Web Letters: Katrina's Hidden Race War

Why dont you write an article about people who did not evacuate who were going through neighborhoods and stealing TVs, electronics, jewelry, not food and water? Going to businesses and stealing drugs. You just see what you want to see. I evacuated and came back to a neighborhood that had many homes broken into. The refrigerator and food was intact. Most people in New Orleans don't listen because we have evacuated so many times that you just don't want to do it anymore. Go back and watch the news from that time. The people they caught on camera running around the city with TVs, and clothes, they were doing that all over the area. Metairie, West Bank, all over. They were not walking around neighborhoods looking for food. The people who were there protecting their area were afraid because they heard about the looting all over the place. Why don't you write about the person that shot at a helicopter that was transporting people to a safe area. Come live here for a few months. You'll own a shotgun in no time.

Lisa Williams

New Orleans, LA

That police departments are corrupt is no surprise. That they are racist and profile citizens is common knowledge.

New Orleans has been corrupt for decades, and has been publicly addressed time and time again to no avail. The "Big Blue Wall" is in effect in every state in the US. The FBI is not going to do anything to correct the problem! They will make a good show but, again, the Big Blue Wall pops up like a roadblock on Saturday night down the road from the most popular bar in town! No wonder people are buying and collecting guns!

In Oklahoma, the police regularly confiscate money and guns and never return them to the proper owner! The guns go to the personal collection of policemen. In Stringtown, Oklahoma, the police confiscated $8,000 from a young Mexican couple for no reason other than that they could, and the people were Mexican!

When the couple got back to Chicago, they put all the paperwork together to prove that the money was derived from the sale of property in Mexico. They sent the proper paperwork to the Stringtown Police Department's court clerk, only to be informed that their money had been stolen. Someone took it right out of the Police Department's locked up safe inside the locked-up Police Department!

The District Attorney of the county has been notified only about fifteen or sixteen times. A letter has been sent to the attorney general of Oklahoma more than once. The governer has been notified more than once. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations has been asked to intervene by the mayor of Stringtown on numerous occasions to no avail.

The really tragic and obviously incriminating evidence is that the chief of police remodled his home six months after the fact, spending $7,600.

Some one with just one scintilla of ethics (obviously out of Oklahoma), do something! This type of tyrannical behavior is happening all over Oklahoma with impunity! The local, county, state authorties are all police people! Who will investigate this dastardly act? Who is honest? Certainly not the authorties in Ok. Maybe we should call in the "gendarmerie!"

After all it is the state of Inhoff and Coburn.

W.A. Marley

Stringtown, OK

Read this article with interest and must comment as a participant!

This article is a one-sided account of a culmination of too much "laissez les bon temps roulez." The writers of the web letters have not a clue, seeming to base their reality on Anderson Cooper etc. We lived in Gentilly (a white/black area near the lake), evacuated a day earlier and ended up wiped out, losing everything. A few days after Katrina, at a hospital in Houma where we were waiting to see a doctor for a dog bite, the deputy writing the report (all dog bites are reported to law enforcement) said we should be glad we are not back in NO. To quote the deputy, "There's gang-bangers jumping off the roofs slashing the throats of the guys with boats... guys coming to save those people."

Driving to Lafayetter, we were passed by a dozen white extended Ford vans with Arkansas plates. The drivers and passengers looked like SWAT teams heading toward NO.

None of this was reported by CNN or the other media. I shot my own film interviewing people, white and black, who stayed or were living outside of NO. The level of fear and lawlessness cannot easily be imagined by all the do-gooders who came later to write about the aftermath or shoot their films.

There was no way to know what was fact and what was fiction. Newspapers and the radio were supplying information based on reports from reporters... comfortably in their CBD (downtown) hotels.

Police were stealing caddies and driving to Houston, there was a shortage of antibiotics, curfews--even down in Houma. I have friends in Algiers who corroborated much of what was in this story. In the twenty years we've been visiting Algiers, we have not felt threatened--even when driving by the projects. Whites and blacks did deal with each other in a civiized manner.

