Murder and rape - fact or fiction? (New Orleans Disaster)

[SheepyMcSheepster]

i haven't seen this posted yet:

Murder and rape - fact or fiction?

Gary Younge in Baton Rouge
Tuesday September 6, 2005



There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.

In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.

But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.

New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.

New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."

And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1563532,00.html

[merwin]

1. I bet they're waiting for the murdered people to come forward as well.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

2. i think the point of the article tries to make

is that rumors were/are being reported as facts with no disclaimer.

[MercutioATC]

10. Exactly. With no substiantion, they're just rumors.

They MIGHT be true and they should be looked into. However, until they are confirmed, they should be reported as unsubstianted stories, not fact.

[libhill]

20. I think that it's repuke bull shit

trying to justify their inaction, by making it appear that the people left behind in NO were criminals and rapists. They just don't get it - they've exposed themselves to the world as fascist assholes, and there's no going back. All the spin in the world can't save their sorry asses now, no one is buying into the b.s. anymore.

[glitch]

34. disinfo they have to give their bots some ammo. No one else believes them.

but their bots need some kind of retort. Anything racist will do, but the more horrific the better.

[bbgrunt]

47. yes, and a reason to prevent supplies from arriving or

the red cross from entering and providing relief.

[Canuckistanian]

55. Just like the fictitious shots on the helicopters

Just another delaying tactic to cover up the sheer incompetence (or worse).

[Sarojin]

61. Then why no media coverage?

Seems like the MSM would be showing pictures of this stuff, and constantly talking about it rather than specifically avoiding the topic other than a casual mention. But I heard reports of the military threatening to beat any reporters or cameras that tried to go see the corpses inside the building.

Having lived in NO for several years, I am not having a hard time believing things like that went on in these conditions...they went on every single day in the city in areas not much more livable than those in the Superdome or Convention Center this last week. And there was no police presence or authority.

The conditions in NO are some of the worst anywhere in the "projects." I have been to the 9th ward and the 5th. I met some of the most sincere and honest people I have ever met. But in many places I did not feel at all welcome having different colored skin. Racial tension is always high.

[saigon68]

6. The murdered people need to walk thru SEWAGE First

To report their deaths

[Tomee450]

11. Nonsense

There are people who readily believe in tales of violence allegedly perpetrated by blacks. They have been taught to believe that blacks are violent by their parent, friends and the media. When the investigations are over, I have no doubt whatsoever that the claims of widespread looting and violence will prove to be false. There might have been some violence but my gut feeling tells me that a lot of lying is going on. They said a cop was shot. Now I'm hearing that he actually mistakenly shot himself in the leg. Then we heard that people were shooting at planes and that was proved to be untrue. The racists are out in force fanning the flames of racism.

[libhill]

21. Thank ya -

a desperate last shot, rear guard action to save Rethuglican ass, before the public comes down on their fucking heads, and yells cock a doodle fucking doo.

[SomewhereOutThere424]

23. Well

I've seen plenty of white people be completely sick and sociapathic, too. If nothing else I don't believe the allegations because of a race, I believe that it may even be possible the people who'd done this were whites acting racism on african americans. I've seen a disguisting display of racism as pointed out by someone on DU here, when a katrina rescue message board was spammed by racists. I can only imagine what happened to the poor people there given no law or jurisdiction with people capable of feeling ways that extreme.

I believe it's possible because among us are completely sick and unvirtuous people. Locked away without food hope or any kind of surveilance, I believe sick people can strike, black OR white. I don't blame it on race, I STILL blame it on the government. Their refusal to react cost people of any color their lives, I think they played this whole thing in a racist way, but if murders or rapes took place it's entirely the fault of the government for not helping people to avoid this.

Don't get me wrong, I believe about 80% of the rumors are BS. I'm not saying I believe this republican backwash about a lot of it, I'm just saying human beings have the capability to do this and it's entirely the government's fault for not helping. Even things that aren't crime related -- like a two year old being trampled to death because someone thought another levee broke and they rioted, is at fault of people not helping out sooner. I think the people were weak and vulnerable, that sick people exist and some of these allegations are possible (not because of race or poverty, look at bush, he's white and rich and he's a monster who'd rape people in a disaster), but that those people should have never been left in such vulnerability to begin with. Denying those people help is unforgivable, and the only crime I'm willing to believe in this situation... even though I am willing to believe that things happened because of the lack of law given to them.

[stickdog]

42. You believe because YOU WANT TO BELIEVE.

There aren't enough sick fucks in NO because most of the freepers had enough money to evacuate and most of the other sick fucks are either part of our despotic elite or already serving our despotic elite in one or another capacity.

[iverglas]

48. gosh

"YOU WANT TO BELIEVE"? That looks like an allegation of racism to me.

Me, I want to believe that when disaster strikes and thousands of people are left vulnerable to victimization by people who victimize others at the best of time, their society will rally to protect them.

When that doesn't happen, I don't have much trouble believing that the same people who would have taken whatever opportunity arose to assault or rob or kill them on a good day will take whatever opportunity arises to do it on a really bad day.

Maybe you do want to believe there are no such people in the world, or that there are no such people in the impoverished African-American community of New Orleans. I can't imagine getting very far with that fantasy, myself.

Any violence suffered by victims of the disaster occurred because:
- there are people everywhere who do horrible things to other people when they have an opportunity
- there had been a large-scale disaster, and such disasters create situations that offer opportunities for people who want to do horrible things to other people to do them
- there was a failure by society at large to protect the potential victims of those people to the extent that was possible in the extreme and unprecedented circumstances

There's nothing Republican or Democratic about that.

[Psephos]

76. A breath of sanity. Good post, Iverglas. n/t

[iverglas]

90. join the minority

I'm finding this bizarre.

Maybe some information will help someone else.

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/1366
(I'm omitting references to sexual assault as a tactic of war; emphases mine)

Sexual Violence Against Women: The Displaced Are Especially Vulnerable

Sexual violence against women is a global problem. According to the United Nations one in three women worldwide has been sexually abused or beaten. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported that one in six has experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault. For women who live in war zones, are internally displaced, or have refugee status, increased levels of violence include a higher proportion of sexual attacks. ...

Driven from the homes and communities that provide some measure of protection, the displaced are especially vulnerable to sexual violence. Women and children in flight lose what little power and security they ordinarily enjoy ... .

The recent report by UNHCR and Save the Children (UK) documenting the abuse of power by humanitarian aid workers in refugee camps in West Africa underscores the vulnerability that women and children face in these settings. They are wholly dependent on camp administrators, armed men, and agency personnel for their survival. In the absence of protection measures, women and girls may be forced to have sex to access identity and ration cards and the basic food supplies, shelter, and medical care that come with them. Domestic violence is prevalent in refugee camps, exacerbated by alcohol and drug use.

The international community, and especially UNHCR, the agency responsible for overseeing the management of most of the world's refugee camps, has an obligation to provide women who are vulnerable to sexual violence with security and options to protect themselves. Women require the means and the protection to bring charges against their assailants, and must be shielded from negative ramifications such as further targeting and victimization. ...

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/696/

Refugees in the camps face victimization on many levels. For example, the rise in sexual violence against women and minors has been notable in recent months. ...

This general insecurity is affecting women on several different levels. With sections of the city closed, economic activity has been greatly impeded (see below, Violation of Economic Rights, for more). FONKOZE, a national organization dedicated to supporting and enhancing women’s economic activities, noted that with economic insecurity women are forced into vulnerable and compromised situations with men. As a result, there has been a rise in incidents of forced sex. ...

I don't really care whether anyone objects to the comparison of the victims of Katrina and foreigners called refugees, btw.

These are all people whose communities and homes have been taken from them, be the communities in New Orleans or Sierra Leone, and be the dislocation a result of disaster or war, or an event that happened yesterday or last year. They are living in insecurity, and in other conditions in which we know victimization rises. And there will always be people, everywhere, in every population, who will exploit that insecurity to victimize them. And women will be the most victimized.

And how anyone else spins that victimization is not my responsibility. The responsibility decent people do have is to lay the blame for it where it belongs, on the society and its authorities and anyone else who had the opportunity to protect them and didn't.

All of this would be important even if there had been no outlandish reports of crimes occurring in the Katrina disaster zone. Because WE KNOW or ought to know that people in that situation are vulnerable and some will be victimized, just as we know or ought to know that unrepaired levees will fail and people without transportation will not evacuate danger zones.

[SomewhereOutThere424]

69. Listen pal, that's what I SAID

If you honestly believe what you say, then why are there corpses of beaten elderly people, raped children? If you want to run around screaming racism, do it to the rapists and to the people who have commited these crimes most likely out of racism or hate. I have battled time and time again to end racism and to try to create an equality among people and animals alike.

The only sick fuck I see right now is the one trying to arise fighting meanlessly in such a disaster, when I was simply trying to state a point. Shame on you.

[Benhurst]

127. Who? What? When? Where? Why? Haven't any of these

"reporters" taken a Journalism 101 course in college?

[stickdog]

40. Wow, that's really funny!

:eyes:

[moobu2]

3. The main point of the article is

The reporting of those rumors had the effect of demonizing those trapped people in the eyes of America, and that is sooooo true. It cost people their lives.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

5. indeed

and i have heard people on local call in shows using logic like this "they are shooting at rescuers anyway so why should we help them".

these types of stories help to solidfy the opinion that many have already which is "they are all animals anyway so let them die". It is why it is extremely important to report things factually.

[Seabiscuit]

88. BINGO! And until such wild claims are substantiated they remain fiction.

Yet the MSM is spending a lot more time spreading these fictions than talking about Shrub being AWOL last week.

[Trillo]

4. Could be more economically skewed

reporting by whomever. You know, all those poor folks who are poor because they're "lazy" and "uneducated." So, the opporessors claim they also are out of control murderers and rapists and they really should be in jail because, well, just say they are rioting, looting, and killing people. That'll harden people's hearts toward them.

I'd like to know if they were locked up in the superdome and not allowed to leave (on foot) like some reports claimed.

[sandnsea]

7. No film footage of shoot-outs either

It's not that I doubt bad things happened, just that it wasn't at the level reported and that hysteria and/or some engrained mentality to prioritize catching bad guys over helping people took over. If it was really "a war zone", some film crew would have gotten footage of at least one shoot-out.

