Katrina Victims Testify on Racism's Role

[deminks]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051206/ap_on_go_co/katrina_congress

WASHINGTON - 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 (news, bio, voting record), R-Fla.

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

"I don't want to be offensive when you've gone though such incredible challenges," said Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), 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."


So Katrina victims go to Washington to testify, only to be told by Republican Congressmen that they don't believe them. WTF?

[Miss Chybil]

1. Next we'll be told Katrina never happened.

Sure, it's not really like the Holocaust - nothing is - but, that doesn't keep people from feeling abandoned like garbage.

[EFerrari]

7. Exactly. Did you nominate?

We're dealing with some major manipulation here. And, we don't let them get away with it. :)

[Anita Garcia]

16. But Katrina and Rita did happen...

We are being ignored.
But we are speaking out.
We can not vote.
But we are organizing.
We are in pain.
But we are recovering.
We shall overcome.

[PDittie]

22. Welcome to DU, Anita

:wave:

[NanceGreggs]

2. I wrote this article ...

... during the Katrina aftermath. It is, therefore, now in the past tense -- but I think it appropriate to post it here.

Arbeit Macht Frei, Y’all

By Nancy Greggs


In the past week, along with millions of Americans, I have been watching the most horrific of situations unfolding in my own country. I have watched as men, women and children were locked into the SuperDome and the Convention Centre, surrounded by armed soldiers; American citizens pleading for food and water, for some respite from the horrific conditions they were being forced to live under.

I have seen people being forced from their homes, people sent to strange cities without being told of their destination. I have seen people put on planes and buses, to be relocated without regard to separation of families, separation of parents from children, husbands from wives.

As I watched, I kept thinking of other pictures, scratchy old black-and-white films of Jews being herded into cattle cars, surrounded by armed soldiers. But this past week’s video wasn’t archaic footage from a bygone era; it was happening now, in my own country. And even to this minute, those horrors are still happening.

I realize how easy it is to let yourself slip into an easy denial, to tell yourself that maybe the prisoners who are being tortured on a daily basis at Guantanimo Bay really are terrorists, and deserve what they’re getting; that maybe those guards at Abu Ghraib really were just a handful of bad apples, not at all representative of our government’s policies. Yes, it’s easy to let your government – not to mention your conscience – off the hook with a dismissive air, isn’t it?

But how do you deny what you are seeing, on a minute-by-minute basis, on your own TV screen, in your own newspapers, your own internet feeds? How can you let yourself slip into denial mode when these are your fellow citizens, your American brothers and sisters?

We have seen armed soldiers, guns at the ready aimed at poor people who have already gone through hell. We have heard them say, “You must leave your homes. Bring only one suitcase. Don’t worry about your pets; they will be taken care of. Don’t worry about your homes; they will be secured.” Sounds a little too familiar, doesn’t it?

We have seen people who have lost everything – and, in some cases, everyone – being told to line up for food stamps, for debit cards, for assistance, only to be handed a piece of paper that sends them to the back of yet another long line. Again, the comparison cannot be missed.

And now yet another all-too-recognizable assault on a people that have already been beaten down: the waiver of minimum wage laws. Forced labour? To some, it may seem too harsh a phrase. But when you’ve lost everything you’ve ever had, and your prospects for employment lie somewhere between slim and none, isn’t taking a less-than-living-wage job a form of forced labour? Does the name I.G. Farben come to mind?

It is too easy to say, well, this is America, and this can never happen here. Americans are well-educated, cultured people, who love the arts, and fine music, and philosophy and – right, heard that one before, too, haven’t we? By the time ordinary German citizens stopped chanting this self-delusional mantra, over six million people were dead.

In troubled times, so many turn to religion for solace; they look to their religious leaders as the voice of reason in a world gone insane. But again, in the past week, we have heard too many so-called Christian leaders echoing sentiments that we’ve heard before: These people brought it upon themselves, with their homosexuality, their attitude towards abortion. In Nazi Germany, these same types of platitudes were often shouted from pulpits in Berlin and Frankfurt: “By denying to accept Jesus Christ, by their greed and their anti-social ways, these Jews have brought this disaster upon themselves.”