When one reads reports of what goes on during a war--WWII, for instance--one is not surprised what happened after Katrina. This is not to excuse the racism; these guys had every right to protect their lives and property, white or black. This is what rational men do when society breaks down. Much of the bad that happened is what happens to a society that lives with entitlements and poor education. It is the culmination of the failed social experiments from the '60s. If we want change, and the Obama Nation claims we do, let's get back to personal responsibility for our lives and our actions, hold the politicoes accountable when they steal from the citizens. Develop charter schools that have a responsibility to education an, my pet peeve--call on the celebs to actually do something besides photo ops.

Atlas Brown

Houma, LA

I feel sick after reading about the horrors that have taken place in that town. All I can say is, I hope justice is served, and every one of those men who took it upon themselves to shoot get what they deserve. I don't care if the black men were looting, that doesn't equal death. They just lost all of their possessions, and probably didn't have savings, or much to begin with. Why? Because of our systematic oppression, and the fact they don't get the same rights and opportunities as white people. So God forbid they take food, when they are starving, FEMA is slow to respond, and no one is doing a goddamn thing to help.

Usually tragedies bring people together, and can give people great pride in their country. Clearly, Katrina did nothing but tear us apart and make evident the racism living on in America. It is so sad that this opportunity to help those less fortunate turned into a race war bringing out the ugliest side of the white man.

It is hard to believe this could even happen in 2005... and still today.

And for the letters I read defending that town, shame on you. If you knew it was happening, and did nothing, you're just as guilty, in my mind. Great, I'm so glad your population is 30 percent black... real diverse. I don't care what the percentage is, it's how you treat your neighbors, and act together as a community. It's not just a couple of racist idiots who are guilty, it's the many who turned their heads and allowed it to happen. I can't wait for the day those guilty of these heinous crimes get taken down.

Andrea Kurth

New Berlin, WI

I had the pleasure of seeing Katrina vanden Hauvel on the Today show commenting on President Obama's selection of his cabinet. There were a couple of her comments that resonated with me. Change does not take place in a day, and citizens need to reclaim their power. On the Nation website I discovered this article on the hidden race war. I have been delivering diversity training in the corporate (private) and public sectors for over thirty years. I delivered some of the first diversity sessions in the USA with Digital Equipment Corporation. That was before they were popular. I also was involved in the forerunner programs of diversity training called encounter sessions. Those were usually conducted by a social studies college professor or a community activist minister and held in a basement of a church or in the dorm of a campus. You would be invited to participate with a diverse group of community folks. The session would convene on a Friday evening and it would end early Sunday morning. We would emerge from the session battered and bruised but with our awareness of cultural differences significantly increased.

Thus is my view on the hidden race war: It is alive and well but different from that of the past is due to political correctness and social and cultural awareness. The term that I am using in my sessions is shadow racism and shadow ignorance. We as a nation have taken a few meaningful steps forward, but most people (of all races and ethnicities) don't know why or even how it happened. Instead of backing off and giving one another a break, we should increase our push for diversity consciousness. I am calling that societal integrity. Societal integrity will address both of the issues vanden Heuvel discussed on Today, "citizens' need to reclaim their power" and the hidden race war.

As citizens of a social system, each of us has an obligation to do our part to ensure the health, safety and the welfare of the social system. This is a systems-thinking issue, not necessarily a people issue. For too long we have focused on the wrong things--race, gender, age and sexual orientation, to name a few. Not that all of those aren't important, but the issue is bigger.

We are confronted with a societal integrity issue. My interest is to get this program/concept out to as many people as possible, as soon as possible. This is a paradigm shift for both cultural thought and diversity consciousness.

James A. White Sr.

Performance Consulting Services
Columbus, OH

No major American city has ever had a complete and utter breakdown of civil services on this scale. Of course those crimes weren’t going to be prosecuted. How in the hell were the police and the DA office supposed to get that done? There were racist police officers that did not want to take reports? I’m shocked, simply shocked. Of course that would never happen in Chicago, New York or Boston!

Parts of New Orleans culture are endemic with racism. This obviously isn’t excusing criminal, abhorrent, ugly, racial behavior and vigilantism. But it was a total breakdown of civil society. This could just as easily have happened in any major American city, if the demographics and situation were similar to Algiers, in which an uneasy coexistence had been the norm and then everything went to hell when a virtual breakdown of city services ensued.

New Orleans should not be judged by this article.