[soda]

9. NO PHOTOS

Soon after, a shoot-out took place and Russell witnessed gunfire between police and civilians that he says “left one man dead in a pool of blood.” Afterwards police slammed Russell and the photojournalist against a wall and threw their equipment to the ground when the duo got out of their SUV to cover the scene.

Toronto Star staff photojournalist Lucas Oleniuk was taken to the ground by police in the Spanish Quarter after he photographed a firefight between looters and police, and police were then reportedly “beating on” a looter. A coworker at the Toronto Star told News Photographer magazine tonight, “The cops saw him and put him down, and took his gear.
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/09/hurricane2.html

[Tomee450]

12. The kind of behavior reported in the

article occurs every day in cities across America. You'd expect some people to behave violently, most people were not. The media made it appear that NO was a war zone, unsafe for anybody. Why is it that Jo Albaugh the photo journalist who has been filming NO for days has not reported seeing any shootouts. He has been touring the city from a helicopter. The people committing crimes are probably the same people who have always committed them. I strongly doubt much of what is being reported. There are many reporters on the ground in NO, were any of them shot at, robbed on the streets? Also, I don't trust all reporters to be honest. Some have been known to make up stories.

[iamjoy]

16. That's What I Think

I think there were robberies, rapes and murders - but how many violent crimes occurred in NOLA on a daily basis in "normal" circumstances? Do we usually hear about rapes and murders in other metropolitan areas unless they are extraordinarily violent? NO.

But, NOLA was under a microscope after the hurricane, so a few isolated incidents get blown out of proportion, and they make it sound worse than it is. I don't think this was strictly so people wouldn't care about the Katrina victims (hearing these stories I was more outraged at the people being victimized twice/three times). But you know, sex and bad news sell.

[1932]

49. Perhaps the police thought the footage would show they started the

altercation?

[endarkenment]

8. From the start the usual MSM suspects

where coaxing and eliciting the 'bad looter' meme from everyone they interviewed. It was freaking obvious what was going on. It is still going on. At every opportunity the corporate whores and fascist shills interject their bad looter meme. We here at DU have to recognize this behavior early, and react with discipline. Do not catapult the propaganda. Resist Fascism.

[Tomee450]

13. Exactly

Rita Cosby was hysterical and Dan ABrams was not much better. Both are on MSNBC. They seemed more concerned with the looters than the plight of thousands of people who had committed no crimes.

[leveymg]

14. The Source for much of this is one ANG guardsman recently back from Iraq

I see some glaring omissions in the way the reporter wrote the story, below. Shocking and unusual details, such as the 7 year old with her throat slit and the rapes of a 5 year old, an old man bludgeoned to death, require more than this one source, an Arkansas Guardsman named Mikel Brooks. Times-Picayune writer Brian Thevenot names only one other guardsman who attests merely that his unit saw bodies piled up in the freezer in the stadium.

All this may be true, but before the grizzly details gets told and retold and used as justification for the delayed search & rescue and military-style intervention into the city, I'd like to see some corroboration..

- Mark


Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than 10,000 lives

Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html#077206

By Brian Thevenot
Staff writer

Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.

"Don't step in that blood - it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he's an old man."
Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man.

"That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."

He moved on, walking quickly through the darkness, pulling his camouflage shirt to his face to screen out the overwhelming odor.
"There's an old woman," he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. "I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death," he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair.

Brooks and several other Guardsmen said they had seen between 30 and 40 more bodies in the Convention Center's freezer. "It's not on, but at least you can shut the door," said fellow Guardsman Phillip Thompson.

SNIP

[barb162]

15. throat slit on 7 yr. old, here's the story; can't deny witnesses

to this as there are names of witnesses, reporters

Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center

By Brian Thevenot
Staff writer
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html#077206

[leveymg]

18. Read carefully. Reporter quotes one guardsman - no witnesses.

The other guy he names in the Ark. National Guard unit merely confirms that there were bodies in the Astrodome freezer. The story is written in a breathless first-hand style, but it's unclear whether the reporter actually saw a thing, himself.

What really stands out here is that there are no witnesses quoted. Just the after-the-fact account of a guy just back from Iraq who may be hallucinating what he saw last month in some alley in Baghdad.

I've already written to the New Orleans TP editor asking that this story be followed-up on.

[marshall]

29. No witnesses--just bodies with their throats slit

I've read several news reports today about the convention center and the finding of around forty bodies with throats slit, beaten up and signs of rape. I don't know if there is anybody left alive from those people's horrible last moments who will tell the tale.

[MisterP]

30. could be from the flood's battering: that's what killed most of

the tsunami victims; always a possibility. How clean were the cuts?

[stickdog]

43. I hate this type of bullshit rumor mongering. Post a link or STFU.

[1932]

50. Perhaps they died of other causes and someone slit their throats

aftewards.

Considering how coordinated the hysteria was in the media, the administraiton and the blogosphere before there was any evidence of it happening, how could you rule out one crazy NG who thought he'd help with the rumors.

40 bodies with throats slit. You'd think someone would have seen something. Instead, the corroborated non-hearsay stories don't mention seeing anyone murdered.

[marshall]

57. Brit backpackers

The young backpackers from Britain reported seeing people killed and raped, at least according to the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=361322&in_page_id=1770

[RaleighNCDUer]

139. Again, that's once removed.

They themselves were not raped, nor claim they were.

99% of it is second-hand.

[Scout1071]

98. Every survivor story I've read said the "thugs" were actually

keeping law & order within the arena. I saw video on the news of young men looting for food and delivering straight to the people at the Superdome. The MSNBC camera man who was so moved that they interviewed him said repeatedly that the saw ZERO violence and that people were behaving incredibly well given the circumstances.

[barb162]

89. I think it is written in a fairly matter of fact eyewitness style

and I disagree with just about everything else you're trying to imply. Your comments such as " may be hallucinating" are way beyond stretching.

Let me ask you something: do you believe the police chief of NOLA that one of his police officers was shot in the head while on duty during the looting? Or do you choose not to believe it until you see the actual wound? Then maybe you can surmise the officer was actually shot by his/her spouse because who actually witnessed it during the looting? Or you can make some other suppositions, such as there was no looting

[NorthernSpy]

118. "matter of fact eyewitness style" -- you mean like these?:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4158832.stm

What eyewitnesses said:

One eyewitness, Mark Whitby, said Mr Menezes was wearing a thick padded jacket, despite the warm weather, which could have been used to conceal something underneath.
Another witness said he had a black baseball cap and blue fleece.

Scotland Yard had said on the day that his clothing had added to suspicions but had not elaborated further.

What the evidence said:

Some of the leaked documents and accompanying CCTV footage suggest Mr Menezes was wearing a blue denim jacket.
This is also referred to by a member of the police surveillance team who observed him on board a Tube train.

What eyewitnesses said:

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said after the shooting: "As I understand the situation the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions."
One eyewitness said at the time that Mr Menezes had vaulted over the ticket barriers just inside the entrance to Stockwell station as he was being pursued.

What the evidence said:

CCTV footage is said to show the man walking at normal pace into the station, picking up a copy of a free newspaper and apparently passing through the barriers before descending the escalator to the platform and running to a train.
He boarded a Tube train, paused, looking left and right, and sat in a seat facing the platform.

The eyewitness has subsequently told a newspaper that the man he saw vaulting the barrier must have been a police officer.

What eyewitnesses said:

Although police would not give details of the incident because of the independent investigation, they did say shortly after it happened that officers had shot a man dead in Stockwell station.
The following day Scotland Yard admitted Mr Menezes had been shot by mistake and apologised to his family for the "tragedy".

Met chief Sir Ian Blair said his officers had tried to get Mr Menezes under control before shooting him.

A witness spoke of a man jumping on to the stationary train and grabbing a man sitting opposite. As the witness ran off the train he heard four "dull bangs", which he realised were shots.

Another said he saw Mr Menezes run on to the train, "hotly pursued" by what he took to be three plain-clothes police officers. He said they pushed him to the floor and shot him five times.

At the opening of the inquest into his death, police told the coroner Mr Menezes was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

What the evidence said:

In one of the leaked documents, said to be a statement from one of the police surveillance team designated Hotel 3, the witness describes hearing shouting - including the word "police".
The statement says Mr Menezes stood up and advanced towards the witness and armed police.

He adds: "I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side."

He said he pushed the man back into his seat.

It was only after he had restrained him that he heard a gun shot.

The documents say that a post-mortem examination showed Mr Menezes had been shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder, but that three other bullets had missed him.

Under conditions of great panic and uncertainty, people can hear rumors, and ultimately come to believe that they themselves have seen incidents that they actually learned of only through hearsay. And remember: the people on the train that day in London were frightened, but they were not dehydrated, or starving, or sick, or sleep deprived, and they hadn't been trapped in the same dim, stinking locale for days with corpses all around them.

[barb162]

122. If scores of people who were in the Superdome come out

of there all saying approximately the same thing, I think you have to at some point believe what they were saying. They were there. I wasn't. Same as to the looting. I saw it on the TV on several different stations. You know, kick a window or door in, walk in the store, take things out of the store... it's called looting. Someone else mentioned a point; in a city which was overwhelmingly black, it follows that the criminals would be mostly black also. In overwhelmingly white areas in other states, people were staying on their porches at night guarding their houses as other whites were stealing and siphoning gas out of vehicles. This is racism? No. It is a simple fact that sociopathic personality types/ criminals will take advantage of a bad situation and prey on others and their property.

I think good reporters can get at facts and report stories accurately after they have talked with a few or more people. We can also view these acts ourselves on TV, such as the looting. (And I still see no ethnic cleansing or genocide)

[iverglas]

126. that's all very interesting

... but was any of the eyewitnesses wrong about the basic fact: that a shooting occurred on the tube?

Your points about the unreliability of memory under stress are valid. I, of course, have never suggested that credence should automatically be given to every report of every seemingly outlandish instance of victimization that we hear from everyone in this situation.

Ordinarily, however, asserting that the account of someone claiming to be a *victim* should not be believed does call for offering some reason of one's own to doubt the person's credibility -- either facts to the contrary of what s/he says, or facts about the person asserting them.

