millersnose
Post Whore
- Messages
- 65,223
lets check mong
very wise
very wise
always look for improvement in such situations
very wise
very wise
always look for improvement in such situations
Register a free account today to become a member of the world's largest Rugby League discussion forum! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Africa in our Midst: Lessons from Katrina
BY: Jared Taylor
(To appear in the Oct. 2005 issue of American Renaissance)
From Hurricane to Jungle
In the two main refugee centers, howeverthe Superdome and the Convention Centertoo many people witnessed the degeneracy for it to be ignored. The first refugees had arrived at the Superdome the day before the hurricane, on Sunday, August 28. The last finally left the stadium on Saturday, Sept. 3, so some people may have spent nearly a week in what, after the toilets began to overflow, became known as the Sewerdome.
Preparation for refugees was pitifully inadequate. By day, as many as 25,000 people sweltered in temperatures that rose into the 100s. Whatever order had been established soon melted away, and the stadium reverted to the jungle. Young men robbed and raped with impunity. Occasional gunshots panicked the crowd. At least one man committed suicide by sailing off a high deck and splattering onto the playing field. Bodies of the murdered, and of infants and the elderly who died of heat exhaustion began to accumulate. Six babies were born in the stadium. Charles Womack, a 30-year-old roofer, said he saw one man beaten to death, and was, himself beaten with a pipe. Crack addictswho had brought their most valuable possession with themsmoked openly and fought over drugs.
A group of about 30 British students were among the very small number of whites in the stadium, where they spent four harrowing days. Jamie Trout, 22, an economics major, wrote that the scene was like something out of Lord of the Flies, with people shouting racial abuse about us being white. One night, word came that the power was failing, and that there was only ten minutes worth of gas for the generators. Zoe Smith, 21, from Hull, said they all feared for their lives: All us girls sat in the middle while the boys sat on the outside, with chairs as protection, she said. We were absolutely terrified, the situation had descended into chaos, people were very hostile and the living conditions were horrendous. She said that even during the day, when we offered to help with the cleaning, the locals gave us abuse.
Mr. Trout said the National Guardfinally recognized how dangerous the threat was from blacks, and moved the British under guard to the basketball area, which was safer. The army warned us to keep our bags close to us and to grip them tight, he said, as they were escorted out. Twenty-year-old Jane Wheeldon credited one man in particular, Sgt. Garland Ogden, with getting the Britons safely out. He went against a lot of rules to get us moved, she said.
Australian tourists stuck in the Superdome had the same experience. Bud Hopes, a 32-year-old man from Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, took control and may have saved many lives. As the stadium reverted to anarchy he realized whites were in danger, and gathered tourists together for safety. There were 65 of us altogether so we were able to look after each other, especially the girls who were being grabbed and threatened, said Mr. Hopes. They organized escorts for women who had to go to the toilet or for food, and set up a roster of men to stand guard while others slept. We sat through the night just watching each other, not knowing if we would be alive in the morning, Mr. Hopes said. Ninety-eight percent of the people around the world are good, he said; in that place 98 per cent of the people were bad.
John McNeil of Coorparoo in Brisbane tells what happened to their group, too, heard the lights were about to go out: I looked at Bud [Hopes] and said, That will be the end of us. The gangs had already eyed us off. If the lights had gone out we would have been in deep trouble. We were sitting there praying for a miracle and the lights stayed on. Mr. Hopes said the Australians owed their lives to a National Guardsman who broke the rules and got whites out to a medical center past seething crowds of blacks.
Peter McNeil of Brisbane told the Australian AP that his son John was one of the 65 who managed to get out. The blacks were reportedly so hostile they would stab you as soon as look at you. Hes never been so scared in his life, explained Mr. McNeil. He just said they had to get out of the dark. Otherwise, another night, he said, they would have been gone. No American newspaper wrote about what these white tourists had gone through.
When guardsmen began to show up in force on Sept. 1 and take control, some blacks met them with cheers, but others shouted obscenities at them. Capt. John Pollard of the Texas Air National Guard said 20,000 people were in the dome when the evacuation began, but thousands more appeared from surrounding areas when word got out that there were buses leaving town. Soldiers held their M-16s and grenade-launchers at the ready, and kept a sharp eye out for snipers.
