond words, this should not be ... what we see on the TV are desperate people in a very tragic desperate situation. This could be any city in the U.S under such a situation. The poor just left behind.

    Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tyrin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
   - Randy Newman Louisiana 1927T

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 08:06 PM

I could manage in a heartbeat without money...if I were placed in a milieu where it did not exist. I don't really have that option most of the time. Being in the fish tank, I am compelled to eat the fish food that is offered me. ;-) Money is a man-invented tool. It's not necessary until people think it's necessary. Then...they turn it into a god.

But what's more important on the very last day of your life? Love or money? Which one will you take with you when you go?

The response to global warming, which is probably driving much of these extreme weather conditions, ought to be based on love, not on money. If it were, we would be converting en masse to non-polluting sources of power, and repairing the Earth's ecosystems....instead of fighting oil wars in the Middle East.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 08:22 PM

Jon, if you follow that link to the census you can find all sorts of ways of making financial determinations about any given area. I used the census extensively when I was writing a chapter for a textbook a couple of years ago. I had to do a lot of cross-referencing, but if you start looking at the aspects of an area, such as education, recreation, employment, etc., you can get a startlingly clear picture of a place. As to its accuracy--well, I think it can't be any less accurate than what the news agencies might come up with now.

You asked thoughtful questions, and maybe by keeping them in mind over the next few months or years answers will emerge. But as sick and injured people crammed into the stadium in New Orleans begin to riot for lack of care and attention, as they stand around among the dead, there is going to be a lot of finger-pointing and finger-shaking for a long time to come. And maybe even some lines drawn in the mud.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: jimmyt
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 08:40 PM

I agree with Art Brooks on this one. Bad things are happening, some people rise to the occasion by being helpful and contributing to society by helping all they can. Other people show their true value to a society by taking the opposite approach and looting tv sets, nikes and DVD players and shooting at helecoptors and boats TRYING to help. It boils down to, there are two kinds of folks, givers and takers. I don't care if they are black, white, Hispanic or from Belarus. Facts are facts. SOme people are going to help out, others are going to make matters worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:05 PM

It's more than givers and takers ... it's more of a result of the Haves and the Have Nots .... what we see is poverty and it's last angry desperate gasp ... society cannot turn it's head on poverty (which we have done)… We cannot turn our heads to poverty ... poverty breeds the lowest common denominator of human misery (drugs, crime and most of all anger) ... in the situation that we are witnessing on TV is the anger, the violence, acts that are totally oblivious to the mores of society due to a state of mind that we the 'haves' cannot comprehend'.

I agree that there certainly are heroic, humane actions of people out there helping... my heart goes out to them ... as my heart hurts for the poor unfortunate soles that have been literally abandoned in the last few days.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:09 PM

There has evidently been some sniping at rescuers, and these stories are being repeated so often that one might think the snipers are everywhere. The fact seems to be, though, that there have only been four or five such instances, all involving a shot or two. In other words, no more than five snipers (so far)in a nonfunctioning "city" of tens of thousands of desperate people.

Nutty, I'm not sure if there is an "acute lack" of helicopter support. Helicopters have been coming in since yesterday morning, but they can usually rescue one person at a time. Supposedly they picked up a thousand people yesterday; that means about a thousand sorties. Today I believe they picked up three thousand. So hundreds of helicopters are in use. Surely if a lack exists it has most to do with the logistic difficulties of getting units from various Guard units up and running from a standstill on short notice.

Nothing in my experience with Americans, even obnoxious ones, allows me to believe without very powerful evidence that any of the problems involved with this mission are the result of conspiracy or ill will. (Stupidity, yes. Confusion, yes. Overconfidence, absolutely.)

Resources are coming in any way they can. All the highways are clogged with debris, or flooded out. Some bridges are out. This slows things down, obviously. Food is coming in by air, but the planes have to land somewhere and then the trucks have to take over. Many of people at the Superdome are out now and in Houston. The buses are still picking up the others. Food and water has now been brought to the Superdome (undoubtedly not yet enough.)

While all this was going on, 15,000 more survivors were discovered at the New Orleans Convention Center. Nobody knew that many people were there; there were no official instructions to go there. All communications were out. These are the people who are the most angry now, bdecause nobody has yet shown up to help them.