In terms of doubting in general that victimization occurred, again, something needs to be offered to establish that such doubts are reasonable. Women and children are sexually assaulted in crowded public places on ordinary days. People are killed in crowded public places on ordinary days. Sexual assaults and killings occur in all conflict and disaster situations. Why someone would think these things don't happen, or demand proof of particular instances in order to agree that it is reasonable to believe that some instances occurred, on extraordinary days like those of last week and in this particular disaster situation, is still beyond me.

When women are assaulted by mobs, or individuals, in public places on ordinary days, we immediately question the actions of the law enforcement authorities in the situation, and demand to know what measures they took to prevent the assaults and to prevent further assaults from occurring and to apprehend the people who committed the assaults -- and if the situation is on-going, demand very loudly that it be corrected.

And that's still exactly what my response would have been to the very first reports of such things occurring in the disaster zone last week, whether any particular reported instance had been proved or not.

[slaveplanet]

134. I have a REAL witness ON TAPE

he was at the CC.....but SD situation was similar

AT least 4 children .....RAPED, THEN THROATS SLIT
he gets more specific.....AGES 3, 4 , 5 & 7 female


The perp was caught by the crowd on FRIDAY
he goes into specifics.....he was aged 28

The crowd took out mob justice

He also directly overheard released inmates from the jail , who were now meeting back up with their buddies from the neiborhoods, saying that the entire jail was let loose in the crowd.

the perp was one of the released.

there was much more the witness said....OK ....SO we do have firsthand Witness's coming forward.....stop perpetuating false statements

[barb162]

140. can you transcribe it please?

[slaveplanet]

152. Here's all I have so far

I'm a slow typer with a slow computer

"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story:


We're going to now go to Arkansas...Talk with a gentleman...we're going to call him just " Bigfoot" ...who was there...who saw much...and we're very happy to chat with him for the first hour.
Are you there Bigfoot?

BF-allright, how y'all doing

q- I'm fine thank you...thanks, very much for being available and thanks to Mike Barnett for helping set this up as well.
The first question I have for you is... why didn't you evacuate when everyone else was...or most everyone else was. what urged you to stay on?

BF-It's not because I wanted to...First I had to try to get my family together, Then I TRIED to rent a car, rent a Uhaul, Limosine...anything...we couldn't get in touch with anybody. Everybody(rental companies) had done left like two days ago.

q- I see, and at what point did you try to organize this evacuation for your family..How SOON before the hurricane hit?

BF-Two days before it hit

q- so you, for TWO days. you tried to get the heck out of there and couldn't arrange it?

BF-couldn't arrange it...so then we tried to call friends but then they were all fullfilled up with their families and they had no room, so we bought up a whole bunch of supplies and said lets try to stick it out. And what I did was I left, my house is kind of rickety and went into the projects, cause the their built strong and the wind wasn't going to blown those projects down...So during the hurricane ..I mean...everything was fine. The wind ,the rain, came & then right afterward everything was fine...no flood or anything. And then a couple of hours later the water stated coming up.

q-Well it is said that, the hurricane of course, had achieved catagory 5 status...But that portion of the category 5 winds did not hit New Orleans...It hit east of city, quite a bit east, and what hit NOLA proper was about category 2 which is a windy rainy problem but not a catastophe neccesarily.

BF- No, not really...but it blew down a lot of trees, and the trees caused most of the damage to some of the houses. They knocked in roofs and everything, and some of the houses that didn't have tight stable roofs , they got blown away. Some of the bricks that were unstable too fell off the buildings from around the warehouse district.

q- I understand, ...that would be expected from a catagory 2 hurricane I woild think , sure.
Now, the actual number of people who left the city is in dispute. Do you have any figures or statistics on that? How many people were able to evacuate? what percentage? some people say 80% evacuated successfully before the storm hit..do you have any idea?

BF- I'd say it was most likely about 60%, that left. Alot of em were saying " I thought it was going to be like all the rest of them did" so alot of them waited, till like that morning or late that night before they decided to get outta here. Some of them just waited real real late before they left.

q- NOLA's been thru hurricanes before

BF- Yes

q- So OK. the hurricane comes...It hits...It's windy , its rainy, trees get blown down, roofs get blown off... But it's not a catastrophe

BF- No

q- How far past the peak of the storm did the water begin to show up, do you remember?

BF- Right after the hurricane, the only thing we had was water in the streets.. not alot of water, just a little water in the streets that came like right to your ankle, and then like a couple hours later...The water started rising, somebody said that some pipes had bust, underground...nobody told us anything about the levee. They just said some pipes had bust and that's where the water was coming from.

q- I see

BF- and then the water rose to like the steps, the first step, and that was about 3 inches.

q-OK

BF- and then that night, when everyone was about to go to bed, someone came runnin out their house "the water rising, the water rising" and from then it stared coming up like an inch every 20 minutes.

q- OK, is your family with you in the house at this time

BF- Yes. I had...we all moved to the second floor, I had my family and a couple other families from the first floor moved up into the second floor apartment

q- OK

BF - so it was like 3 or 4 families in one apartment at that time.

q- Did you still have power at that point?

BF- no power, just gas and water at this time.

q- Ok, were you listening to the radio?

BF- yeah, we had a bunch of small radios..and then ahh, then the next morning they said the levee broke and everybody should be thinking about evacuating

q- thats a good idea

BF-Yeah, they didn't say mandatory at the time

q- Oh really

BF- it wasn't mandatory at the time, no

q-and when you got up in the morning, if you slept at all, how high was the water then?

BF- It got to the forth step, and that was like ahh, I'm 6' 6" so like for me that was like knee high...To my knees but for everyone else that was almost to thier waist.

q- gotcha

BF- So then, so I decided, since this is not too high, My house was not flooded in the uptown area, just in the downtown area. So I decided to bring some of my stuff back to the house and everything to get it safe and to get my family out. When I did one load, I came back it was like everybody was sayin " ts a mandatory evacuation, a Mandatory evacuation, everybody has to get to the interstate" So everybody started panicking and we all started heading for the interstate like they said. They said we were going to be bussed out from the interstate.
That never happened

q- Ok, so that was the first time when panic really hit your family

BF-Yes

q- When they ordered the mandatory evacuation...How far. Bigfoot, is the interstate from your home?

BF-Uhh from my home? or where we were?

q- from wherever you were

BF-where we were... it was about 2 miles

q- Ok , so you're supposed to walk through...Water... 2 miles

BF- yes, we did, (chuckles)

q- and you're 6'6" and your kids.....

BF- I've got a 3 year old a 5 year old, I've got elderly people I've got handicapped people.

q- thats the point... what happened to them?

BF- OK, so we went toward the interstate, we ran into some Deputy Sherriff's I guess, In a boat. Then he said, go to the interstate. Wait there, then somebody gonna come in a bus and take y'all out of town.

q- excuse me, Is the interstate up on a much higher ground level? or is it up on posts, piers?

BF- Yes, it over most of the buildings

q- ok gotcha

BF-So, uhm everybody started going to the interstate, and there were millions , I mean thousands of people on the interstate. So we were like OK , and we saw some trucks... uhaul trucks and flatbed trucks, but they were just taking all day grabbing people....and we thought they were there to take people out of town...they brought everybody to the convention center.

q- Ohh , they didn't take you out of town

BF- Didn't take us out of town they took everybody to the convention center and told em there would be busses to pick them up from there, and that was Tuesday.

q- Was there any water near the Convention center, or was that totally high and dry.

BF- Nope

BF- High and dry

Q- Ok

BF- Totally high and dry

q- allright

BF- Uhm...The water really didn't start coming down Canal street until.... ahh....Wednesday. It was rising but it wasn't pushing up because Canal street is on like a slope. Almost, so it took awhile for it to push up.

q-Ok

BF-And cause again they were trucking everybody from the innercity , from the uptown area from Plaquemines parish, from all different areas to bring to the convention center, cause they said the superdome was full already.

Q- allright

Q- who's in charge at the convention center? was it organized at all?

BF- Nobody...They just put us there...I mean No military, no police officers , no officials, not even the people who run the convention center where there. I
don't even think they knew we were going there.
I mean, I think they did this as just a last ditch effort... to get people out the way, But they didn't tell anybody that we were there. Nobody knew we were there until Wednesday.

q- ha, ha, ha nobod-that's thats almost two days!

BF- Yah thats 2 days without food and water, So we had to break into the refridgerators and everything and feed ourselves off the Convention center(CC) food and everything that they had left in there.

Q- How many, about how many were there in the CC?

BF- At that time when we went from hall A...the halls go from A To J. We had this hall AF(?) it was setting about 3000 people at that time. That was Tuesday, By Wednesday we had about 10.000 people. All halls had filled from the inside to out.

q- In this kind of a situation, it's hard to imagine ahh how any kind of an organization could take place...were there people who tried to appoint themselves as leaders, organizers, did you have a commitee..did you have any cohesive effort in how to handle it?

BF- They had older people who were there saying the busses are on the way, they said they were coming and tried to keep everyone calm.

q-Uh huh

BF- and you know they said try to keep the area clean for when the busses pull up and everything and...we gonna get out of here.
We heard the same speech for FIVE days

Q- Uh Huh...Unbelievable... Stand by Big foot while we take a break

Q-Are Ok there now Bigfoot?

BF- Oh Yah, the people in Arkansas are awesome.. they are awesome out here.

q- And your family is allright?

BF- yes they're fine now...while we were there they lost their minds a couple of times. I was a..you know just a talking to my girlfriend and she like blanked out... didn't know where she was...didn't even know what her name was...I had to calm her down and the children just crying because they had dead bodies the were crossing over and everything. Just sleeping on the ground because they were tired.

q- Ahh were the dead bodies IN the CC?

BF- IN & OUT

q- People had expired right then and there from lack of food and water!!!

BF- And some people were killed... there's something they didn't say on the news... In the jails , they let loose all the low crime criminals

q- Huh!!!

BF- yeah, bet you didn't know that.

q- No

BF- so...they got caught up in the crowd where they got transfered to the CC and SD also

q- and they you feel were in substantial part, contributors to the violence?

BF- OH YEAH, because they ran into their friends...I overheard a couple of them talking...say "Man I thought you was in jail- Yeah man they let us out" and then they had got into a little group.
Well in the beginning everybody was fine. Everybody was working together, you know feeding everybody and giving out the water. Second day, same thing everybody was fine... you know we broke into stores and stuff like that to feed the elderly and the children and stuff. The third day...It got rough. They started selling the food then.

q- who?