That same day, when it was time to board buses for Houston, soldiers had trouble controlling the crowd. People at the back of the mob crushed the people in front against barricades the soldiers put up to contain the crowd. Many people continued to yell obscenities whenever they saw a patrol go by. Some were afraid of losing their place in line and defecated where they stood. The Army Times reported that Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon of the Oklahoma National Guard, who had recently come home from Afghanistan, said he said he was struck by the fact Afghanis wanted to help themselves, but that the people of New Orleans only wanted others to help them.
By the evening of Sept. 3, the Superdome was finally evacuated, but the state-of-the-art stadium was a reeking cavern of filth, human waste, and an unknown number of corpses. It, too, had been looted of everything not bolted down. Janice Singleton was working at the stadium when the storm hit. She said she was robbed of everything she had, including her shoes. As for the building: They tore that dome apart, she said sadly. They tore it down. They taking everything out of there they can take.
If anything, conditions were worse at the Convention Center.
Although on high ground not far from the stadium, it had not been designated as a shelter. It was, however, beyond reach of the high water, and soon some 20,000 people were huddled in its cavernous halls. There were no supplies or staff, and for several days neither FEMA nor the National Guard seems to have known anyone was there.
Armed gangs took control, and occasional gunshots caused panic. There was no power, and at night the center was plunged into complete darkness. Degeneracy struck almost immediately, with rapes, robbery, and murder. Terrible shrieking tore through the night, but no one could see or dared to move. When Police Chief Eddie Compass heard what was happening, he sent a squad of 88 officers to investigate. They were overwhelmed by superior forces and retreated, leaving thousands to the mercy of criminals.
It was not until Sept. 2four days after the hurricanethat a force of 1,000 National Guardsmen finally took over from the armed gangs. Had we gone in with a lesser force we may have been challenged, innocents may have been caught in a fight between the guard and military police and those who did not want to be processed or apprehended, explained Gen. Blum.
Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, told a reporter that men had wandered the center at night raping and murdering children. She said she found a dead 14-year old girl at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, four hours after the girl went missing. She was raped for four hours until she was dead, Miss Joseph said through tears. Another child, a seven-year old boy, was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night.
Africa Brumfield, 32, explained that women were in particular fear: There is rapes going on here. Women cannot go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats. Donald Anderson, 43, was at the convention center with his wife who was six months pregnant: We circled the chairs like wagons because at night there are stampedes, he said. We had to survive.
The very few whites in the crowd were terrified. Eighty-year-old Selma Valenti, who was with her husband, said blacks threatened to kill them on Thursday, Sept. 1. They hated us. Four young black men told us the buses were going to come last night and pick up the elderly so they were going to kill us, she said, sobbing. Presumably, the blacks wanted to take their places on the buses.
The center was not entirely without a form of rough justice. A National Guardsman reported that a man who had raped and killed a young girl in the bathroom was caught by the crowdwhich beat him to death.
At one time there were as many as seven or eight corpses in front of the center, some of them with blood streaming from bullet wounds. Inside, there was an emergency morgue, but a National Guardsman refused to let a Reuters photographer in to take pictures. Were not letting anyone in there anymore, he said. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq. By Saturday, Sept. 3, the center was mostly cleared of the living. Refugees pulled shirts over their noses trying to block out the smell as they walked past rotting bodies.
By the weekend, there were an estimated 50,000 soldiers and federal rescue workers in the city, but even the massive presence did not bring calm. On Sunday, Sept. 4, contractors working for the US Army Corps of Engineers came under fire. Their police escort returned fire, in what became a running gun battle. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police killed four of the attackers.
By Saturday, police had set up a temporary booking and detention center at the New Orleans train station. State Attorney General Charles Foti said there were plans for a temporary court system, but no one knew how they were going to assemble juries or call witnesses. The grim business began of combing the drowning city for corpses and the remaining survivors.
Source:
ibeme said:
