Situations like these often lead to bad rumours running far ahead of reality, but in this case it does look like the rule of law all but collapsed for several days. The Superdome in particular has been described as a squalid hellhole run by the local mafia. Now the national guard is there in force things do seem to be improving, but there's serious questions about why adaquate provision wasn't made to exacuate those without cars, and why the flood defences of a city below sea-level were so negligently underfunded. I don't know if it's racial or not, my own instincts say it's another case of "Screw the poor", and most of the poor in this case happened to be black.

Bush didn't respond to the disaster straight away he was on his holiday and also went to a Republican Party fundraiser obviously more important. wasn't until 36 hours hours later he finally got back to the Whitehouse. Condy Rice was out buying shoes in New York and Dick Cheney didn't cancel his holiday either. Nice to know your Government cares about you.

To be fair Tony "holiday in annon" Blair isn't anything to write home about. (Not that he could, being on holiday in annon. )

It's difficult to belief that in an "enlightened" western superpower that allegations of racism on such a massive scale could be taken seriously and hold water. Tragically many people (myself included) cannot think of any other reason why it has taken the best part of a week to finally finish evacuating the city, why pictures of white people raiding stores are captioned "family finds food and water" while pictures of black people doing the saem were captioned "looting continues", why a luxury hotel with virtually no damage was evacuated days before the Superdome... the list goes on and on.

The thing that astonishes me most of all is that the US has requested overseas aid. The richest nation in the western world has to rely on charity in a national emergency. How can they not deal with this internally?

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by Kate
Why a luxury hotel with virtually no damage was evacuated days before the Superdome...

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As always the situation is a bit more complex than it seems at first glance. The people in the hotel had to go as they where going to use it to put the police / firemen / the mayor etc in it mainly because it was mostly undamaged. So if you want to use the building to first have to get the people out. That means you can or evacuate them (in which case they will go peacefully) or you say sorry guys we dump you in the superdome and because you are the last to arrive there you'll be evacuated last from the superdome.

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by Kate
The thing that astonishes me most of all is that the US has requested overseas aid. The richest nation in the western world has to rely on charity in a national emergency. How can they not deal with this internally?

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Depends what kind of aid you need. Money would be stupid but if you need specialized equipment (and loads of it) sniffer dogs, special identification teams to identify the dead etc etc you don't really have enough of those for a disaster like this.

It is indeed disgraceful that the help to the people is coming in so late. Of course the fact that you have armed gangs roaming the cities and robbing, raping and killing people at random doesn't really help. As what do you think would happen if you send in convoy with supplies? Without major security nobody is stupid enough to drive into the area. Also you need a huge force to combat the gangs as losing loads of soldiers in a situation like this isn't really acceptable either. If all those stupid weapons would have not been there everything would have probably gone a lot quicker........

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by Chambler
(quotes)
Depends what kind of aid you need. Money would be stupid but if you need specialized equipment (and loads of it) sniffer dogs, special identification teams to identify the dead etc etc you don't really have enough of those for a disaster like this.

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The BBC news said that they'd requested blankets, rations and water tankers. Now the tankers I can understand - they need a lot I should think. But blankets? Food? What the hell?

Point taken about the Hyatt Regency - but it sure as hell made for lousy PR under the circumstances. And surely areas where there was little flood water - ie the places where people were congregating should have been evacuated pretty quickly. They only emptied the Superdome today. Can you imagine what the conditions were like in there after 6 days?

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by Kate
It's difficult to belief that in an "enlightened" western superpower that allegations of racism on such a massive scale could be taken seriously and hold water.

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As it's the same "enlightened" country that (in certain places) had segregation until the late sixties and treats creationism like it's something more than religious crackpottery, sadly I'm not at all surprised. (To again be fair, England's done some equally bonkers things recently.) "Enlightened" western values are often nothing more than a convenient veneer to paint oneself as"superior" to everyone else. Fondly held bigotries respect no national borders.

There's a lot of blame to go around for what is happening in New Orleans. But I believe the government response was just plain inept. I've never seen a more incompetent handling of a crisis in my life. It's just disgraceful. One hand didn't know what the other was doing. The federal government at first tried to pass the buck to the state and local people. The state and local people were quickly overwhelmed. And on and on...

But I put most of the blame on the federal government. It was slow to respond. Bush was flying out to California to give speeches and hanging out on his "ranch". And as other bureaucrats were having meetings, press conferences, "assessing" the situation, folks were dying. It might have also helped if, when New Orleans had asked for funding several times in the past to upgrade its levee system and do other flood protection measures, if they had not been turned down by Washington and denied the funds they asked for. Some of that funding was apparently diverted to Iraq. It might also have helped if a huge percentage of the Louisiana National Guard--the folks that usually respond in national disasters--was not sitting in Baghdad right now.