BF- the younger kids... like from the 15-25 year olds. Like they had their own little gang

q- Sounds like a little mafia thing?

BF- Yeah close to it, you know...you want some good food you've got to buy it.

q- Ohh

BF- and they'll cook it for you and get it to you and stuff

q- I see

q- at this point 3 days into it, still no police, no help no nothing?

BF- No, No police... that's the funny part, this is another part... they had police but they were like... out of contact with each other...they were on walkie talkies.. so and the NOLA police they didn't have a clue as to what was going on because no-one was telling them anything either

q- No command and control...nothing!

BF- No, no control... But they had police officers watching us the WHOLE time we were there

q- But you didn't know it?

BF- we didn't know it until that...that Friday...we found out

q- where were these police officers?

BF- they were inside a hotel, right across the street from the CC

q- and they were just observing from over there?

BF- Observing and they had orders not to interfere

q-huh!!!!

BF- Yeah they had machine guns and everything, we had snipers on the interstate that overlooked the CC also.
We always saw them because they'd popped up every now and then. we saw their heads.

q- you were, you were PRISONERS!!!!

BF- Yeah... we couldn't leave...people would try to walk across the bridge to go across the river... they turned them around. They said you cannot leave, Nobody could come into town and pick us up.

q- and there was not one delivery of food, not one medical team, nothing that came to the CC.

BF- Not until Wednesday, and they didn't come in, they dropped it off the interstate overpass. We had to catch the food.

q- dropped it off How?

BF-MRE's and water, they dropped the cases off the interstate

q- on helicopter or truck?

BF- A truck, and it wasn't military or police either it was regular guys ...I don't know where they come from...they had plain clothes the would drop it off the interstate and then everybody would just grab what they could... and the water they dropped the water but half of that exploded... because once it hit the ground it went everywhere.

q- I understand

end part 1

[classysassy]

17. Sounds a bit fishy

When a persons life is in imminent danger the last thing he or she would think of is sexual gratification,those report are probably baseless.There are reporters out there trying to make a name for themselves, and will report any garbage they hear without any type of verification,those scubbags should be identified and fired.

[leveymg]

19. Well, Brian Thevenot is one of them.

Mr. Thevenot seriously mishandled writing that story. If he had two sources who said it looked like the 7-year old's throat had been cut, he should have stated it clearly in his article, and that would have been okay to include. But, the story is written to obscure who saw what. All we know is that one Ark. Nat'l Guard trooper, recently back from Iraq, is making some extraordinary claims about events he didn't witness.

The rumor about the rapes is just Brooks, repeating a rumor he heard. Bad news writing.

Shame on the New Orleans TP editor for allowing this to be printed as it was. Fire that editor, too.

[iverglas]

27. without commenting on the veracity or accuracy of the reports ...

When a persons life is in imminent danger the last thing he or she would think of is sexual gratification

... the sexual abuse of women and children, whether by the fathers of families in the nicest whitest households in the suburbs or by marginalized people of colour in lawless situations in devastated disadvantaged neighbourhoods, hasn't got the first thing to do with "sexual gratification". There are all sorts of complex reasons why women and children are victimized in this way, but whatever the reason, the victimizers can be expected to be opportunistic. Mass disorder creates the conditions for these things to happen. It doesn't make decent people behave like animals, but it does allow unpleasant people to behave violently and lawlessly.

The people affected by Katrina were no more all saints than they were all low-lifes. An overwhelming majority of them were undoubtedly decent people, but some were beyond question not.

One thing I think should be kept in mind is that there were murders and robberies and sexual assaults in New Orleans on a daily basis before the hurricane. There are violent and unpleasant people everywhere. It would be unusual for them to become selfless and law-abiding in the middle of a disaster, and for them not to take advantage of a disaster to be violent and unpleasant.

[LostinVA]

35. Rape is NOT sexual gratification AARRGGHH!

And on DU, too. Rape has NOTHING to do with sex, everything to do with control, hate, and humiliation. Of course there have been rapes the last week in NO, and I am sure in the Dome and the Convection Center. Why? Because that's what rapists do: they rape. I don't know if the seven-year-old was raped and killed, but who knows? Experts say one in 20 people is a sociopath. They prey on the weak, the unprotected. It would be surprising if rape hadn't occurred in this situation. What better time and place for a rapist to strike.

PLEASE remember: rape is not about sexual gratification.

[RaleighNCDUer]

39. Nonetheless, the original statement stands ---

even a sociopath, particularly a sociopath, will concern himself with saving his own life rather than waste energy on whatever pathetic gratification he might get from rape. He might kill to take a bottle of water from someone, but rape would be the last thing on his mind.

[iverglas]

45. no, it does not

even a sociopath, particularly a sociopath, will concern himself with saving his own life rather than waste energy on whatever pathetic gratification he might get from rape. He might kill to take a bottle of water from someone, but rape would be the last thing on his mind.

To YOU -- a rational person with a developed, intact personality -- abusing anyone in *any* way would always be the last thing on your mind.

There are plenty of impoverished men who commit sexual assaults when they could just as easily be out robbing rich people so they could buy something nice for themselves.

The situations in which sexual assaults may well have occurred in New Orleans would not have been situations in which people's lives were in imminent danger *or* in which anything they had done would have procured them any way of getting out of what danger they were in.

The situations were situations in which there were numerous vulnerable people available to be victimized and no one capable of preventing the victimization -- and that is *exactly* the situation in which such victimization occurs.

Women are NOT assaulted because they are young and attractive and the assailant is horny. They are assaulted because the assailant has a desire, for whatever reason, to hurt them, and an opportunity arises in which to do it. A bottle of water is not going to satisfy that desire.

To insist that there were no such people in the places where disaster victims took refuge would be the height of foolish denial. Of course there were -- just as they are in our homes, our schools and our churches, and on our streets.

Societies have a duty to do what they can to protect their members, especially their vulnerable members, from that kind of victimization.

To acknowledge that such acts may well have occurred in New Orleans, and accept credible evidence that they did occur if it is offered, is NOT to blame the victims. The people who may have committed such acts were indeed victims of the disaster and the failure to respond to it, and may have been victims of many other things in their lives, but they are individuals whose faults do not reflect on the other victims.

It is right to rebuff any attempt to portray the disaster victims in general, or even in any numbers, as having given up what allegedly thin veneer of civilization they may have had and turned to random violence. Absolutely.

But to engage in knee-jerk denials of reports of victimization among the disaster victims would be to deny the very real suffering of people thus victimized who were denied the protection of society and thus allowed to be doubly victimized.

In extreme situations like this, it will likely be impossible to provide every protection that can be given in normal circumstances, especially against the increased victimization that has to be expected when people who do things like this are offered opportunities to do it by circumstances. "Society" can't be blamed for every assault or killing that may have taken place in New Orleans. But there is a duty to provide every possible protection, and *that* duty seems to have been seriously violated.

THAT is the point that must be made, and it won't be made by denying even the possibility that bad people did bad things to people who were already victims, while those who could have organized protection for them did nothing.

[RaleighNCDUer]

130. Don't get me wrong. I didn't say the sociopath would get

sexual gratification. Exerting dominance is gratification, too. And that is what rape is about, power and dominance, not sex. I'll also grant that the sociopathic criminals would be among those least likely to have evacuated, so they would be present.

I've read one or two credible stories of rapes, but it takes only a single incident to generate a hundred stories. I don't believe that in a survival situation rape would be a major problem, anywhere near the problem it has been made out to be. It is not a behavior that enhances the survival of the perpetrator. It seems to me that if someone raped someone in the crowded conditions of the convention center or superdome, that the rapist would have been beaten to death within minutes.

I just think that there's a lot of rumor being presented as fact, here.

[whatever4]

100. No, he'll wait around a few hours in the heat

or a few days in the heat, with chaos and ruin all around, and nothing to do but sit in anger and frustration.

Until someone handy comes along to take that frustration out on. Happens all the time. Why anyone is surprised at this? I have no idea. Whether it happened in large numbers or not, to deny it's possibility...because they didn't have the motivation or the time...for violence??

I have to agree, this has a racist tone to it. But I think it's a truth that I think was used, and (hopefully) abused and skewed out of proportion. Not racial. Sexual; this is a social problem. Sexual predators, violent torture of our most tender parts. Fun for some, unfortunately, but just don't call it sex, okay? If the body of a woman (or man)is so physically unprepared for sex that it HURTS when sexual contact is forced upon it...it's not sex. Sorry. Screwing someone in tears and screaming, it's not so romantic. But somehow, that doesn't stop it, does it? No. Violence. Thrill. Like jumping out of an airplane. Not sex.

I've heard so many men so ignorant of what rape is, they honestly don't know a woman has as much physical preparation for penetration as he does for the penetrating, and they seem to be completely ignorant of pain.

Like a child, beating a pet. No understanding of the pain of another. Rape gets laughed off, like she just wasn't' in the mood. So sad, the level of misunderstanding, and so common. Know what they say? I swear, I've heard this, wonder how she's sure she's been raped. She had sex...so they wonder how she can say she didn't want to. Honestly. I've heard that. OUr bodies do not have those normal pain sensors in those special places, apparently. It's just an indignity, in those uninformed minds. And rape, being the ugly thing it is, it isn't generally ever explained to these types.

They never learn it's the most painful thing most people deal with in their lives. They never learn a lot of victims are children, and old women. Their aunt, when she was a teenager. Their daughter, one time when they thought she was "sick". They just don't see it, so they think it doesn't happen. They don't see the looks on their own faces when they hear it, and turn away, never ever wanting to face the fact that we live in a society that allows such horrible things. They never want to see, hear, know about victims, and have no knowledge of what the victims go through.

Or what the rest of their lives are like.

To think the violence wouldn't happen against women because they people were too sick, tired or starving? Well, it goes without saying that not ALL the people were sick, tired and starving, and the more energetic of the looters may VERY well have had the energy. And the mindset. To grab him some piece of ass, in a hell-hole, where everyone might die. That type of mindless anger is not only typical...it can practically be statistically predicted.

I'd like to believe it's not true. But I know it is. Sorry guys, it's just a fact. It just, say it with me now...it just happens.

No one's fault though. It just "happens". Unless you deny the event. And then, everything is fine.