I don't know if food and water is being dropped by air or not. Cargo planes can't do it, becuase they'd be dropping it straight into the water where much of it would be lost. Maybe helicopters are dropping some. I don't know why they wouldn't be, and honestly I haven't heard any reports that specifically said they weren't.

Satellite phones are working now, intermittently. The storm appears to have knocked out the relay towers in the area.

People can't boil water. Part of the horror. Babies and old people can survive for several days, but you're right, long enough without food or water and they will be among the first to succomb. It's a true catastrophe.

I'd be surprised if there had been any mobilization exercises for something of this extent. Hurricane relief, yes. But the flood is the biggest problem. Without it, many of those trapped survivors could have walked away. No American city has ever been drowned like this, and the levees held in every previous case. The last disaster even vaguely like this was the San Francisco earthquake a century ago. If we could watch 24-hour coverage of that, my guess is that it would look just as bungled as the current operation.

We won't know the real story for a while.

The head of the Salvation Army has just appeared on CNN to say that 200 employees are trapped in a building and cannot yet be gotten out. I think that statement says a lot about what the true conditions are like in New Orleans. Say what you may, the S.A. is not going to write off 200 of its own executives and others because of racism or class warfare. And the National Guard isn't going to either.

As for snipers, a few are now shooting at a police station and at rescue helicopters.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:23 PM

"I don't know if food and water is being dropped by air or not. Cargo planes can't do it, becuase they'd be dropping it straight into the water where much of it would be lost. Maybe helicopters are dropping some."

Helicopters can. Thousands of people have been at the Convention Centre without food and water.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:24 PM

CNN: Police, reporters, civilians are on the roof of a police station as an armed gang is (or was) besieging the building.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:29 PM

The Dome is covered with a roof. If you drop supplies outside, people will be killed in the stampede from the building. Drop them on the crowd outside and the same thing will happen.

In any event, buses began evacuating people yesterday and food has been delivered since yesterday.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:31 PM

Wolfgang, apparently a LOT of people agreed with your assessment. If one clicks on your second picture link, one will find the picture has been removed, at the request of the wire service which provided it to Yahoo, and a note of explanation, along with an apology, from the head of Yahoo news.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:37 PM

Good point Guy who thinks ... guess that's why yer called 'guy who thinks' ... but then there should have been National Guards stationed there since the beginning of the evacuation ... actually I assumed there would have been ... but unfortunaely these poor souls were literally left there on their own.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:48 PM

Thank you, sIx. I don't claim to have all the answers though.

Regarding "shooting looters." Here's a new item that will lend itself to misinterpretation. Three hundred members of an Arkansas Guard military police unit are on the way to N.O. to help deal with the gangs abd snipers. CNN says they have orders "to shoot to kill if necessary." That is, to save or protect life, not property. So far as has been reported, they do not have orders to shoot looters.

The Arkansas National Guard, it should be said for the benefit of non-U.S. Mudcatters, has been racially integrated for decades, along with the Guard units of every other state.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:55 PM

Either do I Guy Who Thinks ... I'm just very angry.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 11:05 PM

In the old days I used to get a lot angrier. But I've learned since then that 90% of everything people do is bungled, postponed, or done inefficiently. This is true of my own life certainly.

Every veteran knows that the military is, except in occasional moments, at least as inefficient as any other large organization. I needn't even mention politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 11:17 PM

"90% of everything people do is bungled, postponed, or done inefficiently"

Yup, that's the sad truth. Just read war history books from any war for more evidence of that. People are far better at dealing with ordinary routines than with sudden, shocking emergencies...specially when a certain number of them simply panic and start doing crazy stuff.

One doesn't need conspiracies to cause death on a massive scale...one just needs normal human performance under extreme stress.

Prime example: all those unfortunate people who got trampled to death on the bridge in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 11:19 PM

Yes, Little Hawk. And all because of an incorrect rumor that a suicide bomber had been seen in the crowd.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 11:24 PM

Yeah. And in Iraq (and some other places), that's not what you want to hear when you're in the middle of a big crowd. Or any time, actually.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 11:32 PM

NO is not a great place to be black and poor. It is a terrible place to be black and poor. The image of happy darkys, singing and dancing on street corners is a fanstasy.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 11:42 PM

Guy who thinks .... yer so correct. But you cannot deny your anger when you see the unfortunate victimized by such bungling.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Scoville
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:08 AM

Anywhere is a terrible place to be black and poor, isn't it? I'm sure New York, Pittsburgh, London, etc. are not much better.

The disgusting thing to me is that, once evacuation orders were given, the government should have made sure that people COULD evacuate. Where was all this help BEFORE the storm wiped the place out?

I work for the medical center in Houston, which will soon be flooded (no sick puns intended, trust me) with hurricane refugees who need emergency health care and don't have money or insurance to pay for it. We're a large city with a large underclass and a high violent crime rate--our ER's are not underused as it is. This is going to be very, very hard on us, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:15 AM

Latest news is that the evacuees arriving at the Houston Astro Dome are being turned away, sent somewhere else (unknown at this time) ... we where told that the Astro Dome would take in 25k refugees .... so far 8k have been given shelter there ... apparently the Fire Department pulled the plug .... who is in charge, are there any plans at all ???

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Scoville
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:20 AM

I heard they--the guards at the AstroDome--were told to take in only refugees from the Superdome, and people NOT from the Superdome are being turned away. I don't know what is the absolute latest word on that. It sucks: Where are we going to put everyone? We're already herding them around like livestock because we don't have enough real accomodations.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: number 6
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:26 AM

Exactly Scoville ... the ones being turned away tonite are busloads arriving from the Superdome.

Unbelievable!

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 02:08 AM

The Red Cross lifted the rule about turning them away sometime early in the evening; they were accepting all comers last I heard, up to the capacity they listed (25,000). I think the turning people away bit is a rumor. And there are other cities across Texas with facilities in place for LA refugees if they do have to refer them elsewhere.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 08:20 AM

The people being "turned away" from the Astrodome are being sent to other shelters.

Aside from that, here is something that justifies plenty of anger. Various official and journalistic reportshave been warning of the possibilty of just such a catastrophe (Category 5 storm, broken levees) over the past ten years or more. Apparently it was very difficult to get much preventive action out of the city, state, or federal governments for the usual reason that people don't like like to apportion many millions of dollars to protect against something that may never happen.

Levee improvements finally got underway at a leisurely pace. Some or all of the federal funding was eventually cut, whether by Congress or President Bush I don't know. This is scandalous, to put it mildly, and we can expect to hear much more about it in the months to come.

A Corps of Engineer officer who worked on the project said on CNN last night that even had federal funding not been cut, the project began so recently and was moving so slowly that there was no way that the levees could have been strengthened in time.

The bottom line in all of this is that government officials were warned long ago by scientists and engineers but took little interest in the warnings.

Since all citizens were obviously at risk, this stupidity was clearly not racially motivated. It was motivated, at least in part, by the kind of optimism that says "It can't happen to us."

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 09:03 AM

I've calmed down somewhat. Before we get too enraged about the foot-dragging response to those warnings, there's one very important element that I have not heard addressed by the news. Namely, how likely was this kind if disaster, according to the studies?

Risk management has to balance consequences with likelihood. In other words, a very remote catastrophe demands a lesser immediate response than a less terrible but virtually certain event.

If the warnings stated, say, "a 50-50 chance within ten years," that would be a wakeup call that no sane politician could ignore. But if the reports suggested, for example, "a 1 in 500 chance in the next twenty years," there would be a lower priority for improving the levees now.

I am certainly not trying to let anybody off the hook. But let's determine what the facts really are.

Here is a very grim summary of recent developments:

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 09:06 AM

Sorry. Click on the blue headline for the full news story.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Scoville at work
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 09:17 AM

The AstroDome has been declared full. I don't know that it's actually FULL or if they realized the restrooms, etc. couldn't handle any more people. They're sending people to the Reliant Center instead (a huge convention hall).

I wish I had saved it, but somebody emailed me yesterday an article from National Geographic that predicted this almost to a T. It's not TERRIBLY common, but we do have very bad hurricanes on a fairly regular basis (every 20 years or so). This is certainly the worst in quite a long time.

However, it seems to me as though we have "Ten-Year Storms" a lot more often than that. On the one hand, we should be more prepared. On the other, people get used to hurricanes--summer here is "Hurricane Season" and we get weather-tracking charts from the grocery stores--and don't take it as seriously as you would think. Sounds ridiculous, but as much as people bitch about it, a lot of them don't move (yes, moving is expensive, but so is renovating your house every four years because it had filthy water four feet up the walls).

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 10:39 AM

San Francisco and probably St. Louis are in a comparable situtation. Some day the great earthquake will come. But when? And you can't protect against an earthquake with levees. And you can't, realistically, dismantle a city either.