Paul Ansell

Chicago, IL

It is evident that, given the charisma and charm of the new US president, Barack Obama, he will be very popular and we will wish him godspeed and a long and successful presidency in a country unfortunately renowned for its low regard for black citizens and for its awful assassinations. And given the fact that he will be the first American black president, security will be rigid. Given the technical facilities open to them, his bodyguards will no doubt be undergoing special intensive training.

My mind registers concern about the Ku Klux Klan, the secret domestic militant organization that, in the past, has advocated white supremacy, acting as terrorists while hidden behind conical hats, masks and white robes, with a record of lynching to intimidate, murder and oppress specifically African-Americans and Jews

And of course there will be many others who will oppose the change. To what extent does the seed of white supremacy still reign in the US? It is remarkable, given their historic condemnation of the black population, and perhaps a credit to US citizens, that Barack Obama made it to president-elect in the first place, and this must surely reflect a change for the better in that land.

And yet I still shudder to think--given the atrocious neglect of the black communities in New Orleans after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina--that the resentment is still there.

As much as has been said and documented regarding the treatment of the poor, including pensioners, the disabled, children and the black community, there is much more that has not been publicized. Horrific accounts and pictures of armed guards holding back the evacuating hoards fit into this category. Inaccurate reports of looting, pilfering, rape and crime--giving rise to the use of the guards--when the truth was, there was hardly any crime on that scale, because most were anxious to get the hell out of there.

The sheer lack of consideration for these groups and the initial government failure to respond to the disaster was reported in The Economist as "The shaming of America." Two white paramedics, Bradshaw and Slonsky brought the truth out, telling of their experiences in trying to escape from the flooding in New Orleans across a bridge connecting the mainly black area of New Orleans City to the largely white suburbs.

They were stopped by the National Guard along with the aforementioned groups from the city's primary shelter and another, and when they asked what was the alternative to save themselves, the guards said it was their problem, and even refused to give them water. This was just the start of their numerous encounters with "callous and hostile "law enforcement." In protest, a group formed in front of the police command post--the incentive being to force the police to give way to their requests, fearing the embarrassment of media coverage--and seemingly it worked. The police commander addressed the group, telling them he had arranged for buses to dispatch them from the other side of the New Orleans bridge. With a cheer they quickly marched to the bridge with hope, but soon learned that the commander's statement was a hoax, just to be rid of them. Armed sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge and shot over their heads, sending the crowd fleeing.

Such accounts have been highlighted on the web-based alternative media, accounts that many would like to be kept hidden away from the once largely cosseted American public, but thanks to these and the TV documentary When the Levees Broke, produced in 2006 by the African-American film director Spike Lee, the real truth is out--which proves how many of the hierarchy still put down those least able to help themselves and, yes, the poorer colored communities to boot.

The new president will, given future national emergencies be sure to put this to rights once and for all--that all races and creeds be given equal treatment--but what about the consequences of all that? He is bound to upset many of those, like the Klan members, who still want white supremacy We can only hope and pray all will go smoothly for him.

Today, it is estimated there may be more than 150 Klan chapters with 5,000-8,000 members nationwide. The US government classifies them as hate groups, with operations in separated small local units.

But it is a relief to hear the White Christian Supremacist group has endorsed Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States of America. In Kentucky, Imperial Wizard Ronald Edwards has stated that "anything is better than that 'crazy ass bitch' Hillary Clinton." This is the first time in Klan history that any member of the KKK has ever publicly supported an African- American candidate for the presidency.

But I can't help thinking how it is, given record of their staunch hatred towards black Americans, have they really changed?

peter carroll

Paignton, Devon, England

The ordeal described in "Katrina's Hidden Race War" is horrifying. I am so sad and angry that this happened to Donnell Herrington and I hope your piece launches an investigation. That is what it was written to do, I assume.

I am a resident of Algiers Point, and while I identify with your activist impulses, I am upset by the inaccuracies, subjective statements and wide-sweeping generalizations you make about my neighborhood. I hope that your readers detect those aspects of the article.

To call Algiers Point a "white enclave" as Lance Hill did is irresponsible and inaccurate. Just as it is of you to describe Malik Rahim as "one of a handful of African-Americans who live in Algiers Point." According to 2000 U.S. Census data (focusing on all of Census Tract 1, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, plus Census Tract 4, Orleans Parish, Louisiana: blocks 1004, 1022, 1020, 1019, 1017, 1002, 1016, 1021, 1005, 1015, 1023) nearly 30 percent of residents in historical Algiers Point are African-American. I would proudly compare the diversity of my neighborhood to other neighborhoods in America.