Momma went to the store today...and she was never the same when she came back...

just happens

But not in New Orleans. Sure.

This is such a charged issue. I can see why the feds used it for spin, it's great for it. Mix in the racism, and then you can utterly FORGET what this did to so many women, and we can play back and forth about racism we already know exists.

yes, racism is old and ugly. So is violence against women.

but ya know, other nations with other peoples in other countries could be homes for many a minority individual from this land...they'd fit right in, like I would in Germany...but where oh where is the country that doesn't discriminate against women? We're the best, Right here, and our numbers aren't good at all. One in six? Does it matter which demographic I'm in, if I'm so damned likely to be in it just for living here? Being put down as policy, as throughout human history, is that really so different from slavery and racism? Isn't violence the main tool, almost always?

And for women, hasn't it been going on just a LITTLE bit longer?

[whatever4]

101. Unfortunately, the real problem is

that those women thought they were safe in the first place.

Without weapons, they weren't safe at all. As policy.

Else we'd live differently, with more safety measure in place so smaller humans aren't routinely preyed upon by larger humans, at all ages, and in all places, by anyone.

We'd do something about that. Wouldn't we??

Sure. The real tragedy is those women ever thought they were safe in the first place. Sorry gals; you fell for the big lie.

You believed this society and culture was for us.

But it's not.

[NashVegas]

64. Why Do You Think Some Kinks

Bring each other to near-death?

After 9/11 there were a lot of theories going around about terror sex, why people were suddenly so promiscuous in the wake of that disaster. You disagreed with most of them.

The most common explanation was that terror sex was a way to fight against death. That was the most sophisticated analysis. Another theory was that fear morphs into sexual excitement, that the two things are close on the spectrum. In my view, neither of those explanations go very deep. What I argued was that there were a couple of things going on: One, it's safer to get turned on after a catastrophe. The paradox is that external danger can increase internal safety. People think they've got nothing to lose. The rules don't apply. You don't have to worry about being rejected, and you don't have to worry about rejecting.

So catastrophes like 9/11 are actually sort of a turn-on?

Yes, my feeling is that when the social rules break down, it frees people up from the internal reflection of those social rules. In a time of disaster, what does it matter? It's not that we're fighting against existential fears of death, it's that since we could die tomorrow, we don't have to worry about hurting each other. You can let it all hang out.

http://www.salon.com/sex/feature/2002/01/30/arousal/index2.html

Fear of death can bring on a physical response in the sexual excitement arena. This is not something rational. The above passage does not account for rapes. But. You take a group of people, many of whom have lived their lives in poverty. These are not model homes, and some of these people may have grown up around violence. These tales of rape don't surprise me in the least.

[Colorado Blue]

91. Rape isn't about sexual gratification, and it often occurs

when people are under extreme stress - in war and disaster zones. These things happen, they're tragic and can occur anywhere, among any group of people. The fact is, our sense of "reality" is actually pretty fragile and under enough stress any one of us can behave abnormally. It isn't racist to report it or discuss it when/if it happens. It IS racist to deny aid and comfort to victims of violent crime, whoever or wherever they might be.

[moc]

22. My husband spoke to a doc who was in the dome; said they're hiding bodies

My husband has volunteered several times at the Dallas Convention Center as a crisis mental health counselor. He told me that on Saturday, he had a conversation with a physician who was part of the Red Cross Disaster Response team. The fellow has been in the Astrodome. He said that National Guard are keeping the media away from certain places.

Read that very carefully.

The National Guard is censoring the information we are receiving from New Orleans

Anyone who wonders if we've become a fascist state can stop wondering.

[Chicago Democrat]

33. ED SCHULTZ "embedded" with National Guard.

Thinks they are wonderful and is stroking egos (esp his own)

[dooner]

24. I believeDonna Brazil said on CNN

that one of her relatives was raped. That's what I heard her say. Until I heard that, I had been also been thinking that it was just a rumor.

[Tomee450]

32. I don't doubt

that violence might have occurred, but violence occurs every day all over this country. I just believe that their have been lies and distortions to make it appear that black people have gone wild. Why the emphasis on the violence when that is a common occurrence in this society. People are killing each other when there is no tragedy on this scale. I heard several reporters say that most people were not misbehaving at all but sitting calmly waiting for someone to help them. As I said previously, I'll bet an investigation will reveal that a lot of reports are untrue. I strongly doubt reports of widespread violence. If that is the case why haven't any of the reporters been raped and killed and had their equipment stolen.

[stickdog]

44. Post a fucking link about this then. Otherwise you are simply

spreading bullshit racist and/or classist rumors.

[Judi Lynn]

60. It would be appropriate if you indicated the program and the day

you heard this, because you know a transcript will be needed to verify this.

Lotsa DU'ers would be very interested in knowing how Donna Brazile's relatives are faring.

[dooner]

83. Donna Brazile was on CNN on Monday

She was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on the "Situation Room".

However, I don't have TIVO, didn't tape the program, and am not going to buy a transcript to prove something I heard her say. As you may know, Donna Brazile is from New Orleans. She was concerned about her missing sister, who was located by someone who saw the CNN program, the next day. The rape she mentioned during the interview was regarding a family member, I believe she said a cousin. (see links below about Brazile on CNN, but they do not include reference to rape)

I don't think it's very smart to just assume everybody is making stuff about about serious crime in New Orleans during this disaster. I do not think that a small group of deranged losers who POSSIBLY committed horrible crimes during this ordeal is an insult to the huge majority of citizens who were just trying to survive. Loser criminals are loser criminals. That's all they are, and everybody knows it. I'm much more concerned about the victims of the flooding and the failure to provide for their health and safety more than anything else. I could give a crap about a few low life criminals.

Story about finding sister after Brazile's emotional plea on CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/06/brazile.rescue/index.html

Link to Blitzer's "situation room" (maybe somebody else can find a transcript)
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room/

[Psephos]

78. Donna Brazile used CNN to get authorities to go check on her family

Too bad the rest of the citizenry doesn't have access to the same inducements on behalf of their loved ones.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/06/brazile.rescue/

Rank hath its privileges. I like Brazile, but it's hard to square this exploitation of position with egalitarian politics. "At Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

Politics aside, I'm very glad her sister is safe.

Peace.

[mom cat]

25. Many of these stories were to distract from Bush failures. I am

sure that some very bad behavioh occurred, but probably much less than what was reported.

[MalibuChloe]

26. I've thought it was pure racism from the beginning...

Oh look, there's a bunch of black people - they must be committing rape!

:eyes:

[barb162]

66. There's still white people in that city too and they just as easily

could have (are ) committed crimes. When I see stories like this, I don't think black or white race, I just think of damned sociopaths taking advantage of the situation.

[PeacePal]

28. An ice storm sent many in my city to conv'n centers, and some

people remained in their homes without heat or water for days rather than go there, because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to protect their children.

This would be the over-riding fear of all parents at the Superdome - how do I protect my children, what will happen if I fall asleep?

I think it's likely that overheard stories and sharing of fears simply started horrible rumors within the SuperDome. I've wondered if that wasn't the case since the beginning.

I've also noted to Repugs that in any major city, over a course of 6 days there are bound to be rapes and, quite possibly, murders. Does that make the citizens of New York, Des Moines, or Chatanooga ALL criminals and thugs.

Jeesh!

[snot]

31. This is IMPORTANT

They've done all they could that might have been calculated to provoke violence, while using alleged violence as excuse to keep other folks out and to justify delays in delivery of help and sending in armed military (rather than N.G.)

In similar vein, I also saw a post, though don't have it here, where the head of the FAA for the N.O. area was waying that notwithstanding claims of gun firings at rescue aircraft, she had not had one single, solitary report from any aircraft of any such firing.

[iverglas]

36. it absolutely is

Obsessively distrustful of government as USAmericans pride themselves on being, governments have jobs.

Their fundamental job is to PROTECT PEOPLE. From hurricanes, from floods, and from the very real people who take advantage of every opportunity, including hurricanes and floods and the disorder that ensues, to victimize other people.

Acknowledging that such victimizing took place is NOT blaming the victims. It is simply recognizing one more kind of victimization that they were compelled to endure without protection.

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. Babies with slit throats? Sounds like a neocon-planted rumor to me.

Through the ages, it's pretty standard to ascribe baby-killing to the enemies you want your tribe to hate. Makes it easier to whip up the hate for something so inhuman as to do something so terrible.

Fear and any scenes of violence in the afflicted south or around the country that they can twist and distort and hype - or fabricate - to scare the rest of the country would be useful to them just as the 9/11 attacks were useful to them.

Here is an article written in Dec 2003 in response to General Tommy Franks' amazing interview, the one in which he said that "one more hit" (like a terrorist attack, but it's looking like the neocons are trying to use Katrina) would be enough for them to suspend the Constitution. This entire article is excellent and prescient, but I'm going to quote the paragraph that especially grabbed my attention.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/07/Columns/From_Tommy_Franks__a_.shtml

It was the Nine Years' War in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World that facilitated the seizure of power by the world reformers who then took control of nearly all human and social development. In 1984, George Orwell described Oceania as in a constant state of war with a changeable enemy who "always represented absolute evil." These inventors of the great dystopias understood the way governments use war and its associative fear and instability to consolidate power. Despotism thrives on insecurity. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs puts safety right behind food, water and sleep. Humans naturally crave stability and are willing to sacrifice values such as liberty in its pursuit.

[Twist_U_Up]

38. on Oprah just now...

there was a family she was interviewing that where staying at the Dome and left because of the violence. They reported that there where rapes,dead bodies and shootings, thats why they left.

But to that families dismay they separated the kids and the family haven't seen nor talked with them since. Amazing

[stickdog]

46. Link? Anybody can say anything on daytime talk shows.

I'm sorry, but I'm sick of these reports. They told tens of thousands of poor folks to gather at the Superdome and then abondoned them to die there.

Considering the situation, the people were REMARKABLY well-behaved and the idea that THEIR OWN LAWLESSNESS contributed significantly to the death count is a bunch of crap. THESE VICTIMS WERE BRUTALLY MURDERED BY NEGLIGENCE. They most certainly did NOT commit suicide.

[vincent_vega_lives]

115. NO some did commit suicide.

Some were brutally murdered, and some died of neglect. Putting your head in the sand does not make it go away.