Listen to those sound-bytes by Barbara Bush; translated into another language, you’d swear you were listening to Frau Goebbles. Listen to Laura Bush talking about ‘Hurricane Corrinna’; well, Eva Braun could never differentiate between Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Maybe it just goes with the territory of women who look down their noses at the downtrodden, on the basis that they were smart enough to snag themselves a man with money and power.

Many of you will think I am over-stating the case; I don’t think I am stating the case strongly enough. You see, when I watch my fellow Americans being treated like less-than-human cattle, I find myself at a loss for words. I doubt there even exists in the English language a word that can convey my utter disgust.

For the past ten days, I have been mentally revisiting a haunting scene from “Judgment at Nuremberg”. Burt Lancaster, as a man accused of war crimes, sits in the prisoner’s stock and tearfully explains to a judge (Spencer Tracy) how it all started with just a few Jews being pushed around, just a few Jews being denied their rights. He tells about how things escalated from there, “But, Your Honour,” he says, waving his hand at the photographic evidence of the Holocaust spread throughout the courtroom, “We never, ever believed that it would come to this.”

Spencer Tracy looks down on him and says, “Sir, it came to this the first time you saw a fellow citizen treated unjustly, and chose not to speak out against it.”

It is time to speak out against what is happening, my fellow citizens. It is time to let all elected officials, at all levels of our government, know that we will NOT allow this to continue, that we will not allow history to be repeated in a country that once sacrificed its best and brightest young men and women in a war that was waged to end just such oppression.

Remember that it came to this the first time a poor, black American citizen in Louisiana or Mississippi looked into the muzzle of a rifle carried by an American soldier. It came to this the first time an American citizen was locked into a hell-hole and left without the basic necessities to sustain life. It came to this in a million subtle ways, even before the events of last week. What we are seeing is simply the manifestation of what our government has become, thanks to our own apathy, our own mantra-chanting about how this could never happen here.

In the aftermath of World War II, when the full horror of the Holocaust was laid bare, the good citizens of this world made a commitment: Never again.

It is time to live up to those words.

[deminks]

3. Thank you.

I think many of us were reminded of those old films of WWII.

Let us also not forget that we had concentrations camps here for the Japanese Americans. Gas chambers do not always make it a concentration camp.

[Helga Scow Stern]

4. Thank you. I wish I could have seen all the testimonies today.

It shocked me how empty the seats of those who were supposed to be listening were most of the time I was tuned in.

I turned both the TV and my computer up loud even when I couldn't be there just so it was being heard by something.

Your article is another testimony. It needs to be heard and seen.

[EFerrari]

6. Thank you, Nancy, from the bottom.

Now, please let's rate this up and keep it kicked.

Effen BushCo has systematically traumatized us. We need to stay on this despite that. And we can.

We can do it. Come on DU, kick this thread.

:kick:

[LeahD]

20. This definitely deserves a kick.

[Hekate]

24. So well said; thank you for putting the horror into words

I hope this actually saw print -- it deserves to be widely read, and is as current as it was on the day you wrote it.

Please, if you have not done so already, send it to those arrogant blind clueless congressmen. I saw part of the hearing -- the testimony of the survivors was powerful and raw, and Shays and the rest were just in complete denial.

Edited to add:
Another way in which the Drowning of New Orleans fits your Germany-on-the-eve-of model is the way in which the victims Did As They Were Told. They were told to go to those arenas -- and they did. Just another piece of the horror.

Hekate

[BJW]

35. they were "guilty" of being in shock, traumatized and trusting--eom

[kimchi]

42. Thank you.

Your words are true, and need to be heard.

[AuntiBush]

48. Katrina...

... still speechless over the total lack of regard, and blatant way our own citizens were treated right here on our own soil!

They should be very ashamed, but it was all about * protecting Brownie & his cronies, his party, FEMA, and all the rest - not the American people who suffered & are still suffering.

I think Katrina was the final straw for many Americans. Thanks for not letting this go away.
Excellent article, too!

