A Response To "Looters"

Last Wednesday I wrote, what was at the time, a column that expressed my sheer disgust at people who were taking advantage of what is turning out to be the greatest humanitarian crisis our nation has ever faced. The response to that column has been overwhelming.

“Racist fucker”

Most of the hundreds of emailed comments were not as direct.

“Bob, I think you're wrong to call black folks to discipline: To me, there's only one crime that the public should focus on: It is this racist president who allows this to happen. He is waiting way too long to send troops, he is turning down international help - do you think he would have acted this way if a white town had been affected? I just wish Jesse Jackson steps up to the plate to tell black folks in this country who they are governed by. And I wish: Not a single black vote for a Bush family member ever again!”

For starters, not once in the column “Looters: Black Day In New Orleans” did I ever use the word “all.” I was referring to the people robbing, burning, and raping, while thousands of people endure the nightmarish conditions in the Superdome and surrounding areas. I was commenting about the almost constant video showing black people stealing televisions and breaking into jewelry stores.

“Dude I don't know you, but you are a dangerous man and an idiot! When the Klan is calling us animals that includes you to. Enuff said!”

But if we are to issue blame, then let’s get into it and I’ll speak from experience. I lived in Los Angeles during the Rodney King Riot and the Northridge Quake. Those two disasters (one natural and one manmade) occurred with little or no advance notice, unlike the days of warning given before the arrival of Hurricane Katrina.

"Today, as the President comes to Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi for his ceremonial trip to look at the victims of the devastation, he would do well to have a plan more significant than a ceremonial tour. His whole response is unacceptable. How can blacks be locked out of the leadership, and trapped in the suffering?"

• Jesse Jackson in Baton Rouge

Far be it from me to attempt to correct a “black leader”, but there’s something wrong with Jackson’s declaration that only blacks can rescue blacks. If only blacks were rescuing blacks, he’d be bitching about that.

By the way, according to the AP, “United States Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore is the head of the military task force overseeing operations in the three state region. He is black. His task force is providing search and rescue, medical help and sending supplies in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

It’s my understanding that states have their own chain of command and a fair amount to sovereignty from the federal government. I’m sure a majority of Americans would have problems with the federal government just coming in and doing whatever they felt necessary, while circumventing the authority of the state officials. States are supposed to take care of their business and should they require assistance, they then call on the federal government.

It’s been said numerous times by news reporters and political pundits that the Bush Administration should have helped the people in New Orleans who could not get out despite the warnings issued days before Katrina hit. I contend it wasn’t Bush’s responsibility to circumvent the authority of the city’s mayor. Rules were already in place….

“Louisiana disaster plan, pg 13, para 5 , dated 01/00

The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.”

That clearly shows that the responsibility of evacuating the citizens of New Orleans was the onus of Mayor Ray Nagin. Now I know it’s a sensitive time to be throwing blame around unless you’re Sidney Blumenthal, a Sunday morning talk show host, or a rapper, but if school and municipal buses are supposed to be used to evacuate the city's most helpless citizens, then why are buses submerged in a New Orleans parking lot?

“Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

“Also, any idea where all our National Guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?”

• Michael Moore

Experts like Moore have added to the significant criticism of the Bush Administration for not bringing in the National Guard earlier. Anyone with any kind of brain knows that it’s the governor who has immediate command of his or her state’s National Guard. Maybe someone should ask Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco why she didn’t call them in for security sooner?

“They're giving the Army permission to go down and shoot us. George Bush doesn't care about black people.”

• Rapper Kayne West

Governor Blanco gave the order for National Guard to use force to quell violence. Not Bush.

I’m also fascinated by those who say Bush should have foreseen the catastrophe and should have had the National Guard in place to provide security. If President Bush had the National Guard in place minutes after the storm had left to protect against looting, those very critics would say he was being racist assuming those black people would resort to such despicable behavior.

“Thursday, Sept. 1:

1. Looting, carjacking and other violence spreads, and the military decides to increase National Guard deployment to 30,000.

2. Outside the New Orleans Convention Center, the sidewalks are packed with people without food, water or medical care, waiting for buses that do not come. Tempers flare.

3. Nagin, the New Orleans mayor, calls the situation critical and issues ``a desperate SOS'' for more buses.

4. Crowds at the Superdome swell to 30,000 with another 25,000 at the convention center. The first refugee buses arrive at the Houston Astrodome. Elsewhere, 76,000 people are Red Cross shelters.

5. Violence escalates. Rescue boats are stolen by marauders, shots are fired at helicopters evacuating hospital patients.

6. Doctors at two New Orleans hospitals plead for help, saying food, water and power are almost gone. Helicopters evacuate up to 600 patients but an estimated 1,500 others remain stranded.”

• Associated Press

Those who “did” foresee the human tragedy before it happened must be the richest people on the planet. With such accurate foresight, they should have been able to predict the Red Sox ending the 86-year curse to win the World Series, the Patriots winning a back-to-back Superbowl by three points, and surely must have bet accordingly. It must be nice to know everything… including the future.

“And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!”

• Michael Moore

“How is the invasion of Iraq going to help the poor blacks in America? Here in Canada, they report the facts with no bias.”

• A Canadian

From what I’ve been reading lately, New Orleans is a city that also has a long-standing tradition with corruption. As a resident of the state of Massachusetts, I’ve seen what happens when the state asked for five billion dollars to construct a measly two miles worth of tunnels under the Boston Harbor. That five billion is now over fifteen billion and the damn tunnels leak.

We’re now to believe that if the money was allocated to fix the levees as suggested, they would have been in a timely and efficient manner. Also, congressmen and senators appropriate pork all day long for their districts. Any clue on why such wasn’t done for New Orleans? There are enough concerned Democrats in the Louisiana delegation. Is there some reason why Bush should have paid more? Isn’t funding budgets the responsibility of the Congress and Senate? Is there a reason Bill Clinton and previous Democrat-controlled congresses didn’t?