Too bad you were'nt there to witness it for your self.

[1932]

51. Nobody is doubting that people believed there were murders, rapes etc.

The point is whether there actually were.

And I don't doubt there were. But I certainly don't believe the violence that occured justified the sort of coverage it got from the media. And I think it would have helped to contextualize the violence if only the facts were reported and not the rumors, or if the rumors were reported as if they were facts.

[Tomee450]

52. But did they witness all

that violence or did they hear it from someone else. And out of thousands of people in one place, how many rapes....one, two, five etc? I would guess in a city of thousands you might have several rapes a day and also robberies and even a murder. I am not saying that violence did not occur, I just don't believe that it was as widespread as has been reported. I feel this way because of the history of this country of portraying blacks as violent. Why is it that the media makes it appear that only blacks committed violent acts. There were other racial groups in NO, they don't commit crimes?This continuous harping on crime is just another attempt to vilify African Americans and feed the fears of the majority community.There have been white, female reporters reporting from NO, yet none have reported that they have been threatened in any way. I haven't heard that even one male reporter has been assaulted. Just more lies being spread,imo.

[iamjoy]

56. I Think It Happened, But Not As Much

as the media may have made it seem.

Think about it, how often does a murder or rape in one city get reported in another, far away city? Unless the crime is particularly brutal or the papers/media can make a local connection, you are not going to hear about it.

I think it possible there was a slight increase in crime for a couple of reasons:

1) People knew they could get away with it in the chaos. There could have been a few people who only obeyed the law 'cos they were afraid of getting caught.

2) As for fights, stabbings, shootings - I think fear and suffering had tempers frayed. As an example, normally when some one bumps into you and doesn't apologize, you just think "what an ass" and go about your business. Or maybe you say something politely and the person apologizes. Or maybe they don't. The point is, eventually, one of you just decides it isn't worth it and backs down. But now, imagine the climate in New Orleans post Katrina. People are hot, grumpy, hungry, thirsty, tired and traumatized. Easy to see how a minor incident could escalate into a fight, maybe a fatal one.

But, not the extent the media made it sound.

[iverglas]

58. think about it from a better perspective

*IF* people who were trapped in New Orleans in the desperate conditions that existed there were being victimized by violent criminals, their stories deserve to be told and not suppressed. If such things happened to them, they were victims -- not just of the people who committed the acts, but very apparently of the lack of concern about their well-being exhibited by their government.

If they were being victimized in this way, the question is whether this could have been prevented if their society had fulfilled its duty to protect them.

SOME people who report these accounts undoubtedly seek to portray the disadvantaged African-American population of the area as violent and criminal.

OTHER people who report such accounts -- believing them to be true -- are in fact seeking to draw attention to yet another way that the victims were victimized and denied protection -- arguably *because* they are disadvantaged and African-American.

Criminal victimization is something that happens to people who are already victims of conflict or natural disasters. Everybody knows this, just as everybody knew what was likely to happen to the physical elements of the city of New Orleans. Nobody did anything to prevent the physical destruction -- and it seems that nobody was doing anything to prevent the criminal victimization.

IF these events occurred, they are not evidence of any descent into savagery on the part of the people who were victims of the natural and human factors that led to the disaster. It is evidence that those people not only were not protected from the disaster itself, but also were not protected from the entirely foreseeable exploitation of that disaster by the few who take every opportunity to victimize other people.

There have been white, female reporters reporting from NO, yet none have reported that they have been threatened in any way. I haven't heard that even one male reporter has been assaulted.

And again -- that is not evidence that no one is victimized, it is consistent with the unpleasant fact that it is the most vulnerable, *not* the richest or most privileged, who are most victimized.

Saying that poor African-Americans are victims of crimes committed by African-Americans is not a slur on African-Americans; it is a condemnation of the society that does not offer African-Americans, who are on average, and certainly in the New Orleans situation, more vulnerable to such victimization, the same protections that it offers others.

There may well be evidence come to light of horrible things having happened. This should surprise no one -- horrible things happen every day, and are to be expected in crisis situations, not because good people become bad people in crises, but because bad people do not become good people in crises.

If this happens, they won't be capable of being explained away by allegations of racism in the media, or at DU. But they WILL provide further evidence of the abandonment of the victims of Katrina, if it is shown that their society failed to come to their aid when it could have.

[NorthernSpy]

77. for gawd's sake, try a little reality!

Saying that poor African-Americans are victims of crimes committed by African-Americans is not a slur on African-Americans; it is a condemnation of the society that does not offer African-Americans, who are on average, and certainly in the New Orleans situation, more vulnerable to such victimization, the same protections that it offers others."

Yeah, that'll fly. :eyes:

Face facts. These rumor-infused reports of savagery are not, and will not be taken as any sort of "condemnation of the society that does not offer African-Americans, who are on average, and certainly in the New Orleans situation, more vulnerable to such victimization, the same protections that it offers others".

At the moment, the reports are taken as evidence that the refugees don't deserve help, and aren't anyone you'd want to have around. Clearly, the hysteria whipped up by this stuff (largely unsubstantiated, mind you) endangers the survivors yet further -- and at the very moment when they need all the good will they can get.

You're not helping matters. And I suspect you know that. After all, when you lot have finished branding the hurricane victims with the stigma of depravity, you can scold Murrica for permitting the creation of a displaced pariah class of refugees within its borders -- something that a "truly civilized society" (like Canada, naturally) would never dream of allowing, of course...

If this help, then please: no more help.

[Judi Lynn]

80. I'd give anything for skills similar to yours.

I agree with what you just posted 100%. I just lack the ability to focus well enough to have expressed it.

You are exactly on target.

This is an area which is a true wonderland, a garden of delights for sly disruptors, racists, and trolls pretending concern for the disaster victems.

[NorthernSpy]

82. (blush) it's wonderful of you, tho I don't really deserve such praise

Most days, I'm pretty ineffectual. Very occasionally, my brain takes a stab at rising to the occasion, and things become suddenly clear, and then I can act.

What's clear right now: the refugees are in acute peril, and we cannot allow them to become pariahs. I've got that "do or die" feeling about this, and I'm totally going with it.

[iverglas]

87. this is getting a little out of hand

This is an area which is a true wonderland, a garden of delights for sly disruptors, racists, and trolls pretending concern for the disaster victems.

Since you were responding to a post written to (more like about) me, I'd think that your statement referred to me.

I find that really quite incredible, for too many reasons to list.

[iverglas]

95. too late to edit

but for reasons we know, I won't think that. ;)

[iverglas]

86. excuse me

Yeah, that'll fly. :eyes:


So, how's the argument that people stayed behind in New Orleans becauase they had no way of getting out, and not because they're stupid leeches who want the government to do everything for them, going?

Where did I say it would fly? If reason and good faith and decency flew ... well, so would pigs, in the USofA (and yuppers, the world at large, to a significant degree) today.


These rumor-infused reports of savagery


So, is that how we'll be characterizing the testimony of Charmaine Neville, and anyone who doesn't happen to have her public profile?

Not taking at face value reports of what seem to be outlandish goings-on does not mean rejecting credible first-person reports of victimization.

AND vice versa. Accepting credible first-person reports of victimization does not mean taking at face value reports of what seem to be outlandish goings on.


At the moment, the reports are taken as evidence that the refugees don't deserve help

And for centuries, reports of rape were taken as evidence that women were wanton sluts, and reports of wife-beating were taken as evidence that women were inferior. So? What control do *I* have over how reports of anything are taken?

And why should how someone else chooses to characterize anything control whether I acknowledge that it happened?


Clearly, the hysteria whipped up by this stuff (largely unsubstantiated, mind you) endangers the survivors yet further -- and at the very moment when they need all the good will they can get.

What exactly seems to be the problem with demanding (too late now, of course) that survivors be PROTECTED from the violence that occurs when civil society is absent -- and that we all should KNOW occurs when civil society would be absent, and that we would be fools not to expect to occur and acknowledge? And, in my humble submission, we would be indecent not to acknowledge.


You're not helping matters. And I suspect you know that. After all, when you lot have finished branding the hurricane victims with the stigma of depravity,


I'm afraid that if you're going to talk to me like that, the conversation is over. I don't have much to say to people who refer to me as "you lot" and then misrepresent what I say. What I do have to say can't be said here, brief though it would be.

International aid organizations that work with internally displaced persons in other countries, large groups of people living away from their homes in situations where they are vulnerable to everything -- the elements, disease, and victimization by people who exploit opportunities to victimize -- know that victimization occurs. They know that women and children especially need SPECIAL PROTECTION, BECAUSE they are vulnerable to victimization. They know this NOT because the populations they are dealing with are lawless or undeserving or stupid or evil, but because they are composed of INDIVIDUALS, some of whom are vulnerable to victimization and some of whom VICTIMIZE.

Why anyone would think or expect anything different in ANY population is beyond me.

And why anyone would not call for vulnerable members of that population to be PROTECTED, and DENOUNCE the failure to protect them, is even more beyond me.

The hysteria being whipped up undoubtedly endangered survivors even further -- but so did denial of the survivors' reality. And you can own responsibility for that one, if the shoe fits.

Failure to insert a body of people capable of maintaining order into the situation, at the same time as diligently working to remove the victims from the situation, is one more element of the way that these people's society failed them.

That concept may not fly in your Murrika, but that's not my problem. OR THE VICTIMS'.


... you can scold Murrica for permitting the creation of a displaced pariah class of refugees within its borders ...


What fantasy this is about, I have no idea. I have no idea how the US is going to cope with the displaced population, and really not even any suggestions or advice at this point. There are experts in these things, and while I know some of what they say and do, I'm not them. I do know that I should suppress my natural urge to go haul a few of the survivors home with me, because dislocating them from their community and country, and from opportunities to be involved in recovery and rebuilding, would be a bad thing unless absolutely necessary.

Canada does have a couple of displaced communities of our own, as I'm sure you have in mind. Not good things. Quite different from the current situation, but if you want me to beat a few decades of Canadian governments over the head about it for you, I'll be happy to oblige.


-- something that a "truly civilized society" (like Canada, naturally) would never dream of allowing, of course...


Perhaps if you and some others could stop putting words in my mouth, on this point (me having said precisely fuck all about Canada in this respect ever) and a few others ... well, I don't know what might happen, and probably don't care. I would just rather you didn't do it.


If this help, then please: no more help.


But I suppose the search & rescue teams and divers and boatloads of medical supplies will be okay ...

Sheesh, I'm doing exactly what I said donors should never do: use the aid given as a chip in the moral high ground game.

I try to stand in solidarity with victims. All of them.

[NorthernSpy]

93. you don't get it, do you?

First, you might want to have a look at the ADL's collection of anti-refugee slanders:

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=52383


And next, have a glance at this rumor-mongering from the desk of David Duke:

Even after it was shown that 8 and 9 year old little girls and boys were raped and vivisected in the New Orleans Superdome and Convention Center, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., actually called on Americans not to harshly judge wrongdoers: “Who are we to say what law and order should be in this unspeakable environment?”

Whites in New Orleans are Facing Rape and murder at the Hands of Black Mobs
by David Duke

Friday, September 2, 2005

(...)
The chaos, inhumanity, brutality worsens day by day. The government was prepared for mass hunger and thirst. For days before the Hurricane, formal government reports predicted a nightmare scenario of “lake New Orleans.” But the government officials weren’t prepared for the “citizens” to be shooting at rescue helicopters*, police, literally besieging Police stations, mass robbing and raping and murdering of innocent civilians, many of whom came to help. They had expected the citizens to act like human beings, and endure hardship, and take care of themselves and each other the best they could, to pull together in the midst of deprivation and loss.

They were wrong, dead wrong.

Not all the people of New Orleans are acting like savages, but unfortunately there are significant numbers of the African American community behaving that way. Sorry, but I have to call it as it really is and not with some politically correct jargon spouted by too many media reporters and politicians. (...)

When he ran for one of Louisiana's US Senate seats in the early '90s, Duke lost the race, but won 43.7% of the vote -- including an estimated 60% of the white vote. His 1998 run for US Congress went less well for him, but he still ended up with 20% of the vote in a three-way race. All of which suggests that he is not exactly a marginal political figure in Louisiana.

And consider this: some utterly false rumors of refugee mayhem have created a militant, hostile paranoia among whites in cities of refuge such as Lafayette:

The rumors of robberies popped up all over the city. Champagne’s, which is located in the Saint Streets area, was rumored to have been robbed, as was Lafayette Shooters, another sporting goods store. The Saint Street area itself was rumored to have been the site of several residential burglaries. There was rumors of a riot at the intersection of Bertrand and Congress. That area was also rumored to be the site of a carjacking and of another shooting.

Lafayette Shooters received some 1,000 calls within two hours regarding the rumor and has now also nearly sold out of firearms.

“It is definitely false,” said Doug Brown, Lafayette Shooter’s store manager. “It’s really somebody’s idea of a sick joke I guess.”

Later, rumors began to circulate about an armed robbery at Albertsons. It took only a short period of time before the armed robbery was rumored to be a homicide. Earlier rumors of crime have involved imaginary thefts or burlgaries at Hooters, Wal-Mart and homes in the Saint streets area near the Cajundome.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050902/NEWS05/509020343

I repeat: by promoting unsubstantiated reports of survivor savagery, you are endangering the refugees. Please stop. If you're not prepared to understand the potentialities of this situation, then I beg you to leave it alone.

You say that you, "try to stand in solidarity with victims... all of them". That is a noble sentiment, to be sure. But your need to be right -- or even 'in the right' as you perceive it -- must come second to the need of the refugees to avoid the fatal stigma that is being thrust upon them.




* The rumor of aid helicopters taking fire seems to have originated with one Lt. Cmdr Cheri Ben lesan of the US Coast Guard. In fact, according to the FAA, there are no such reports of aircraft coming uder fire.

[Colorado Blue]

94. Amen. nt

[goodhue]

41. kick

[Nia Zuri]

53. Just like Saddam's "rape rooms" or "babies thrown from incubators in

Make them look like savages...Unspeakable acts, gang raping a five year old, bludgeoning an old person to death. I can almost see Rove creating his "four pronged strategy". 1) Deflect blame to local and state level 2) Depict victims as cause of their own situation..."why didn't they get out" 3) Place * in hero scenarios e.g. arrival of aid coincides with his visit to NO 4)Depict vistims as brutal savages unworthy of saving...scare the hell out of white America...play on racism. Am I missing anything?

[RaleighNCDUer]

131. How about

makes a good argument for not letting those criminals cross the bridge/leave the Astrodome/find their own way out of the flood zone...

Can't have all those dangerous people wandering around willy-nilly.

Above all, keep the survivors penned up and away from reporters who can tell the truth about the monumental fuckup.

[shireen]

54. PLEASE READ THIS and draw your own conclusions

Article:
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/090405/new_soul001.shtml

Video:
http://www.chittlincircuit.com/Article73.phtml

[iverglas]

59. READ AND WATCH -- for those who don't click, some snippets

From the first:

A singer, Neville is a member of one of New Orleans' great musical families. Her father, Charles Neville, performs with uncles Aaron, Art and Cyril in the Neville Brothers band. She estimates the musicians in her family number well over 100. In New Orleans, she said, every neighborhood and every family has musicians.

... Just back from a visit to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center on Saturday afternoon, Neville was cut, bruised and a little despondent. Among the horrible things she'd seen last week, she said, was the rape of old women, girls and boys.

"Some people hate themselves, so they hate everybody else. Those people were not true New Orleanians," she said.

But Neville saw heroes, too. "There are many, many heroes that have come out this. People talking about what I did. I didn't do nothing.
Everybody did something."

Neville said that she, too, was raped during those chaotic days. "What he took from me was nothing, because he can't take my spirit, he can't take my soul. My soul is New Orleans."

As I've been saying -- to deny what happened to her, to respond to her as if she is vilifying the African-American community of New Orleans, is to victimize her a *fourth* time. First the hurricane, then the abandonment by her society, then the violence committed against her, then denial of her experience as a victim.

The second link is to video of Neville talking about her experience.

WATCH IT.

And call her a racist anyone who will.

This deserves its own thread.

[whatever4]

102. Oh sweet Jesus, she was raped too?

Okay guys, I'm starting to hate men again. Time to step up.

GOD DAMNIT all, even she was raped, and saw children...

Yeah. Our culture. Almost teenager status, almost, but not very grown up at all. Our society.

I'm not sure which is worse, the rapes, or the attitudes toward it "not really happening, to that many people...not really", when this woman of some renown has said it's true, and others as well. Like with the torture in those prisons. But we're well aquinted with THIS type of torture.

Christ on a stick. Deny it at your peril.

That, or have the nerve endings to your bottom half severed. Might be better. Epidurals for all the ladies. I'm so fucking disqusted.

BASTARDS

[NorthernSpy]

105. you're "starting to hate men again"?

Righty-o! Let's ALL start hating b... er, men again!


Look -- any of these various rumors and claims and accusations may ultimately prove true, or false, or some of both. But in the meantime, I guess I'm just one of those hard-hearts who'd rather not take too much of anything on anybody's say so.

[digno dave]

136. "I'm starting to hate men again." Care to rephrase tHAt or do you stand by

IT?

[iverglas]

142. so ... how's the MSM spin on the Charmaine Neville story going?

As we know, she has spoken of being sexually assaulted, of seeing people killed, of seeing people shoot at helicopters ... all those things that we must not think happened in the New Orleans disaster zone unless we have DNA evidence and eyewitnesses ... oops, we have one ... but you know what I mean.

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001057076

Charmaine Neville's New Orleans Story: Horror and Heroism

By Greg Mitchell

(September 07, 2005) -- Every time you think you've heard it all about the horrors of New Orleans in the past week, something like Charmaine Neville's experience comes around the bend, or the blog, and smacks you over the head like a club. It's a story of dead babies in the water, alligators eating people, heroism (she commandeered a bus to save dozens) and despair (she was raped).

... It is just one more tale -- although surely one of the most horrific -- that everyone ought to ponder in considering exactly which officials and agencies failed in their rescue and relief responsibilities, from the top down, in a depraved disregard for life.

The source where I found that reproduced is Editor & Publisher, which seems to be a trade publication:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/index.jsp
"America's oldest journal covering the newspaper industry"

It just isn't looking like victim-blaming or stigmatizing or slandering or any such-like thing.

[iverglas]

147. and how's it playing in the words of progressives?

http://www.ww4report.com/node/1051

New Orleans: ethnic cleansing revisited

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Thu, 09/08/2005 - 04:50.

A Sept. 5 interview with Charmaine Neville, a member of the third generation of New Orleans' legendary Neville musical family, contains a first-hand account of how she helped many of her neighbors escape the stricken city—first with a flat boat, then with a commandeered bus, and with no help from the authorities. "Alligators were eating people. They had all kinds of stuff in the water. They had babies floating in the water. We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people... e couldn't understand why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing them but they never would stop and help us." She sheds some light on the reports of residents firing on rescue helicopters: ...

Buffalo-based columnist Michael I. Niman notes Sept. 8 how the feds effectively shut down citizen self-help rescue efforts such as Neville's: ...

There appears to have been an overt policy of racial and class discrimination in the rescue effort. ...

Cripes, even over at Lew Rockwell's joint
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/higgs-be1.html
the worst they're doing with Neville's story is using it to press the libertarian agenda of rely on the government for nothing, while urging everyone to love his/her fellow man <sic> rather than blame the gummint.

[Sarojin]

62. READ THIS and WATCH THIS

and then post it everywhere.

Another site has it:
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/001134.html

And at least one news channel:
http://www.wafb.com/global/video/popup/pop_player.asp?clipid1=516003&at1=News+-+Special+Coverage&vt1=v&h1=Charmaine+Neville:+New+Orleans+Evacuee&d1=363667&redirUrl=www.wafb.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&playerVersion=1&rnd=2850062

[iverglas]

63. a better link to video - Charmaine Neville's account of violence

Judy Lynn provided this in the thread I started to get this testimony wider exposure:

http://www.wafb.com/global/video/popup/pop_player.asp?ClipID1=516003&h1=Charmaine%20Neville%3A%20New%20Orleans%20Evacuee&vt1=v&at1=News%20-%20Special%20Coverage&d1=363667&LaunchPageAdTag=Business&activePane=info&playerVersion=1&rnd=62302499

Don't use old netscape; I tried. ;)

The video is about 5 minutes.