It would be more accurate for you to say there are a handful of idiots and racists living in Algiers Point.

I wonder what number of white people did Lance Hill psychologically profile to determine a widespread "siege mentality"? Those numbers, like census numbers, would have demonstrated something concrete to your readers.

Finally, Mr. Thomas, any time a journalist uses the phrase "could have," it signifies a departure from impartial journalism, such as at this moment: "Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims."

How many of the approximately 1,250 households in Algiers Point remained behind to do good deeds, or for that matter, to participate in these vigilante militias? You could have canvassed to find out. There was a mandatory evacuation, and many good, able people had followed it. And while we are talking about "could haves," and should haves and would haves, God Almighty, is there anything any of us across America would not have done differently? What a tragedy, all around.

Kathryn Hobgood

New Orleans, LA

Once again the darker-colored members of our country have been abused and murdered and no one will be brought to justice. The only reason no one responding to this article calls any claims complete lies in our history. America has a history of abusing its "ethnic" members. Americans are knowledgeable of the fact that ethnic members of society have suffered and continue to suffer since this country gained its independence. The battle for equality is constant and unending. It is a battle to find justice for those abused by the racist members of our country. Racism is an American tradition. In the South it is an unspoken understanding of people keeping within their boundaries or suffering for stepping out of line. My grandfather used to sing a song called "Jump Back and Let the White Man Pass"! He had to carry guns and a change of clothes in his trunk just in case the white people in town began to attack African-Americans, for whatever the reason may have been at that time. America needs to understand that its "ethnic" members understand and are not confused about the racism they face daily. African-Americans are not surprised at the abuse brought against them time and time again in American history. What would be a surprise would be for someone to bring those who committed these crimes to justice and make that the beginning of a true effort to treat each other equally instead of continuing down this road of abuse and oppression.

seward k. rogne jr.

Miami, FL

While A.C. Thompson's reporting on the topic of Fortress Algiers is sound, for those of us who live in New Orleans it is not surprising. For months after the storm, the race war tales were wide spread, common knowledge and of the type that no one needed to investigate, because we all assumed they were true. Our fellow citizens committed murders, many murders, after the hurricane. Also, our police, various other government agencies and, I'm willing to bet, several visitors as well.

Above the entrance to the Orleans Parish courthouse is written: "We are a nation of laws, not of men." It is important for readers to understand how deeply order had collapsed in New Orleans in 2005, and how deeply racial distrust affects our citizens. I admire the call for justice, but justice is an extension of civil society, and can only be supported by government. After Katrina made landfall, government collapsed and citizens were left to fend for themselves. That many of these citizens are deeply racist is not surprising. We live in a deeply racist city: though we co-mingle, the city remains deeply divided. Our population is the most violent, most murderous in the nation. Our public institutions are among the nation's worst. Since the storm, one police chief resigned, his assistant blew his brains out, the DA & the FBI chief have been forced to resign, a judge has been removed, our Congressman was indicted, and the list goes on...

The population of Orleans parish was contained by authorities from neighboring Jefferson Parish during the post-K days. The city of Gretna saw a real danger and illegally stopped (and fired "warning" shots at) our citizens attempting to flee. Other exits were blocked as well. On the North Shore, many very regular suburbanites were locked and loaded, ready to turn back our teeming hordes. In Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Alexandria and Shreveport the gun-store parking lots were packed for weeks. Why? Because all our fellow Louisianians were scared shitless.

In the absence of central authority, feigning astonishment at guerilla-justice atrocities seems a bit half-assed. Horrible, horrible things happened in New Orleans (and not just in Algiers Point; murders occurred Uptown, in the East, Gentilly, all over the place). More importantly, murders continue to occur all over the place. We are a murder city, and pressing for justice for the Katrina-era murder victims, while noble, ignores the reality that we live in every day.