The Japanese and Chinese, for example, have suffered terrible earthquakes. One at Kobe, Japan, in 1985 leveled the city and killed 5,000 people. It took ten years to rebuild. 100,000 died from a quake near Tokyo before World War II.

Such risks never go away.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 11:55 AM

You know what, folks? You're gonna need socialism to deal with a situation this big. Oooo...scary (to Americans). Yup. Socialism. That's something that you do because it MUST be done, because it HAS to be done...not because it makes money for someone.

Remember Roosevelt's New Deal?

There are maybe a million people now who need shelter, homes, jobs, and basic infrastructure. Who is going to do it? Private industry? Private industry works when they are paid to.

Socialism does what actually needs to be done. And that is sanity. It doesn't matter whether or not it makes money for anyone, it has to be done. Money isn't even real. It's an arbitrary invented thing...an idea...stamped on pieces of paper. Human lives are real.

And that's why I believe in (a certain amount of) socialism. When and where it is needed. Socialism is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It combines very well with capitalism. It's what you use when and where capitalism doesn't solve the problem adequately.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Azizi
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:23 PM

Here are excerpts from an article about the race & class and "Floodgate":

"Lost in the Flood
Why no mention of race or class in TV's Katrina coverage?
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005, at 4:22 PM PT

....This storm appears to have hurt blacks more directly than whites, but the broadcasters scarcely mentioned that fact...

To be sure, some reporters sidled up to the race and class issue. I heard them ask the storm's New Orleans victims why they hadn't left town when the evacuation call came. Many said they were broke—"I live from paycheck to paycheck," explained one woman. Others said they didn't own a car with which to escape and that they hadn't understood the importance of evacuation.

But I don't recall any reporter exploring the class issue directly by getting a paycheck-to-paycheck victim to explain that he couldn't risk leaving because if he lost his furniture and appliances, his pots and pans, his bedding and clothes, to Katrina or looters, he'd have no way to replace them. No insurance, no stable, large extended family that could lend him cash to get back on his feet, no middle-class job to return to after the storm....


Race remains largely untouchable for TV because broadcasters sense that they can't make an error without destroying careers. That's a true pity. If the subject were a little less taboo, one of last night's anchors could have asked a reporter, "Can you explain to our viewers, who by now have surely noticed, why 99 percent of the New Orleans evacuees we're seeing are African-American? I suppose our viewers have noticed, too, that the provocative looting footage we're airing and re-airing seems to depict mostly African-Americans

When disaster strikes, Americans—especially journalists—like to pretend that no matter who gets hit, no matter what race, color, creed, or socioeconomic level they hail from, we're all in it together. This spirit informs the 1997 disaster flick Volcano, in which a "can't we all just get along" moment arrives at the film's end: Volcanic ash covers every face in the big crowd scene, and everybody realizes that we're all members of one united race.

But we aren't one united race, we aren't one united class, and Katrina didn't hit all folks equally. By failing to acknowledge upfront that black New Orleanians—and perhaps black Mississippians—suffered more from Katrina than whites, the TV talkers may escape potential accusations that they're racist. But by ignoring race and class, they boot the journalistic opportunity to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of a whole definable segment of the population. What I wouldn't pay to hear a Fox anchor ask, "Say, Bob, why are these African-Americans so poor to begin with?"

-snip-

The complete article is HERE

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Azizi
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:30 PM

That article I quoted is from slate.msn.com/id/2124688/nav/tap2/

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:37 PM

For sure, Azizi. The media are scared stiff of even commenting on "race" or anything like that. It's become the great unmentionable. This is partly because the real situation OF prejudice and poverty in America is so bad, partly because it's too risky to the media people's professional careers (as you suggested), and partly because the "race card" has already been played so cynically and opportunistically so many times by people OF visible minority groups (as in the O.J. Simpson trial, for example).

There is so much prejudice on ALL sides when it comes to this that people have become almost incapable of being honest or fair about it or discussing it openly without extreme fear. This is also true of issues involving Jews and Muslims and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

How do you get people to talk openly about something when they are afraid of being judged and attacked for it, and possibly having their careers and reputations destroyed?