[goclark]

53. Kick and nominated ~ Bush White Wash = Katrina nt

[nicknameless]

55. What a tremendously powerful article!

Thank you for writing it and for posting it here.
I surely hope that it *was* published for more to read.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

58. Excellent work! Thank you!

[Helga Scow Stern]

5. Recommended. I wish people would post more about the hearings.

[cantstandbush]

15. This is what is hurtful. Fellow DUers, we should all be outraged.

If you haven't seen or listened to these hearings you should. Listen carefully to what the person Mohammed had to say about the levees and what the divers said they saw. Listen to what how the women described being cursed by National Guardsmen and other military and police and how rifels were held at the heads of 5 year olds. Listen how when a mother sent her son out to find out about shelter and food how he was automatically considered to be a looter. Listen how the people explained that most of the real looting took place by NO police and that other looters were actually taking food to feed the victims, the elderly and the sick because no help from FEMA or Red Cross was coming to them. I can't go on. Just listen. I really fear for my country.

[BJW]

37. *Co & M$M have effectively changed the subject

and we should change it BACK!!!!! I'm kicking and recc'd every post on Katrina & aftermath here at DU to keep it up top.

[EFerrari]

8. Please rate the thread up so DUers can read! n/t

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. By dragging his feet, by ignoring the pleas, by being

characteristically irresponsible.... he allowed his own people to be killed. I suppose that's different, but somehow it sounds the same.

[BJW]

38. Done--I am personally kicking and recc'd every Katrina

thread posted at DU and hope you'll do the same. Some have gotten buried by war on war on Xmas crap, which I strongly suspect is playing into *co's "let's change the subject" strategy.

[ismnotwasm]

9. So lets see.

Find a working class white neighborhood--hit it with a disaster, say a severe earthquake (not wishing anything on ANYBODY we've seen enough horror)But a disaster that brings out panic and hysteria, the best and worst out of humanity-- Resourses difficult to find-- People stranded, not knowing where their loved ones are. And the powers that be are saying the response would be EXACTLY the same? Sorry. Don't buy it, don't buy it a bit.

They let New Orleans drown. I will never, ever forgive them for that alone. And Racism played a part in it. It played out on national TV for all with eyes to see.

Edit: A little late, I'm number 6 I believe, but nominated!

[EFerrari]

10. We ALL saw it. We all did.

And, there's still the whole REST of the Gulf Coast that is being treated the same old way the Black community has always had to fight.

Don't misunderstand me. This happened on election day 2004, too. The Thuggery treated the student voters with the same dirty tricks the Black community has been fighting for years.

Don't let them get away with it. We have a choice, right here right now. We stand with the Gulf Coast or we don't. We stand with the Black community or we don't.

I've made my decision.

:kick:

[EFerrari]

11. We need one more vote here.

:hi:

[Pirate Smile]

12. This is the "front page" on the MSNBC website.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

[EFerrari]

14. Isn't that grand?

:rofl:

[nicknameless]

17. Locked up without food, water or medicine for days, left to die = genocide

Murderous thugs.

K&R

[BJW]

39. have you been following what happened to the prisoners?

ugly, inhumane, godawful...

[nicknameless]

50. I think I only read one or two articles about it. The treatment of just

about everyone there was astonishingly sadistic. It was as though the "authorities" were at war with the residents.
Those who sought assistance were threatened, abused, locked up, and in some cases, tortured. Rescue and relief efforts were actively prevented. ... etc. ad nauseam. ... Absolutely unbelievable.

[BJW]

60. you hit it-- "at war with the residents"--eom

[EFerrari]

18. kick and read please

:kick:

[applegrove]

19. All they cared about was the corporations. And how they would

look good if another neocon "experiment" were allowed to happen. That and the stock market.

[stickdog]

21. KIck

[NoGOP]

23. Just outrageous

that these victims had to suffer through what they did. Then have Miller & Shays brand them liars because what they said wasn't what they wanted to hear.

[Hekate]

25. Message from my government: You are on your own after the big earthquake

I was reeling in shock at what we saw on CNN, MSNBC, and every other place with a camera.