We have endured a great many atrocities in post-Katrina New Orleans, few of which have been resolved. That people in Algiers murdered fellow New Orleanians is, unfortunately, old news. But this is what happens in colonial cities when the government collapses: ethnic groupings and clans fill the void. The actions of any vigilantism must be viewed in the absence of any governmental order, which is the responsibility of the State.

The truth and reconciliation commission on Katrina's report is in: the process of gentrification continues unabated. Huge amounts of the city's black underclass (and, unfortunately, middle class as well) have been forcibly relocated, in part in order to dilute the same racial tensions that erupted in post-K New Orleans. But quasi-sanctioned militias presage state-sponsored ethnic cleansing all over the world, all the time. This is the reality of our progress; "The Battle of Algiers" occurred in a failed state and is in the past; over 175 people have been murdered this year, three years after the failed state, in a city half its pre-K size.

J. Lofstead
NOLAFugees.com/NOLAFugees Press

New Orleans, LA

After reading this article, I was amazed that these people felt they had the right to bear arms and keep people from their neighborhood. I think to people up North it hits a different form of racism known as economics. Economically, they felt these people did not belong in their neighborhood. It breaks my heart to think that they did not have water and sandwiches or something available for these people at that blockade the men made. The community could have came together and set up an assembly line to assist the military and community.

What message did they send to their children? To shoot people who were probably seeking refuge and to assume everyone black is in a gang.

Then to hear comments that Obama being elected changed that racism thing... no, I hate, to tell you, he brought it out into the open in America. If McCain hadn't selected Palin, he would have won. Romney and him on a ticket was a sure win, but Palin was the nation's biggest joke.

I pray Obama will send FBI agents into this area and get justice for the people who were shot by this group of men. Until the feds get in the Deep South and start locking up these old rednecks, our country will never prosper. Until we learn to work together, we will never be a real superpower in this global economy.

Lisa Hunter

Bel Air, MD

As a resident of Algiers Point, I am deeply concerned about several aspects of this article. On one level, it is offensive that some reporter would attempt to characterize my nieghborhood as filled with paranoid whites pushed into a "siege mentality" suffering from historical racial paranoia. The Point I know is a racially diverse, mixed-income community. It is a walking community, filled with everything from modest shotgun houses to elaborate gingerbread cottages. We live here because we love New Orleans. My house is four blocks to the ferry and a five-minute boat ride to some of the best food, music and culture in the world! Make no mistake, Algiers Point is not the gated affluence of the Garden District or the suburbs.

We all know things happened in New Orleans during and after Katrina. You can see it in the eyes of each and every New Orleanian when we talk of "The Storm." What exactly those things are we'll never know, especially three years later. Like rumors of buses coming to pick us up at the Convention Center spreading through the crowd like a virus, reality in crisis is often very different. It hard to understand unless you lived it. Its even harder to report on years later.

The article is about two issues: race and government failure. The author deals with racial mistrust very well, perhaps he even feeds into it. However, what would you do if your city is underwater, you have no food, no power, no government protection and no information? Are there people in your neighborhood who would feel the need to protect it? Are there people in your neighborhood who believe it is their duty as neighbors? This is what happens when government fails to protect its citizens, it's not unique to my neighborhood. However, it may appear unique to non-New Orleanians because there is no other city in America that the United States turned it back on for seven days. Things happened, and we'll never know because government wasn't here.

Mike Miller

New Orleans, LA

The article is excellent, and my concerns are minor in comparison to the absence of justice that persists. Still, I feel compelled to point out that the author perhaps could have been more nuanced. While racism persists in New Orleans, as it does in many places nationwide, the black-white divide is not as simple as your article suggests. Your use of the phrase "ethnic cleansing, Louisiana-style" is inflammatory and hyperbolic and does little to get people in Louisiana to focus on the great injustice. Instead, many will latch on to your exaggeration and view that as the sole issue, a consequence that is certainly their responsibility but one that more precise writing might have mitigated.

To imply that a few dozen violent racists--a large number, but small in comparison to total population--represent the city is wrong. I contend that there is an underlying implication of such an argument throughout the article. Your inclusion of Janak's stupid comment of becoming a "true Southerner" is evidence of this. As a "Southerner" myself, I question why this nineteenth-century term persists in the twenty-first. As long as morons and colluding journalists give such a minority repeated opportunities to spout their nonsense, I guess many people worldwide will continue to view the South as a region pining for an antebellum resurrection.