The only people who can get around it anymore are people like Howard Stern, people who have resolved to be totally outrageous from the getgo. Everyone else is afraid to say what they think, except in private. Maybe they're even afraid to say it there.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:39 PM

I heard a clarification of the Astrodome issue this morning. Last night late the Houston Fire Marshall saw that they ran out of cots and lines were backing up for some of the services. He took this as the indicator that the place had enough people, so he closed the doors to any more coming in. There were something like 162 buses in the parking lot with people waiting to get in, but I think by now they're here in the Dallas and Fort Worth area and in San Antonio. Dallas officials don't know where they're going to put that many people, was the last thing I head on the radio about it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Azizi
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 01:41 PM

Here are some excerpts from some dailykos bloggers who are talking about race & the abysmal seemingly uncaring & imo definitely criminal lack of preparation & totally insufficient response to this devastation that should have been forseen by "our" government:

"...Let's remember it's not just black people

In Mississippi and other parts of Louisiana there are many communities still waiting for help, some of which are mostly white.

I saw Joe Scarborough being outraged last night about the lack of response from officials and he was reporting from a town in Mississippi.

Anderson Cooper also did some good reporting from there. People of all races.

The situation in New Orleans really is mostly poor blacks that were affected but there is serious devastation all around as well.

Just pointing that out because I don't want anyone to feel left out..."
by diplomatic on Fri Sep 2nd, 2005

-snip-

"true

but not being able to get food and water to a major city for 5 days and most of the people there are black. Would that happen to Duluth Minn? I do not think so.

The people of New Orleans, the latest casualties of Iraq"
by Jlukes

-snip-


"Oh of course not

Listen, if the majority of the people in New Orleans or at the superdome where white President Bush himself would be out there handing out water like he did in Florida.

We all know it. The media seems to know it. This is America. No longer separate, but unequal..."
by diplomatic on Fri Sep 2nd, 2005

-snip-

New Orleans-Congo Square, the birthplace of jazz, zydeco, let the good times roll, that in & of itself is so increadible sad but this inhumane treatment of people...

I don't have any words to convey my feelings. Someone PMed me and asked if I was angry. My response was that I'm too frozen to be angry. As an African American this hits me hard because I feared for the worse of the natural disaster, but I expected the government to be much much better prepared-after all what good is FEMA and the Dept.of Homeland Security??? Apparently not good at all.

I actually was foolish enough to expect Bush to put on a caring facade and do a PR thing, using this tragedy to get his ratings up. But in my opinion he hasn't even tried to fake concern. His concern is what it has always been -the oil.

Bush played golf, pretended to play a guitar & took a birthday cake photo op. Black Aunt Jemima Condi played tennis, went to a Broadway play & then went shopping for shoes. And Dick Cheney- where is Dick Cheney and why is he where he is and what in the world is he doing there??

This whole thing is FUBAR.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Cluin
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 01:53 PM

Sort of gives you the feeling that, where it matters, we haven't come very far at all, have we?

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 05:58 PM

Yup, the "New South", so called.

Translated, means the Klan doesn't wear robes & hoods any more, is all.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: Azizi
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 06:52 PM

Another term for 'finding':

"LOOTING ALERT!!!
Rich lady who was staying at the Hyatt said that Doctor had to "commandeer" antibiotics from Walgreens."

RandyMI on Fri Sep 2nd, 2005; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/2/163959/3853

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 07:11 PM

A president doesn't help by being in the midst of a disaster. In the midst of rescue efforts, trying to pull off the logistics of a presidential appearance would be near criminal in its selfish political posturing. I have always hated presidents using disasters as photo-ops. There could hardly be a less meaningful, more selfish thing for a president to do during a disaster. We don't need symbolism. We need what we're working on.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 08:02 PM

"We're already herding them around like livestock because we don't have enough real accomodations."

Europe experienced this on a much more wide spread basis after WWII.

Subject: RE: BS: Black looters, white finders
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 08:18 PM

People have a right and a duty to take what they need from shops and the like in a situation like this.

Talk about "looting" when people are doing that, or salvaging stuff that is otherwise going to go to waste, is absurd.

I suppose when Robinson Crusoe took all those tools and so forth from the wreck of his ship, that was looting... This is a kind of shipwreck, but on an enormous scale.

I'm sure there's real looting going on in among this, stealing personal belongings from temporarily abandoned houses and stuff like that, but talk about "zero tolerance for looters", and "shoot to kill", as if everyone grubbing around for the necessities of life were like that is crazy talk.