“Dear Bob,

It is shameful that anyone would steal diapers, ramen noodles, ice and soda from a store that is abandoned indefinitely. It's far better that the Wal-Mart and Rite-Aid stay fully stocked before being completely deserted. Their stock must rot underwater rather than be eaten and used by displaced, desperate people. Laws are more important than any life.”

I readily admit that were I in that same situation, I may resort to stealing food to feed my family. However, with no electricity, stealing a plasma television would clearly be a criminal act and if caught, I would expect to be arrested or worse.

So for all of you who consider me a holier-than-thou type, let me offer this: from now on in a disaster situation, if you are poor, you should be allowed to steal and that should be official public policy. The slippery slope of that scenario is that liberals would eventually expand the definition of “disaster” to include personal interpretations. Anyone who had to make a utility bill payment and might be a little light that week could go steal food. So go on, if you have no money but need to feed your family, go steal whatever you want.

I’d like to see how some of you who think looting-as-necessity should be condoned, would react if someone broke into your home as stole your stuff. Looting didn’t just occur in stores. People, black people, had armed thugs bash into their homes and take their personal belongings. What damage wasn’t done by Katrina was completed by people. But I’m the bad guy for pointing that out….

“I am a PhD, physics candidate and i go to school with two black kids like you who will turn out to be clarence thomases of the future, intelligent and ignorant like a bag of salt. Probably got picked on all your life by other black kids for been wiered (rightfully they were) and now it's your turn to runt and brag with you jaguar and show off to the same people how being white and a conservative can payoff. Well bro, you guyz can all go to hell, we liberals will have fun on our way meeting you there. You problably could't get laid by your looks, and most black conservatives have the same look, manner of speech as their white counter parts, boaring and tight ass nose bleeding talk. You are really sorry, and I hope you get gay kids just the best poetic justice your kind deserves: ask dick cheney how it feels to be a biggot and the other black idiot from the south whose daughter came out and he denounced her in public, he is not paying for her tuiton, ha! like she couldn't get a scholarship. SAD SAD PEOPLE! Death really was made for purpose, put your types out of their mysery. No malice intended, just my way of giving you the middle finger salute. here enjoy your president and some reall democratic :FUCK YOU ALL CONSERVATIVE, WE LIBERALS HAVE HAD IT!”

We black conservatives all look and sound alike as well...?

So the next time you hear a black athlete who got a college degree who speaks proper English, we should all assume he’s a sell-out conservative. The next time we hear a black businessman speak, we should all assume he’s a sell-out conservative. The next time we hear Kofi Annan, James Earl Jones, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Morgan Freeman, Warren Moon, Verdine White, Bernard Shaw, James Brown (Fox Sports), Bill Russell and numerous others speak, we should all assume they’re all sell-out conservatives.

And as far as our “look”, these are the same people that said (just a couple short decades ago), if you straightened your hair you were trying to look white. Who’s confused? Who are the real racists here?

Again, back to the subject at hand….

Necessity is one thing, but to openly condone and excuse the act of "undocumented consuming" (especially when blacks are shown 24/7 committing it) is irresponsible and bad precedent.

“Perhaps you are unaware that New Orleans, a city I dearly love, is (like my beloved Atlanta) seventy percent Afro-American. Is it possible that you are having the same knee-jerk reaction that someone from another country (with no blacks) would have, upon seeing looters in the NO aftermath? Are you making assumptions or are you reaching, just a bit, to justify your "dirty laundry?" What about the white looters? Oh, that's right, they're just "finding what they need to get by."

I am not in control of the media, and if there were white looters and that information was deliberately concealed, someone will speak out soon enough and the networks will have to “explain” that. But again there is a difference between someone stealing (finding) what they need to survive, and stealing video equipment as a kind of payback for years of oppression.

“The racism we should be addressing is in the handling of the relief efforts and ask ourselves this question: What would the response have been if the victims were predominately white?”

I’ve personally had to deal with Federal Emergency Management Agency as a result of damage done to my home after the Northridge Quake. Thus my understanding that they are a reactionary agency. If anyone expects them to have people in place prior to any emergency in any state at any time, then we should be ready to have an army of pencil pushers sitting around collecting paychecks in fifty states waiting for “something” to happen.

Even so, there would be no guarantee they’d get it right.

There was fumbling going on with the agency’s initial response in New Orleans, but most of us have grown accustomed to government screw-ups. However, in this case, I’m guessing that the same people who threw around forged documents last fall, are using this tragedy to bleed the Bush Administration.

The FEMA response was slow to develop after the Northridge Quake. CNN parked a truck half a block behind my house in Lanark Park where hundreds of people lived for days in fear of returning to their homes. There was no bashing of Bill Clinton then. He didn’t fly over Canoga Park and no one expected him to. Jesse Jackson had nothing to gain from a visit to The Valley.

The present criticism of President Bush is transparent, political, and expected from a mainstream media that’s losing viewership by the day.

"I hate the way they treat us in the media, when you see a black family it says they're looting when you see a white family it says they're looking for food and it's been five days because the people are black”

• Rapper Kayne West

I hope Mr. West remembers his perception of blacks in the news media when he and his peers produce music videos that glamorize black males as potentially violent goons and black women as sluts. I wonder who was of greater influence to those who were raping women in the Superdome: George Bush or Kayne West?

This response has gone way long, yet it seems to be only the beginning….

NOTE: Bob Parks will be a guest on CNN Daybreak between 6:40 and 6:50am EST Tuesday September 6 to address the columns on "New Orleans looting", and if media coverage has been racist.

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