"Looting" vs. "Finding"
I've been wanting to write a nice long post about what is going on in New Orleans...it's of particular interest to me since my dad grew up there and my grandma still lives there. When I talked to my dad on Sunday, he said the management of the rest home my grandmother lives in had decided not to evacuate their residents because of logistical concerns. I can assume that the rest home has since been forced to evacuate my grandma and the other residents...I hope she is OK. I called my dad last night to see how she was doing, but I haven't heard back from him...perhaps he doesn't know himself.
I'll get around to doing a more extensive post, but in the meantime I wanted to share a couple things.
We all know that there has been a lot of looting going on in New Orleans these last few days. My dad was still living in New Orleans when Hurricane Camille hit in 1969, and he told me there was a lot of looting in the aftermath of that storm as well. I'm amazed, but not entirely surprised, at how easy it is for "law and order" and civility to break down in the face of a crisis.
Last night I was talking to my friend Bill and he told me about the controversy surrounding two photos released by the media on Tuesday. Both depict people wading through chest-deep water carrying food. What's interesting is that one photo shows a young black man "after looting a grocery store" while the other shows a young white man and a young white woman "after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store." I told him I found that hard to believe, so this morning he sent me a Boing Boing post about the story. Check it out.
My blogging buddy Steven also posted an interesting article about the looting to his site yesterday. Check it out.
Donate to the Red Cross to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina
More to come...
posted by Mitch Glaser @ 9:55 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Mitch, I hope your Grandma is ok.
To me the difference between "looting" and "finding" would be what the objects taken were. Food, water, medicine, first aid stuff, clothes even, in my book would be justified. TV's and other frivolous things, not so much. You are not going to die or face bodily harm if you don't have a TV, especially when there is no power. Race shouldn't make a difference. However, I think that the police need to focus on armed looters and thugs, if they focus on looting at all, it seems to be a lost cause, and there are people who still need to be rescued.
It is crazy how a breakdown in civil law turns into bedlam. I wonder if we never had such civil laws if this is how everyone would behave all the time. I hope not, I hope they are just crazy from the shock of it all and grasping what they can.
It is easier for me to imagine how parts of Irag are not under control still, after seeing the pictures though, I never thought I'd see that kind of lawlessness in the US.
It's very surreal when we're so many miles away on the West Coast. Just this January we were walking down Bourbon Street sipping on a drink from Fat Tuesday. My best to those who are suffering during this tragedy.
I meant, "Iraq" not "Irag"
I'm not suprised the AP would label those captions in the way they did. It's a sad commentary on how fucked up racism is. Even in a time of severe crisis, we can't let our old stereotypes go.
I still can't believe (after almost a year) that people still think that Katrina hit only New Orleans and that all Katrina victims are black! I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the devastation here is horrible......yet we have picked ourselves up (black, white and every other race) and gotten our lives almost back to normal. It almost looks as if the coast didn't get hit (businesses not personal homes) except for about a half mile inland from the beach.
C'mon America, wake up! New Orleans wasn't the only place hit by Katrina nor were all victims black!!! We didn't get help from Uncle Sam for days after the storm, yet we survived.......wanna know why? Because we didn't depend on anyone else for supplies. We prepared with enough food and water, etc. to get us through until help arrived just like they told us to for months. Yes, it was very uncomfortable with no A/C, but alive we were. I'm so sick of hearing about New Orleans. I love that city and will do what I can to help it rebuild, but am sick of hearing about it on the national news and our blessed Mississippi not getting much coverage at all.
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