Damn tootin' there was a strong racial component to the abandonment of our fellow citizens, but there was an equally strong class-based component. "Class" as in: there's the friends and family of the Bushes, and there's everybody else. The Gulf Coast isn't all black, and it's mostly been abandoned anyway. Streets are still filled with debris, essential services are still wrecked.

It was and is like seeing something in a Third World Nation, except the United States didn't send the military to do airdrops of food and water. Did they?

In a five-year Bush reign of tragedy, malfeasance, and sheer disgust, this was another gem to add to the Boy Emperor's crown: the Drowning of New Orleans.

The personal message I got from it is: You are on your own. FEMA has been destroyed, and you are on your own.

I could imagine earthquake survivors in my area -- which will definitely be cut off from the outside in a major quake -- wandering around in the rubble digging for life's necessities. (Unlike hurricanes, quakes give no warning.) Sure I have an earthquake kit -- somewhere -- doesn't everyone? But I always thought my government would send in the cavalry, too. It's what we do in this country -- rescue people.

I thought we did, until the week I saw us become a Third World Nation. There were the fortunate ones who got out in time because they had transportation, and there were the even more fortunate ones who were personal friends of the Bushes (like Hayley Barbour, on whose rebuilt porch Bush will rest) -- and then there were the poor, who were abandoned to their fate.

If I had been a congressman confronted by those angry black Louisianians today, I would not have the gall to deny their perceptions of racism, because under the circumstances "classism" is a nuance that they didn't need to address today. But the congressmen were busy denying both the eyewitness accounts and the perceptions of these survivors...

I won't forget. I can't forget.

Hekate

[ninkasi]

26. For anyone who tries to claim that race wasn't an issue...

I beg to differ. I was born 62 years ago in Houston, Tx. That was before integration, when there were separate restrooms, when blacks had to sit on the back of the bus, when people used the "n" word freely. I am white, and therefore have been invisible while people spewed racist venom, because I am female, and therefore, back when this was happening, considered part of the scenery.

I KNOW what some people were saying while Katrina was killing our brothers and sisters, and while a nation watched in horror as a beautiful, magic city died. I know that some watched and looked for any evidence of misbehavior...easier, then to blame the victims. "Oh, look...LOOTING...well, that's all SOME people do, they steal, you know, so now, they have an excuse..."

I got the hateful e-mails that make the rounds, people trying to justify a nation's abandoning a city because the residents were somehow, in some way, to blame. Trying to fix the blame became an exercise in the absurd. It didn't stop them. I have cut off friendships of over 30 years because of the blatant racism displayed in the aftermath of Katrina, and the justification of some, who try to assuage their guilt by blaming the victims.

I am sick of living in a divided country. I am sick of the code words, the sly looks, the whispers, the lies. I LL guarantee you that if Tom DeLay's congressional district of Sugarland had been abandoned like New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast, there would be heads rolling right now. There would have been laws passed, money distributed, aid offered, no stone unturned, to put the situation right.

If my country can't take care of all of us, it is a country I am ashamed of. If being poor, and being black, means being abandoned, then I would rather go into exile with my brothers and sisters than stay in a white, upper class world of hypocrisy. I apologize for rambling. I have not slept. I have a condition which causes chronic pain, and the pain is bad tonight.

I feel my pain, and wonder...how many victims of Katrina had health problems, and suffered in the suffocating heat, without food, or water, or hope, for help that never came? I can go to bed soon, a nice bed, with a nice, warm electric blanket. Before I go to bed, I can take another dose of pain meds. To have been in New Orleans, during and after Katrina, would have been agony for me.

It was agony for many of them, too. Some lived, and some died. All of the survivors are carrying an immense load of pain, and suffering. America, do you hear them? Do you hear our brothers and sisters? Let us answer them NOW. Let us help them NOW.

[BronxBoy]

49. Amen Ninkasi......

I'm sick of people trying to explain away the race issue. I really believe that people don't understand the depths of the anger that we felt as Katrina unfolded. A lot of what happened in the aftermath of Katrina was racially based, no ifs, ands or buts. And trying to make this solely a class issue is utter bullshit.

