Katrina victims testify on racism's role

AP/mlive.com ^ | 12/6/2005, 5:58 p.m. ET | LARA JAKES JORDAN

[quantim]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust.

The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.

"Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed," Miller told the survivors.

"They died from abject neglect," retorted community activist Leah Hodges. "We left body bags behind."

Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said she was "one sunrise from being consumed by maggots and flies." Another woman said military troops focused machine gun laser targets on her granddaughter's forehead. Others said their families were called racial epithets by police.

"No one is going to tell me it wasn't a race issue," said New Orleans evacuee Patricia Thompson, 53, who is now living in College Station, Texas. "Yes, it was an issue of race. Because of one thing: when the city had pretty much been evacuated, the people that were left there mostly was black."

Not all lawmakers seemed persuaded.

"I don't want to be offensive when you've gone though such incredible challenges," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. But referring to some of the victims' charges, like the gun pointed at the girl, Shays said: "I just don't frankly believe it."

"You believe what you want," Thompson said.

The hearing was held by a special House committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., investigating the government's preparations and response to Katrina. It was requested by Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"Racism is something we don't like to talk about, but we have to acknowledge it," McKinney said. "And the world saw the effects of American-style racism in the drama as it was outplayed by the Katrina survivors."

The five white and two black lawmakers who attended the hearing mostly sat quietly during two and a half hours of testimony. But tempers flared when evacuees were asked by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., to not compare shelter conditions to a concentration camp.

"I'm going to call it what it is," said Hodges. "That is the only thing I could compare what we went through to."

Of five black evacuees who testified, only one said he believed the sluggish response was the product of bad government planning for poor residents — not racism.

[Buffettfan]

[[Leah Hodges, a community activist, recalled trying to help a group of stranded senior citizens. The military took them to an evacuation point on a highway where they spent the night, awakening to a "bunch of hard red necks scowling and growling at us in military uniforms.]]

I'm sure that NOBODY had the balls to call this creep on using a racial slur against whites during this hearing. Blacks are not held accountable for much in this country.

[LA Woman3]

The Superdome was to be used as a shelter of last resort. There was a mandatory evacuation that these "victims" chose to ignore. During Ivan, the New Orleans officials used the Superdome as a shelter. This is a report after the threat of Ivan passed..... ____________________________________________________________
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/091604ccjrwwlnightinbowl.122e8d1b2.html
A night in the Superdome: 'This is the best I've eaten in a while'

05:23 PM CDT on Thursday, September 16, 2004

-snip- These are the last people anyone worried about. The poor, the homeless, the aged, the infirm. People with nowhere to go and no way to get there. Stranded and frightened, they finally found shelter in the Louisiana Superdome and rode out Hurricane Ivan in a joyless night, uncomfortable, but at least safe. "This isn't the place I want to be, but it's the place I'm very grateful to be," said Leonard Cooper, a homeless man.

The Red Cross, which once set up shelters in New Orleans, will no longer do so for storms ranked higher than a Category 2. The organization ruled the city, which lies well below sea level, unsafe for bigger storms and said evacuation was the only sure was to survive such hurricanes.

In New Orleans that leaves a large population of poor, those who rely on public transportation, and the homeless stranded when hurricanes threaten.

"I wanted to evacuate," joked Fred Wilson. "But my chauffeur was off today."

The city opened part of the Superdome for medical refugees Wednesday morning. It opened up for general refugees between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Dome officials kept the doors open until 6:30. But that time 1,100 people were in the 72,000-seat stadium.

They were confined to one end zone and the concourse behind it. Although they were told to bring food, drinks and blankets with them, only a few families did. The majority of the refugees were homeless and had nothing to bring.

Superdome general manager Doug Thornton laid down the ground rules early: be polite, put trash in the bins, keep the restrooms clean, smoke only in the designated area.

The sheriff's office sent over spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. It was served with a slice of white bread.

"This is the best I've eaten in a while," said Joe Maris, as he lined up for thirds.

Catholic Charities sent over a big supply of bottled water which was available in the concourse. There were also oatmeal bars, chips, orange juice, snack-size pudding and 8,000 packages of cheese crackers. Dome officials worried about the trash and decided to give each person a bag of food in the morning as they left rather than distribute it immediately.

The concourse was constant activity. People went in and out of the bathrooms, smokers headed in and out to smoke, children wandered around looking. A man with one shoe on walked up and down holding his enlarged stomach. An old man asked a National Guardsman if he could get a cane.

"I lost mine and sometimes I fall over without one," he said. People smiled and talked. A woman helped the old woman next to her spread out a blanket. Another held a baby for the mother so she could eat.

At 9 p.m. Thornton got on his cell phone trying to get a doctor to come from the medical evacuation area to the general area. Two men were having seizures, suspected to be from drug withdrawal. Charmaine Wallace was worried about her 7-month-old baby, Charel.

The baby had a 101 fever, was coughing and had a rash on her cheeks.

An hour later mother and baby were loaded into an ambulance and taken to Charity Hospital, just blocks away. The two men left in other ambulances.

Arthur Feldman left on his own. He didn't like the food and the Superdome was too cold.

The temperature was 65 degrees. The building was being cooled for the Saints game against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

"If we warm it up, we won't have enough time to cool it back down before the game," said Thornton, who was besieged by shivering refugees with questions about the promised blankets.

Thornton and Gen. Ralph Lupin began phoning the National Guard headquarters and the Red Cross headquarters, trying to secure blankets.

At 9:30 a representative of the Office of Emergency Preparedness agreed to deliver them if someone would take responsibility for making sure they were returned. The general and Thornton agree to pay for any not turned back in.

The only other time the Superdome was used as a shelter, in 1998, people raided the luxury suites before leaving, taking furniture and televisions. This time 300 National Guardsmen were on patrol and there were no problems.

At 11 p.m. the blankets arrived. By 11:15 people began finding places to sleep.

The lights were dim in the seating area. People there wrapped themselves in blankets and tried to get comfortable. Because the armrests don't move, people had to sit in one seat and drape their legs over the armrest into another. Others lay on the floor in front of the seats.

"I should have stayed home," said LaShone Johnson. "This is the first time I ever came to a shelter and I'll never do it again. A lot of these people haven't bathed in a while. It doesn't smell too good in here."

In the concourse the lights were bright. National guardsmen patrolled as people lay on the brick floor along the wall outside the restrooms. John Davis wrapped up behind the beer counter.

"At least no one will step on me here," he said.

Just down the isle, a man lay talking to himself in a loud voice as he has been all evening.

By midnight people had settled down. It was not quiet. Babies cried, mothers yelled at youngsters, sleepers moaned and shouted as dreams or discomfort prompted, a constant parade of people climbed up and down the steps going to the bathrooms.

The hours crept by until the National Guard started bringing in the breakfast bags and people began getting up, looking tired and uncomfortable. Blankets were turned in. Many of the homeless hurried off to the agency that hires temporary workers each morning. Families gathered their belongings and headed to the street, waiting for the buses to take them back to their neighborhoods. They were greeted by bright sunshine and gentle breezes, Ivan had bypassed the city.

"I'm glad we could come," said D'Artagnan Wilson, who came with his wife, mother-in-law and five children. "We wanted to evacuate, but we both had to work right up until yesterday. And my wife didn't think our apartment would be safe in a big storm. It was uncomfortable, but at least it was safe."

[SmoothTalker]

I'm sick of these whiners. Maybe if they spent all the hours a day they whine about "racism" doing something productive they wouldn't be stuck in the situation they have found themselves in.

This though is the predictable result of decades of liberal policy. It creates adult children who look to the government for everything, and who rather than work to improve their situation would rather sit around and blame others for not giving them more and more handouts. Nothing is their fault. Drop out of school? Blame whitey! Have a kid at 18? Blame whitey? Don't have a good job! Blame whitey! Not enough blacks volunteer for the red cross? Blame whitey!

[Luke21]

Another great story from the Ass(ociated) Press.

[Ima Lurker]

While I agree there was an appalling lack of personal responsibility by some prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans, I'm curious as to just what town, 12 miles away, you are referring. Food and shelter could have been found possibly 120 miles away, but most certainly NOT 12 miles.

[Republican Wildcat]

"No one is going to tell me it wasn't a race issue," said New Orleans evacuee Patricia Thompson

It wasn't a race issue.

[ladyinred]

Here we go again. Wanna bet if this had happened during the Clinton administration there would be no cry of racism? Don't you just wanna puke?

[Republican Wildcat]

How dare you say that about McKinney - with all she and her family have done to curb anti-semitism in this country.

[CFC__VRWC]

That was the single most uncivilized hearing I have ever seen in the Congress of the United States. It was also insulting.

When even Christopher Shays turns down a chance to stab the GOP in the back by agreeing with their wild accusations, it should tell these people something.

[Bringbackthedraft]

"If the shelters were anything like the concentration camps these idiots would be dead."

Concentration vitims were "worked" to death, they weren't 300+lb. folks that sat on their duffs waiting to be fed. There is no comparison here at all.

[WV Mountain Mama]

In your first instance though, the children were missing from the hurricane. They weren't children in shelters looking for families, all of those children were accounted for and resolved with family. My observation was the separation from caregivers because there was a much smaller number that were listed as last seen and heard from with their parents or one of their parents. I wonder how many caregivers were actually grandparents or other elder relatives that didn't evacuate. The way the circumstances were listed though, it gave the impression that the caregiver made it, or was the one who reported them as missing. The children who died are the victims that make me weep because they didn't have the choice to leave or stay.

[caryatid]

To be fair, it was reported that there were instances of Rescue workers demanding that all babies and little ones be passed overhead to be the first on rescue vehicles.

In your first instance though, the children were missing from the hurricane.

My "first instance" [above] is a description of the evacuation of the Superdome. I was not there, I can only rely upon reports from people on the ground. I would have to attribute any separation of children from parents/caregivers to well-intentioned, but ill conceived, methods of those directing the evacuation, not to the evacuees, themselves. [I am not sure what you mean by "missing from the hurricane"].

In the segment of society of which we speak, it is quite common for responsible grandparents [almost always grandmothers] to become caregivers to their grandchildren whose mothers are drug addicted or otherwise unable to care for the children they produce. The pattern of reproduction in the relevant population can mean that a grandmother may be in her 30s or 40s ... not necessarily elderly by anyone's standard.

Statistically, the number of child fatalities from the Hurricane is small. The overwhelming proportion of identified victims is elderly and disproportionately white compared to the {67.3% black/26.6% white ratio}, and {11.7% aged 65+ years/26.7% under 18 years} statistics of the population of the city. Only 6.9% of the population was under the age of 5. These facts have been under- or non-reported by the MSM.

I am unaware of any legitimate lists of large numbers of missing children. Bodies are still being found on an intermittent, occasional basis ... all that I read about are elderly folks.

I weep for all of the victims of this destructive hurricane ... whether elderly, children, white, black, or other. It has been a heartbreaking thing to watch unfold.

[drc43]

I am beginning to regret the contribution i made for their relief.

Not totally, but sheeshe.. does this racism excuse EVER stop?

[half-cajun]

I saw some of this hearing, and it was appalling. At one point they referred to the Causeway Concentration Camp (the Causeway leads from Jefferson Parish to the Northshore)where evidently some people ended up waiting to get out. Thankfully, some of the legislators were as appalled as I was hearing the comparison.

[Libloather]

I saw some of this hearing, and it was appalling.

On C-Span 2 right now. The whole thing is a mess.

[Gordongekko909]

Another woman said military troops focused machine gun laser targets on her granddaughter's forehead.

Military question; do any military-issue "machine guns" (given this woman's probably expertise on the subject, this could mean anything from an SMG to an assault rifle to a Vulcan) actually have laser sightings on them that paint a dot on the target, or is that just movie nonsense?

[half-cajun]

Yes, the only half-way lucid one is the man. They continuously talk about post-traumatic stress disorder(look for a law suit there). These people are absolutely nuts.

[Gordongekko909]

Because they do not act until being told what to do by their government masters, to be blunt.

They were told to get out. By the government. Several days in advance.

[Gordongekko909]

Have a kid at 18? Blame whitey!

Try 12 or 13. It's a lot more common than you think.

[billhilly]

24 hours.