Having grown up and lived in and around New Orleans for most of my three decades, I can say that there are very few people I have met, know and work with who consider themselves "Southerner" first and foremost. Each person identifies him or herself differently, and to use such an appellation these days is not accurate and taints what is otherwise a necessary, laudable article. Although I had to leave New Orleans for a month after Katrina, I can say that I never heard of these stories--and I had liberal white friends living in Algiers Point--until reading your article.

The current New Orleans City Council is composed of three blacks and four whites, five women and two men. The council is often united because of the obstructionist Nagin administration, which uses accusations of racism to mask their incompetence, when accusations of racism need to be reserved for actual manifestations of it, such as these murders. I fear we have stopped listening to the kid crying wolf.

Additionally, although most Southern states regrettably gave McCain their electoral votes, New Orleans was one of the few parishes to vote for Obama, and by a margin of nearly 80-20, a ratio that does not reflect the city's current racial breakdown.

This article describes an outrage, but the North-South dichotomy that some journalists use to frame stories such as this needs to stop.

Daniel Trosclair

New Orleans, LA

This article is hilarious!

Not only is it improbable that whites went looking for blacks to shoot, but it's more likely that blacks were invading a rich, less damaged neighborhood of NO to try stealing/looting.

No, maybe they didn't have the right to shoot them, but in a situation where the police are busy doing other things, sometimes the citizens have to defend themselves.

If I saw three unfamiliar black men wandering around in my recently storm-damaged neighborhood, I might be atp to shoot first and ask questions later.

And addressing the comment: "Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims"--Oh, that's so typical! Now you're saying these white storm survivors are expected to give what they have planned and saved for, including food rations for their family for the next few weeks, to the less fortunate? (a k a "the unprepared")

The blocking of streets and shooting of looters might have saved a few of those neighbors' lives.

Now you're gonna tell me that Donnell Herrington and his friends were there looking for victims to help... right? LMAO! Tell me another one!

So, are you saying that looters shouldn't be shot? Looting should be legal in storm conditions?

Clay Harley

New Bern, NC

In the months after the federal levee failure I spoke with a number of members of the New Orleans Fire Department. To a person, they all agreed that US military personnel and Blackwater contractors were present in New Orleans within a day of the flooding and were murdering black New Orleanians with impunity. Many of these reports included the observation of black men shot in the back by these people in the employ of the US government.

Please ask A.C. Thompson to interview members of the NOFD and expose George Bush and Dick Cheney's betrayal of the people of New Orleans.

James Carver

New Orleans, LA

I live in Algiers Point and was in and out of there nearly every day from the Wednesday after the storm. This article is 90 percent lies and half-truths. I am way too angered by the outright lies put forth in this article to comment any further at this time. Please, people, for the sake of peace and racial harmony, do not believe this article.

Kevin Griffin

Algiers Point, LA

I read this article with a mixture of sorrow and horror. As a frequent visitor to New Orleans with friends in the area I hve followed many stories about Katrina and the aftermath; there are many of them but this one is possibly the most sickening thing I have read or heard in the years since Katrina and Rita roared through the Gulf Coast

From the article: "My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all--white against black--that he could participate in," says the woman. "For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy."

Another e-mail letter referred to apologists, white guilt if you will--how on earth can one not feel guilt and sadness over the outrageous and sickening evidence of racism in just this one paragraph, let alone the rest of the article?

The worst thing of all is that the people killed and injured by these racists will never have anything close to justice served on those that thought it was fine and dandy to kill them some n*gg*rs. I hold the killed and injured and their families in my prayers.

Valerie Anderson

Lebanon, IN

To those who want to go back and forth about other incidents I think you miss the point. There were people killed ramdomly shot and also killed. There shooters who not only feel no remorse are bragging about it. These are lives lost, humans, some one loved one's who lives were stolen based on color, ignorance, hate and paranoia. There are clear victims here and what happened to rescue workers etc. has nothing to do with this article, crimes were commited and no one is looking into this. This was a great article, and I pray there is some justice found not just because the men were black, but because there were lives destroyed.