I read this thread at lunchtime and I was absolutely disgusted. It seems like victims of one of the worst storms that has occurred in this country in quite some time were treated with nothing but contempt by "our" government. Now I didn't see any of the hearings and I am reacting based upon what I have seen here and what I heard on some local Black radio shows this morning. But for me that's enough.

And where is the Democratic party that we have supported more than any other single racial group: Talking about fucking video games. Where's the outrage? The standard racial stereotypes are being trotted out about how the victims are looking for "handouts" and that they need to be "self-reliant". All of this while our government seems more preoccupied with the well being of people in Iraq than here.

And what really kills me is that at around the time of the Million More March, there were all of these threads talking about Farrakhan this and Farrakhan that. And I tried to tell them that the Democrats were creating a vacuum that was giving him access to ears he might not otherwise have and that the Dems needed to step up. So here we are today, Black Katrina survivors go to congress and are basically lectured to and told they are liars. WHERE THE FUCK IS THE PARTY WE HAVE SO FAITHFULLY SUPPORTED?

Talking about fucking video games!

You don't think Farrakhan is crafting his next speech and saying "This sister lived through the horrors of Katrina and was invited to share her experience in the most hallowed halls of our government. And you know what happened Brothers and Sisters? She was called a liar. She was told that what she had seen could not have possibly happened. That her sufferings were as significant to these men of power as a flea is to an elephants' behind."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: One of the things the Democrats should be afraid of is that we sit on our collective asses in 2006. I will never, ever vote for a republican. But if the Dems don't step up and act like the respect us as a people then I won't vote. Fuck em. And before anyone posits the theory that doing so will hasten our demise, I have this to say:

We just watched thousands of Black people left to die. And now we have he honor of witnesses to this being told they are liars on the floor of the US government. SO it's just a matter of whether we are on the local train or the express. If I'm going to get fucked, let's get it over with.

If the Dems can't support us now and blast these mofos, then fuck em. A lot of people here get all giddy about the Christian right staying home because they don't like Bush's policies. Well imagine if we did the same damn thing!



edited for spelling

edited again because there were still pissed off errors

[ninkasi]

54. Unless we Dems step up to the plate

and stand united with our brothers and sisters, it will happen. We need to get help for the citizens of the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans, NOW. I'm afraid it's already too late for many, but the need is immediate, and we have to honor our commitments. These are our brothers and sisters suffering, and we have to unite, without stopping, to pressure all of the politicians to do what the government should do, which is to step in when the need is so great that it can't be fulfilled by local government.

As I said, I have dissolved a friendship of many, many years, because I could not stand to think that someone I called a friend could be so bigoted and petty. I know what some have said, I've heard them, and as far as I'm concerned, they were just excusing their lack of concern with code words, and I won't have my intelligence insulted by them trying to claim their spite isn't racially motivated. And this country has the NERVE to preach morals to the rest of the world. Shameful.

[SKKY]

27. I don't know if racism played a role, I would doubt it actually...

...but I do know that news coverage, especially Fox's news coverage, was so slanted and tilted it was as though I was watching the WKKK evening news.

[EFerrari]

31. Racism was in play from beginning to now. I can't say "end"

because it hasn't ended for thousands of people yet.

And as you point out, it was unselfconsciously disseminated by the media.

[SKKY]

56. Oh, I doubt that very much...

...I'm quite sure that, the network that parades Mark Fuhrman around as a "law enforcement expert guest", did it very
consciously and was fully aware.

[EFerrari]

57. If that's right, we're in bigger trouble than even I thought.

:(

[Lochloosa]

28. Kick......

[Triana]

29. "not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed"

Nope.

THOUSANDS were marched into the Superdome and KEPT THERE FOR A WEEK to starve, dehydrate, live in filth, and DIE in the August heat.

I fail to see much difference.

[BJW]

36. and to the overpasses--held at gunpoint--no shade, no water, no food

[EFerrari]

30. kick

[MsLeopard]

32. K&R nt

[Sabriel]

33. So, as long as it wasn't EXACTLY like the Holocaust, it's fine?

That comment from Miller is one of the dumbest I've seen for quite some time...and that's saying a lot with this administration.

"We didn't use mustard gas against anyone, either. So there!"

[EFerrari]

34. It's quite frightening. n/t

[DFWdem]

40. If racism was the issue...

Then how to explain the slow response on the Mississippi Gulf Coast? Lots of white people there. I think the dismal response was more a result of government ineptitude.

[Megahurtz]

43. Poor People in general.

They hate poor people. They would rather see them die!

[NanceGreggs]

44. It's not that ineptitude wasn't a factor here ...

... but somehow I can't imagine that if Katrina had hit, let's say, Martha's Vineyard, we would have watched a week of TV footage of Auchinclosses and Winthrops standing on their roofs, waving their jewels around in the air to attract some help.

The biggest mistake these idiots made was their obvious assumption that if the victims were poor and/or black, the rest of the country wouldn't be all that interested in what happened to them.

Again, BU$HCO jumps to the WRONG conclusion ...

[lebkuchen]

41. What campaign coffer can I contribute to, to get rid of Miller?

What a horse's ass.

[wildeyed]

45. I cannot believe that Rep. Shays called the survivor a liar.

To her face :wow: What an ass.

She had to live through hell and then get that level of disrespect from an elected official in public. It boggles the mind.

After Katrina, I had some hope that the disaster would have some positive consequences as well. That it would force people to talk about race and poverty in this country in a more substantive manner. Guess not.

[cantstandbush]

62. He should be made to pay for this at the polls. The SOB. n/t

[Karenina]

63. Mama D is just being

"too sensitive." And Shays is just assuming his white privilege in defining the terms. It certainly doesn't boggle my mind as it's been SOP for generations. Step one: DENY. Step two: ACCUSE. Step three: "Well who are people going to believe, me (powerful, rich white man) or YOU (obviously a welfare queen whose children are all looters)?"

[wildeyed]

64. Well I believe her.

A. She was there, she should know.

B. He has no basis for calling her a liar. You shouldn't accuse people of lying unless you can prove it. That is a serious allegation.

But you are right, I shouldn't be so surprised. I keep thinking somehow we should be moving past this kind of blatant racism, even with the ample evidence that we are sliding backward.


And Shays prefaces his nasty remark with "I don't want to be offensive"...... but now I am going to call you a liar. And why would she make something like that up? Especially with all the horrors we know occurred. I don't think that anyone needs to MAKE UP horror stories about what happened in LA and MS after Katrina. Seems like there an almost endless number, documented, to choose from.

[Karenina]

65. Indeed, there are.

NO ONE will call him out on being obnoxious and offensive to the entire community, Black, White, Cajun, Creole, Islenos, Asian or any combination or permutation thereof. RICH WHITE MALE SAYS...

[MellowOne]

46. kick and nominated n/t

[AuntiBush]

47. Guess that Elderly Gentleman Getting the Crap Beat Out Of Him

Televised all over the tube was *franky* something Repub Shays wouldn't believe either, huh!?!

And, "Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed," Miller told the survivors. - There you have it. The Repuk Party of the Religious Right?!? No, their seriously wrong!

[BronxBoy]

51. Probably not.......

And to all the people who bash the South........

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH CONNETICUTT???


Lieberman and Shays......

This is your idea of good liberal representation?????

[BronxBoy]

52. Delete

Dup

[Trillo]

59. Regular folks are told this all the time, from a variety of sources.

There is no, "innocent until proven guilty", except for the well lawyered and some lucky others.

Recently, look at Mr. Pitts, of Wal-Mart infamy, who simply wanted to buy some gift cards, and was treated like a felon. He was NOT assumed INNOCENT.

When someone goes to buy anything, and they're asked for ID because they want to write a check, that's a presumption that they're not who they say they are until they FIRST PROVE otherwise (guilty until proof offered). If they bring too much cash into the bank for deposit, there's a sign there that tells them by law that "private banking" transaction isn't private, it must be reported to the government.

Every time we turn around, someone is calling us, American citizens, liars, cheats, druggies, and/or thieves. It's just life as it is for 'regular folks.' Isn't life this way for all citizens, everywhere in the world except for the lucky few?

One day, one dies, and is released from the tyranny. Rest, at last!

[faithnotgreed]

61. KICK