(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

The floodwaters are making them come out from all over, seeking high ground: the bigots, finding new zeal in their victim-blaming. What's scary is how blatant they are being, not even trying to disguise their hatred. It's as if they sense now is the time to finally take off the mask and reveal themselves in all their ugly, racist glory.

You've all heard, of course, this comment by Rep. Richard Baker (of Baton Rouge): "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." The "looting vs. finding" thing is old news, too.

pamscoffee reports that an official at Greenville Technical College in South Carolina lost her job after twice referring to Katrina evacuees as "yard apes." As in, "sending yellow buses to pick up the yard apes."

Amanda Marcotte's timeline of victim-blaming on AlterNet shows how right-wingers, hoping to deflect criticism of Bush, finally settled in on blaming the welfare state.

This isn't about the President leaving the citizenry of a major American city to die in a hurricane! No, this is a story of black people obtaining expensive goods that the teller of the story deems them unworthy of owning.

George Will is touting the line that the tragedy of Katrina could have been prevented by people marrying and having children the way he tells them to. How it is that married couples in the Superdome could have gotten water, food and evacuation vehicles there faster need not be explained. Laying the blame for Katrina on the shoulders of the mythological Welfare Queen and other Republican bogeymen looks like it's shaping up to be the primary distraction from laying the blame at the feet of those in the federal government who actually had power to help but didn't. The important thing is getting everyone in a tizzy over those awful hurricane victims who dare to believe that they deserve rescue just because they need it.

A frightening and insidious manifestation of this memetic rot was pointed out by lady_babalon: An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit—but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals—and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep—on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

Comments

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Once again, the stories of people banding together to help each other--as reported by Alobar, as reported by Mary Beth Slonsky, and the other interviewees on This American Life, are just not sexy enough for FAUX News and the other mainstream media. I heard stories of gangbangers banding together to "find" juice for dehydrated babies, of them standing guard over the grandmas and helping them out of their flooded homes, of them organizing, sharing resources and protecting other evacuees on overpasses and refusing to be airlifted out until everyone else had been taken. Of a tough 9th Warder rowing his boat with a 2x4 and making repeated trips to rescue people over 24 hours despite being offered a space on motorboats.

Nope, black man as murdering, thieving rapist is just too imprinted in wealthy white America's psyche. It's what they expect to hear, so that's what the media gives 'em.

my email to the author of that last column

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Dear Mr. Tracinski,

Of course, all you saw was looting and rapine if all you were watching was FAUX News and other mainstream media sources. Altruism isn't nearly as sexy as violence. I'm here to tell you that the "victims of the welfare state" to which you refer were indeed banding together to help each other in the wake of the disaster. If you go to actual primary sources, people who were there living through the disaster, you will find these stories. Try reading:

http://livejournal.com/users/alobar
An older man who lived in the French Quarter, was carless, diabetic, and had lived through many previous hurricanes. He ended up forming a small community with other residents, black and white, in a parking garage while they tried to figure out how to get out of the city. They shared supplies and watched out for each other.

http://livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
A former Special Forces member whp stayed in the CBD and blogged and cammed throughout the disaster. He stated that there was a lot less looting and violence than the media reported. The only ones who broke into his building were the National Guardsmen.

http://livejournal.com/users/auryn24
A nurse at Methodist hospital in New Orleans.

Listen to the voices of actual survivors interviewed by This American Life:
http://www.thislife.org/ra/296.ram
who tell of gang members protecting the babies and elderly in their neighborhoods, and police firing at people just trying to escape with their children. Listen to Mary Beth Slonsky, a visiting tourist, tell of sheriffs chasing them away from their food and water and National Guard helicopters buzzing so low as to blow away their shelter, without even attempting to help them in any way.

Go to http://livejournal.com/community/hurricane_fema where hundreds of links to stories can be found--stories of police and FEMA employees looting stores in uniform, of police telling victims perched on rooftops, "Show us your tits!" and speeding away when they refused, of media saying white folks were "finding" food while Black folks were "looting" food, and of incredible, nay criminal decisions made by authorities, like refusing to let the Red Cross into NOLA to distribute food and water because then "people wouldn't leave", of FEMA refusing buses from Chicago and boats from Florida that could have helped people flee the city.

Mr. Tracinski, the people of New Orleans, for the most part, *were* doing what they could to help their fellow man. They did not descend into "law of the jungle" chaos. The fact that that has become the dominant picture is a result of our racist assumptions, decades old, that paint the Black as sexually insatiable, savage, thieving and lazy. The fact is that at every level, government failed to respond appropriately, and in many cases responded in ways that actively harmed people. And yes, the people of New Orleans had every right to assume that in an unprecedented disaster, their emergency officials would help them. Wouldn't you expect firemen to come put out your house, or policemen to protect you from criminals instead of firing on the innocent? Wouldn't you expect the nation to send appropriate resources if *your* hometown was washed away? That's their job.

Blaming this on the welfare state is unjust, simplistic, and innaccurate. It is also classist and racist.

I'd like to see a correction in your column after you check your assumptions against these primary sources, but I suppose since that wouldn't fit your agenda, it's too much to ask.

Re: my email to the author of that last column

[http://users.livejournal.com/graciebaby_/]

can I have your permission to copy that in my journal? in the comments section... I want to send it to the aquaintances that have uttered insanity to me so they can read the links for themselves...

full credit to you of course...

Re: my email to the author of that last column

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Copy away!

Re: my email to the author of that last column

[http://users.livejournal.com/graciebaby_/]

thank you!!!

ya know...I can always count on you to see past my...sometimes uninformed state and provide more infi...or rather... ammo for the masses surounding me. in 3D

[delascabezas.livejournal.com]

[nefri.livejournal.com]

fascinating, as always

[pretzelsalt.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I think that people are showing a lot of their (not-so-hidden) biases by what they report and pass on in Katrina. If they expect that blacks are shiftless, welfare seekers... that's what they'll find. If they expect that people will band together at a time of crisis... that's what they'll find.

People will all do different things during a crisis.

[sammhain.livejournal.com]

We had a Shriner's convention in town last weekend, one of the wives brought an email down for me to photocopy so she could hand it out. She told it made the most sense of anything she'd heard about Katrina. It was the piece about how his was all the fault of the welfare state. I wish I had read it prior to giving it to her.

The funy thing is she told me to keep a copy as though I would undoubtedly agree. I wish Icould have told her my mother raised me on welfare. I wish I could have ased her if she felt corporate welfare was at least as damagging. I't's amazing to me sometimes, what people will allow themselves to believe.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

an official at Greenville Technical College in South Carolina lost her job

And about time, too.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

What I can't believe is that in the story she is quoted as being "shocked and numb". Which makes me wonder how often she'd made similar comments and suffered no reprisals before.

[kumbunny.livejournal.com]

Australia's "Media Watch" did a storyon the finding versus looting story. With detailed responses from both photographers that also wrote the captions.

I could understand those stories being a sign of media racism if they had been written by the same people. But they weren't.

In one response the photographer himself was almost suffering a nervous breakdown due to the response the image was getting in the media. Informing Media Watch that he had lost his home, his life and family members and was at no stage in his life to be rationalizing one word in his entire career.

I found that a convincing argument.