L. Hubbard

Chicago, IL

What a bunch of animals. These whites who have arrogantly bragged about their predatory behavior and collected "souvenirs" are of the same ilk who participated in lynchings during the twentieh century--bringing their children along (as if they were attending a Sunday picnic rather than the vicious murder of a human being), leering into the cameras, and pulling mementos from the victims' bodies. Apparently centuries of enlightenment and evolution have done many "people" no good.

Patricia Velaaquez

La Jolla, CA

Interesting article. I live in the Point and I don't recognize my neighborhood from the description in your article. I find it puzzling that you would try and pass Wayne Janak off as being the prototypical resident. I live on a street that is mixed race, and runs the gambit from 20-something renters to professionals to retirees, all living together quite peacefully, thank you.

I can’t speak for those days immediately after the storm, and I can’t argue that there are some real idiots living in the neighborhood, however, there isn’t a city in the US that doesn’t have some racist or regrettable people living in any given two-mile square.

I understand that you feel the need to stir the pot and get reaction but it’s completely irresponsible for you to misrepresent our neighborhood in an attempt to legitimize your article and whatever agenda you’re trying to push. Oh, and by the way, thanks for letting me know I’m supposed to have a "siege mentality," that one kind of slipped by me.

David Ray

New Orleans, LA

Great article, A.C.! You have broken the larger silence about truly vile racist crimes that took place in New Orleans during and after Katrina. I have been investigating this some myself on my own and know, without a doubt, that there has been a cover-up of these race murders. We just don't know how many murders. Malik Rahim, for instance, whom I have met, is on record during an international tribunal that was held in New Orleans in 2007 as stating that he estimated there were 200 white vigilante slayings, and, yes, he mentioned that the night hunts were being called "pheasant hunts" in Algiers.

Georgianne Nienaber, a well-known investigative reporter, also began investigating this and has been told there were scores of murders herself, although she has been detained through her work in the Congo and other commitments from ever following this up. Even so, she touched on this and pointed out the huge number of body bags that had been ordered, and then apparently reordered in her series of articles called "Baghdad on the Bayou." She is of the opinion that the official death count is ludicrously low.

In Norfolk, Virginia, the other day we held a Katrina Educational event that attracted some students who had been down in the Lower Ninth Ward and other locales. One who is a law student, I believe, recounted that she had interviewed families and individuals who had stories of their neighborhood being invaded by authorities or individuals who sought to hunt down and execute "bad criminals," perhaps in the manner this is done, say, in Brazil, death squad style, although I imagine these would have been ad-hoc death squads, moments of opportunity during chaos. This student said that, invariably, the wrong people were shot. I believe I still have her name, by the way.

Race murders may have been occurring in multiple neighborhoods.

Cynthia McKinney, you may not know, during a press conference late in her presidential campaign several months ago, made mention of a phone call she received while she was on an investigative committee in Congress taking complaints about abuses of authority, wherein a mother recounted the story of her son, a young man who claimed he was contracted to make database entries for what would have been DMort, the Military Mortuary Facilities in Louisiana, confessed to her that he in fact had had to make data entries for some 5,000 bodies, some 4,000 of which had suffered execution-style gunshot wounds. He had signed a confidentiality oath and could not discuss this himself, so his mother called Cynthia McKinney to expose this. This woman also recounted that the bodies had been buried, secretly, in a swamp or swamps. McKinney said she gained some corroboration from Red Cross officials speaking in anonymity that this had occurred.

By conicidence, and I find this very interesting, Kenyon International, a subsidiary of SCI, a ghoulish company successfully sued for abusing interred bodies, desecrating vaults and dumping bodies in the woods, was the one recommended to handle Katrina victims in Louisiana, while the chairman of SCI turns out to an old friend of the Bush family. Out of all the mortuary businesses in the South, why was this one picked, and does this have anything to do whatsoever with charges, not only from Cynthia McKinney, that there were extrajudicial slayings of Louisiana citizens going on during and right after Katrina? If anyone knew how to bury bodies secretly, it would be these guys I imagine.

A.C., you may have uncovered the tip of an iceberg. We not only had white vigilantes wandering around armed but we had mercenaries, police, sheriffs and deputies, immigration and border patrol cops, the National Guard and God knows who else doing God knows what during a complete breakdown of normal restraints. Contact me if you want to discuss this further, or want links to some of the articles or individuals I have mentioned above.

I see that John Conyers is already talking about investigating this. This is great news! It is time to open up full-barrel about this. Let the truth come out! People also need to be offered protection and perhaps even immunity to speak openly about what they saw or did. There is definitely a lot of fear out there. Good luck with following this up.

Mac McKinney

www.OpEdNews.com
Norfolk, VA

I'm puzzled by Chip Thornton's claims of "black residents actually firing on rescuers (many white) coming in in small boats." The only similar claims I've been able to find on the Internet were from extremist group such as The Jewish Task force, a group condemned by the Jewish Defense League as a right-wing, racist organization. Like Chip, they offer no supporting documentation.

There are some contemporaneous mentions of police exchanging gunfire with looters, but I could find no mention of rescuers being fired on by those they were attempting to rescue.

Perhaps Chip would like to provide some sort of evidence for this claim beyond that available from racist groups.

Sam Thornton

Burwell, NE

I was stunned at this article--and at the first response. The letter-writer should read the actual quotes, the very words spoken by the white vigilantes. The arrogance of the so-called "vigilantes" is appalling. These are not characterizations by a "liberal journalist," these are hateful, bigoted statements.

I personally have been the victim of violence based on the color of my skin--suffering a broken rib, black eye and multiple contusions after being attacked by a crowd of people I did not know. I was taken from the scene in an ambulance, along with a friend who was also attacked and injured (a mother of three). The police took pictures of our injuries and then disappeared. When I later requested a copy of my police report, I found there was no investigation--even though a witness had identified several of our attackers by name. The police report stated only "victim reports being slapped in the face by an unknown assailant." (One of the attackers was an amateur mixed martial arts fighter who is very popular in the area.)

The surprising fact here? I am white. I live in a rural part of Hawaii, where I am called "haole" (a centuries-old Hawaiian word for a white person which has come to hold a place somewhere between descriptive and derogatory, depending on the context.) I believe that no one should have to experience being attacked for their skin color, and it is inexcusable for any law enforcement agency to ignore the attack for any reason. The point of the article is not that we should sympathize with Herrington just because he is an "oppressed minority." If the police and DAs and even MEs have the power to ignore crimes as they see fit, can anyone in this country expect real justice--skin color notwithstanding? This shouldn't be acceptable in Hawaii, or New Orleans, or anywhere. We should care--and be outraged--about Mr. Herrington's case because it is a travesty of the law. People died without reason, and their deaths were not even investigated. That is not America, at least not the one I want to know.

I have struggled with my own anger, hurt, and fear since my attack. I have always considered myself to be open-minded, completely accepting of other races and ethnicities, committed to making racism a shameful chapter in America's past. These things are much harder to do when you have been the victim of racially motivated violence. The ugly thoughts that entered my head for months after the attack left me wondering if all that enlightenment came with ease because I had lived in an East Coast city for so many years. I went to school, worked with, and (sometimes) socialized with "people of color." But the truth is, as a white person living in a white man's land, under it all I still had an advantage. I could "choose" not to be racist, and congratulate myself for it. But here, I am a minority. White settlers devestated Hawaii and illegally took control of the Kingdom, ruling with impunity, and the impression this arrogance left has handed down a legacy of anger and resentment that results in cases like mine. This is the same type of arrogance repeated by those vigilantes in New Orleans.

The question I need answered is, how do we ask for justice for those New Orleans citizens? I ask that question for myself, my daughter, Mr. Herrington, and everyone who shares this country (and beyond). Because what happens to one of us will affect us all, skin color notwithstanding. And if justice is not served equally, we cannot expect it to serve us when we need it. And that is a scary thought.

Franny Kinslow

Mountain View, HI

A couple observations if I may.

Do the incidents of black residents actually firing on rescuers (many white) coming in in small boats also constitute part of A.C. Thompson's alledged secret war?

Why is it that blacks can really be an oppressed minority, while whites in the same position from a demographics standpoint are considered paronoid "siege mentalists"?

Seeing more of the same throughout the article, I can only conclude that it and the authors purpose is to spew yet more guilt-laden, typical "wedge-driving" nonsense designed to keep the races at each others throats.

I thought with the election of Obama this kind of stuff would be relegated to the journalistic ash heap of history where it belongs. Apparently we are not there yet.

CHIP THORNTON

Reisterstown, MD