Was the fact that most of the people were poor and black the reason for the slow reponse. Oh, you betcha. To a large extent. Race and class is something that we don't like to discuss. But I truly believe--and no one can convince me otherwise--that the response would not have been as slow if most of the people involved had not been poor (and class if a BIG factor) and black. This would not have occurred in the way it did in a middle class or wealthy white community. I'm sure people still would have died, and there might have been some chaos at first. But there would have been more of a sense of urgency about the whole thing.

And the armed national guard troops whizzing by places like the Superdome with drawn guns pointed out the windows? What the hell was THAT all about? Would that have been done in Colorado Springs? or Seattle? or Phoenix? No chance. These people were treated-- at least at first--not as victims to be helped, but a "problem" to be contained. And the "shoot to kill" order for looters that was given by the governor? Shoot to kill? For some sneakers and T-shirts? She must have lost her mind. Luckily, I think sanity took control and that order was rescinded.

I'm also tired of hearing about the "lawlessness" in New Orleans. Most of the people--the overwheling majority of the people--were families and decent folks who just happened to be poor (something like 25% of the people in New Orleans live below the poverty line) and had no way to evacuate--or thought they could "ride it out." They weren't criminals. Sure, there was an armed criminal element roaming around causing problems. Every city has folks like this, and they just continued their criminal activity after the hurricane, taking advantage of the situation. But that was such a small number of people compared to the whole, that I'm disgusted with the news media's spending so much time emphasizing it. There were also a lot of good people helping each other. But those stories didn't often make it onto the news.

I've shed many a tear watching what is happening in New Orleans. I just want to go down there and do something to help. But maybe this horror will wake some people up. Maybe the city's flood control systems will finally get the funding they need for upgrading, so this won't happen again. And maybe, with the shortcomings of the federal response to natural disaster having been exposed for everyone to see, they'll get serious about planning and more lives will be saved the next time something like this happens. And there WILL be a next time. I'm hoping all of the people of New Orleans get their lives back together and can go back and help rebuild their city. It's a WONDERFUL city, a place I absolutely adore. There's no other city like it in the U.S. So I'm really hoping it comes back.

Powerful post Sandia

It's interesting what you say about the media's distortion of events. After major tragedies here in Britain, the media likes to play up the "blitz spirit" mythology of heroic victims selflessly helping each other, and the response to 9/11 seemed, from what I saw of US news coverage this side of the pond, to be very similar. I'm obviously an outsider to the politics, especially the interplay between the frederal and state governments, but it looks to me that some victims are being demonised so people don't get so mad over the inept federal response. The old "they brought it on themselves" stratergy. The British coverage of lawlessness generally lays the blame squarely on the authorities for failing to control a small, violent minority. Is it different in the US?

Or it could just be as simple as the media's perp-walk fetish crowding out the agenda. You'll know better than I.

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by Byron
Powerful post Sandia

It's interesting what you say about the media's distortion of events. After major tragedies here in Britain, the media likes to play up the "blitz spirit" mythology of heroic victims selflessly helping each other, and the response to 9/11 seemed, from what I saw of US news coverage this side of the pond, to be very similar. I'm obviously an outsider to the politics, especially the interplay between the frederal and state governments, but it looks to me that some victims are being demonised so people don't get so mad over the inept federal response. The old "they brought it on themselves" stratergy. The British coverage of lawlessness generally lays the blame squarely on the authorities for failing to control a small, violent minority. Is it different in the US?

Or it could just be as simple as the media's perp-walk fetish crowding out the agenda. You'll know better than I.

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Actually, the media here usually does the same thing when there is a natural disaster--playing up the heroism of ordinary people carrying on in the face of adversity. But this time, the stories about looting and lawlessness seemed to overtake all of that. The media was sympathetic to the terrible situation in which the people found themselves. But as the days went on, I saw increasing attention to stories about rescuers being shot at and people being raped, and armed gangs roaming the city. So much of that was being reported--by the media and some government authorities--that at one point during the first couple of days, they actually pulled the rescuers for almost a day saying it wasn't safe for them. I mean, I'm sure there were some people causing trouble. But I don't think this would have been emphasized as much in a situation where there weren't a whole bunch of poor black people involved. It just played into fears and stereotypes that a lot of people have. So it was easy for people to latch onto that and act accordingly. What's more, I thought the emphasis in some media on looting by a few was just ridiculous while thousands of people were still in need of food, water, and rescue from homes sitting almost underwater. The looting just wasn't the story. But it often became the story because, "Well, that's just the way they act."

As for blaming the victims, yeah, I did see some of that at first. But when it became known that most of the people who were left in the city couldn't evacuate because they didn't have the means, that angle all but disappeared.

What's happening now is that the people in the Bush administration are now trying to save their political asses by laying blame at the state and local level in Louisiana--which means blaming the Democrats since the governor, mayor, and most of the political power structure in Lousiana are members of the Democratic Party. The federal government is taking a real hit on this. And the Bush administration is scrambling to try to deflect criticism.

There's now a PR blitz, with Bush returning to the devastated area for the second time in just a couple of days. The cameras were running while he visited shelters and was seen hugging and comforting black victims of the storm. Members of his cabinet descended on the area. Condoleezza Rice was sent to Alabama, where she attended church with the Republican governor and then--in her white, designer pants suit--packed some cans of food in relief boxes while TV cameras rolled. (I'm sure her little stint packing those relief boxes started about 30 seconds before the cameras started rolling and ended about 30 seconds after they stopped.) Donald Rumsfeld was even sent. (God, that's desperation for you.) He was walking around trying to look concerned. But I swear, even when he tries be empathetic, he just comes off looking and sounding distant and arrogant. The whole bunch of them looked like actors in some sort of Hollywood B movie. It would have been comical if it weren't for the tragedy of the whole situation. They really think the American public is stupid. Well, ok, some of it is stupid. But not nearly as much as they believe.



(Edited by Sandia 06/09/2005 10:25)

Don't think it really is racisme thats the reason for the mess. That it's such a mess certainly has something to do with the people being poor. As you said before the poor people didn't have the means to evacuate. So something like this wouldn't have happened in a middle class or wealthy area as people would have had the means to easily leave. Also because there are no people staying behind in those area's you wouldn't get large scale lawlessness as we have seen on TV. I can hardly imagine that in wealthy area you would have had idiots shooting at rescue workers etc. So the fact that the majority of the population is poor just increased the problems (more people staying behind and more people in general etc). This makes it harder to tackle than in a wealthy area (less people). So you end up with a larger problem as you have more people in general and especially people that don't leave. Timing was also a bit crappy as most people already spent all their benefit money and were waiting for the next cheque so even if they wanted they didn't have the money to leave.

The fact that the area is very poor increases the problems which makes it even harder to tackle (and the different levels of government seem to be totally inadequate to handle these issues). And the fact that a lot of black people are poor doesn't by default make it racisme. There are also white people who staid behind. Which kinda makes it "poorisme" not racisme.

I don't think racism was totally responsible for what happened, Chambler. Class also played a big part. Maybe class even played the biggest part. But certain racial attitudes, on the parts of some people, definitely entered into the mix. I'm firmly convinced of that. Attitudes about race are deeply rooted in most societies, and we can't deny that it plays a role in human behavior. But we're not comfortable talking about race, or admitting certain prejudices. I don't think most people in the U.S. are racists. But I think we all have certain baggage that we carry around, and that includes our attitudes about race. It permeates much of what we do, the decisions that are made, how resources are allocated, where we choose to live, and on and on.

For example, there were some reports of people shooting at rescue workers early on. And because of those reports, the rescue workers were pulled from their duties for hours in the first day or two after the storm. Who knows how many people died because of that? And that would not have happened if the community had been Greenwich, Connecticut or Malibu, California--two affluent, largely white communities. If some nuts had guns and were causing problems, they would have sent a couple of police officers in with the rescue workers and the rescue missions would have continued. Here, they just threw up their hands and said, in effect, "We can't deal with these people. They're too dangerous."

When I talk about racist attitudes, I'm not talking about people walking around in sheets, or people who hate those of other races. It's more subtle than that. It's negative stereotypes and expectations. Thinking of certain types of people as alien or "not like us" in a way that breeds fear or makes some people uncomfortable around large numbers of people of a different race. Or makes them act toward people of other races differently than they would act toward or treat a member of their own group. I don't think a majority of people are hardcore racists. Maybe that's an unfortunate term. But both class AND race definitely played a role here.

But, before I leave for now, I should also say that there are a lot of good people who have surfaced in recent days. People all over the U.S., of all races and ethnic backgrounds, have sent an incredible amount of money to help. People of all races have offered to take the New Orleans families into their homes. Cities around the country have searched their resources and offered housing, flying folks from the shelters in Texas to practically every state from Massachusetts to California. People are volunteering their time, sending clothing and food. It's very heartwarming to see. But that's ordinary folks. The institutional problems still remain and have to be dealt with.

Now, this may seem to contradict what I said above. It really doesn't. There are a lot of good, decent individual people around. But that doesn't mean that, as a society, we don't have issues with race--and class--that are still unresolved. We do. And they affect public policy, even in disasters.

Of course, the ineptness of government on all levels is another factor in all of this. Federal versus state. State versus local But I won't even get into that.

Well talking about racial / religions etc issues is very hard to do in any society as the moment you say something that is less than 100% positive about some ethic groups someone will play the racists card (Don't even start me off on political correctness). But the reason that these rescue workers got pulled out got all to do with percieved risk in my opinion. A group of people slinging guns around in Iraq are more dangerous than a group of black people slinging guns around and a group of white people are perceived as an even lower risk. And that mental framework isn't all that uncommon as it keeps you alive. And with this perceived risk in mind it's political suicide if rescue workers get killed by the people they are trying to rescue. Can you imagine the headlines? Aid convoy robbed by angry mob, rescue workers killed in process. Doesn't really inspire people to help Plus I'm pretty sure the rescue workers are more than willing to give their lives to rescue people but being shot at makes it a completely different ball game. If you see that many cops resigned because they didn't think that after losing everything losing their lives too would be particularly fair something must have been going on.

Personally I completely understand the way of thinking. I also do percieve some ethic minorities more of a threat in certain situations than others. When walking through dark alleys or when driving late at night. At two attempts people tried to drive me off the road at 2 in the morning in both attempts it was a car with 3 guys from a certain ethic minority. Am I now more careful in assessing the situation when I drive around at 2 at night and I see a certain type of car (old, dents etc) with 3 or more guys in it from that particular ethic minority? of course I am. Does this makes me a racist...? Well I personally don't think so. Do I feel safer when I take more care when trying to overtake such a car on an empty motorway? I certainly think so. I can kinda understand why an area which has a high perceived risk factor troops would drive around with their weapons at the ready. You would call them insane if they didn't in the dangerous areas of Iraq Although the Dutch troops when they were in Iraq never walked around with their weapons up. Always pointing it to the ground which did get them a lot more support from the locals (but given the south of Iraq was a lot safer).

On the news yesterday we had a Dutch camera crew (dominately white) going to the hoods of New Orleans talking to some of the remaining poor black people asking them if they felt unsafe by staying. And they said they felt completely safe as they were part of the hood so nobody would try to rob / breakin / rape them etc. They did however warn that if the camera crew would have been there without additional protection their van / wallets / camera etc would have been long gone. Poor despirate black people with guns to me seem a lot more dangerous than rich white people with guns as they have less to lose and everything to gain. Mainly because I'm not poor and black myself. Does it means they are more dangerous.... I don't know but I'm not going to risk it and find out if it can cost me my life....

What happened makes complete sense to me. Not saying it's the right thing to do but it makes sense. The good will suffer with the bad in these cases especially when a lot of bad is presumed. Which is sad but it's a fact of life.

(Edited by Chambler 07/09/2005 10:47)

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by Chambler
Well talking about racial / religions etc issues is very hard to do in any society as the moment you say something that is less than 100% positive about some ethic groups someone will play the racists card (Don't even start me off on political correctness).

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Political correctness? It's gone mad I tell you!

What people object to, and rightly, is making sweeping statements about any race, positive or negative. I've been threatened in the street a handful of times, mostly by white people, once by an Asian man. Do I now look cockeyed at every fellow whitey and every fourth Asian? Of course not. If that Dutch film crew walked into the middle of a poor white neighbourhood would their equipment be any safer? Of course not.

Among all this, we have Barbara Bush and her big mouth...

On American Public Media's 'Market Place', she said that the poor victims of New Orleans are doing 'very well' out of the hurricane, because they get to move to new places, specifically Texas and Houston, where they get to live at the leisure of overgenerous Texans.

Whoo, go Bush family go. They're really a treat, the words that come out of that family's mouths.

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by Maffrew
Among all this, we have Barbara Bush and her big mouth...

On American Public Media's 'Market Place', she said that the poor victims of New Orleans are doing 'very well' out of the hurricane, because they get to move to new places, specifically Texas and Houston, where they get to live at the leisure of overgenerous Texans.

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Oh. My. God.

(Edited by Sydney 08/09/2005 09:17)

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by Maffrew
On American Public Media's 'Market Place', she said that the poor victims of New Orleans are doing 'very well' out of the hurricane, because they get to move to new places, specifically Texas and Houston, where they get to live at the leisure of overgenerous Texans.

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She actually said that? Out loud? *boggle*

As generous as Texans undoubtedly are, I'm sure these people would rather not be sleeping ina hostel and wearing other people's clothes...

Idiot.

Latest in the "WTF!?" files and nominee for the Tin-Foil Hat Award: Was Katrina created by the Yakuza?

I don't want to say much about this but I do know that I think that the US is asking other countries for money is pretty disgraceful. They are the richest country in the world, and I'm sure half of George Bush's salary could pay for half the relief effort.

My dad was in Florida at the time and he said that the attitude to Bush is negative, a great deal of people say he did not act quickly enough.

Anyways, there's my 2 penneth, but I just want to emphasise my main feelings on this subject are not political, it is a disaster and my thoughts are with the people who have suffered.