[barb162]

67. geez, that poor woman

[marshall]

70. Will she be believed?

Too bad she didn't have a camera. Maybe she wouldn't be doubted as a liar or delusional. I hope it's not as bad as some of the more hyperbolic people are saying, but I don't see it doing any good to go the other extreme and deny the mayhem happened. We have got to learn from this.

[NorthernSpy]

71. only if there's actual evidence to prove her claims

What I and others have been saying is this: we've never claimed that New Orleans is free of crime and violence; however, we insist that hearsay should never have been reported as established fact, and that shocking claims require solid evidence before we accept them as true.

Seriously -- no matter how bad a situation is, hysteria can only make it worse. Don't you agree?

[marshall]

72. I agree,

A middle ground should be followed--don't jump on a bandwagon of hysteria but don't dismiss them as frauds or delusional. The backpackers' stories in the British and Australian papers gave their names, they weren't just some unknown person.

I don't think we will learn anything from this situation if we don't realize that some people were doing very bad things and whatever plans we come up with to handle such a situation in the future should take that into account. Otherwise we just repeat the same mistake.

[Judi Lynn]

74. It's also hard to imagine how anyone experiences reality after going

for days without sleep, wading through deep dirty water, after having nearly being killed when it arrived, losing track of loved ones, etc., etc.

Who would be capable of both understanding what was happening after living in dark, with no lights, no way of knowing where the aligators were and weren't, etc.

I think we're being hijacked by some people who are wanting us to get completely befuddled by emotionalism, and lose touch with the facts we DO KNOW OURSELVES: This could NOT have happened if _Bush had not cut funding to the levee projects, wetlands, etc. New Orleans desperately needed, EVERY YEAR he's been in office.

After that, it could not have happened like this if he had meant to treat these people the way he treated the people in Florida after their 4 hurricanes.

He was supposed to be the leader of the entire country, the one directing the traffic. He directed, alright: all our resources into the pockets of his "base."

[NorthernSpy]

79. what infuriates me is that thousands of people lie dead...

... because they were essentially left behind to drown, and yet the only "real" victims that the media want to talk about are a far smaller number alleged to have been slaughtered in some orgy of "black on black violence".

Me, I've never claimed that no allegation of murder and mayhem could be true. However, I will say that I expect that the claims we've heard breathlessly repeated far and wide HAVE been quite overblown. I just hope that any emerging consensus against hysteria on the part of the press does not come too late.

[Judi Lynn]

81. It is odd, isn't it, that those stories have become somewhat muted

What the hell could they have been thinking? They went berserk, and shame on them.

They could so easily channel that energy in becoming agents of the responsible, honest communication we need and expect.

Anything less is brutish, and criminal.

[Judi Lynn]

84. Back too late to edit: I was speaking of the great disseminators

of chaos, the cable news networks, and most newspapers.

They need to do some deep soul-searching after their vacation from responsibility.

[iverglas]

85. I'm not sure I understand you

The account of a witness (whether victim or bystander) is "actual evidence". What "actual evidence" do most women have of sexual assualt? People's words are evidence, if they are assessed by the people hearing them and regarded as credible. That is in fact what most evidence in courts consists of: people's words. And when I was sexually assaulted, there was little other than my words to "prove" it. I was lucky that I no longer needed the words of three men to corroborate them, and that the jury was not instructed that convicting on my word alone was unsafe (as was actually required at the time, but did not apply in my case because, for instance, I had made a "recent complaint" -- ran to a farmhouse and banged on the door and announced to strangers that I had been raped -- that was regarded as corroborating my words).

If you'd said that a woman assaulted while jogging in a park, or by her date, would be believed by society, or by a judge or jury, "only if there's actual evidence to prove her claims", then I'd understand you to be commenting on the difficulty that women have persuading their societies and peers and the authorities of their societies that they have been victimized. I'm not sure that this is what you're saying here.

There's going to be a problem getting "actual evidence" of anything in New Orleans. Did the people whose bodies are still in the water drown when the flood first occurred, or when they gave up on being rescued and killed themselves by jumping into the water?

If there are people who killed themselves in despair, should those deaths be regarded as suicides for which those people are responsible -- or should they be laid at the doorstep of the people who FAILED TO PROTECT them by rescuing them from exposure, thirst and illness?

If there are people who were assaulted and even killed by other individuals in the disorder that always prevails in a disaster zone, should those events be laid at the doorstep of the community that was abandoned by its society, or of the people who FAILED TO PROTECT them by rescuing them from that disorder?

I know what my answer is. And it stands no matter how many women claim to have been assaulted or how many homicides are claimed to have occurred. The responsibility lies with the people who FAILED TO PROTECT all of them.

Because we KNOW that these things happen in conflict and disaster zones. We KNOW that women and children in refugee camps in Africa are victimized and exploited. We don't condemn their race or society because of it -- WE don't. We acknowledge that these things happen, and we take responsibility for protecting the potential victims.

I UNDERSTAND that attempts have been made to shift focus from the enormous reality of the disaster and the victims to this one small aspect of that reality, and to shift blame to the victimized community, in this situation. But for cripes' sake, I EXPECT that to happen. It happens when there is discussion of crime rates in African-American communities, of sexual victimization of vulnerable women, of any other situation in which vulnerable populations whom someone else despises are victimized. They are turned into nameless, faceless masses who all somehow deserve what they get, and the mechanisms for shifting the focus and blame are many and complex and varied. What did YOU expect??

I don't see this situation as any different from the blaming of people with no access to transportation for not leaving the disaster zone before disaster hit. People have been allowed to suffer when they could have been protected. They could have been given water so they didn't kill themselves, they could have been helicoptered out so they didn't die, and they could have been protected in various ways from being assaulted or killed.

To demand that a poor black woman (Charmaine Neville having the advantage of not being poor, and having a "name") who was assaulted in New Orleans have *proof* of the assault that would very probably not even be available to a rich white man robbed while jogging in Central Park, before believing her (which is of course different from convicting an individual of the assault, but what we're talking about here is believing), would just be more of the treatment as less than human -- not worthy of belief or justice -- that vulnerable victims, like women and children, have always experienced.

[barb162]

96. Very well said

What I am seeing here ( and some other threads) is an attempt by some posters to deny serious criminal acts have happened. All in the name of that big bugaboo word racism. Comments such as: is it hearsay, is there evidence, how many witnesses were there, were the witnesses and/ or victims hallucinating, etc., lead me to view this as an attempt to deny criminal acts were being committed. So if a woman says she was raped and the rapists were black, then some gotta find a way of denying it. The fact the woman is suffering and went through damned hell by being raped, well, tough shit, that woman deserves no sympathy, because umm, you know, she's making a racist charge.

[NorthernSpy]

99. and the ethnic cleansing rumors? do you grant those automatic credence?

You wrote:

What I am seeing here ( and some other threads) is an attempt by some posters to deny serious criminal acts have happened. All in the name of that big bugaboo word racism. Comments such as: is it hearsay, is there evidence, how many witnesses were there, were the witnesses and/ or victims hallucinating, etc., lead me to view this as an attempt to deny criminal acts were being committed. So if a woman says she was raped and the rapists were black, then some gotta find a way of denying it. The fact the woman is suffering and went through damned hell by being raped, well, tough shit, that woman deserves no sympathy, because umm, you know, she's making a racist charge.

Well, how about trying this on for size:

What I am seeing here ( and some other threads) is an attempt by some posters to deny that serious acts of ethnic cleansing have happened. All in the name of that big bugaboo word genocide. Comments such as: is it hearsay, is there evidence, how many witnesses were there, were the witnesses and/ or victims hallucinating, etc., lead me to view this as an attempt to deny acts of ethnic cleansing were being committed. So if a black woman says her people were deliberately killed and driven out of New Orleans and the perpetrators were white, then some gotta find a way of denying it. The fact the black people are suffering and went through damned hell by being flooded out with deliberate levee breaches and starved when the authorities did not send aid for days, well, tough shit, those people deserve no sympathy, because umm, you know, they're making a charge of ethnic cleansing by whites.

Do you see what I mean?

Do you accept ALL the rumors that are floating around now? Or just some of them? And how do you choose the ones you accept at face value, and the ones you dismiss out of hand?

I repeat: all these "reports", unless thoroughly substantiated, should not be accepted as though they were established fact.

[barb162]

103. Instead of talking about genocide

how about dealing with what you saw on the TV screen hour after hour. I did in fact see looters. Maybe you didn't. Some were looting for food and water, but others I saw were carrying and pushing carts loaded with non food items. It became a free-for-all in many cases and there was no civil order in areas of the city according to the mayor and police. Fact. It is not racism, it is not genocide, etc., for reporters to report what they saw or for people to state what they experienced, etc. And when a felony is committed against an individual, I don't care what the hell color that person is or the color of the perpetrator. The fact is, when a woman is raped or a kid or adult is killed or injured, that's serious. Color is NOT the issue of the victim or the person committing the crime! Crime is the issue... the rights (and lives) of people were violated by other people.

How you can write about ethnic cleansing when a person of one ethnic group is assaulted by another person of the same group is way beyond me. Don't try to make this into something it isn't. How many people have to say serious crimes were being committed before you come to the conclusion that they aren't ALL lying?

If you wish to believe "all these "reports", unless thoroughly substantiated, should not be accepted as though they were established fact" that's your choice. I won't be agreeing with you one bit as it is my choice.

[NorthernSpy]

104. you're dodging!

Just as there are rumors concerning survivor savagery, there are rumors concerning ethnic cleansing. What I wanted to know was why you accept as fact rumors from the first category, but dismiss out of hand rumors from the second category. Stolen television sets really don't seem like anything that one could reasonably construe as evidence for the ultra-hysterical 'savage survivor' rumors.

How you can write about ethnic cleansing when a person of one ethnic group is assaulted by another person of the same group is way beyond me. Don't try to make this into something it isn't. How many people have to say serious crimes were being committed before you come to the conclusion that they aren't ALL lying?

Well, how many people have to claim ethnic cleansing before you come to the conclusion that they aren't all just talking shit? Those rumors about deliberate levee breaches flooding black neighborhoods to spare white ones really do exist, and there really are people who believe them. I'm just pointing that out; it's purely neutral reporting on my part. I do not endorse as fact any of these unsubstantiated claims.

So... do you believe the ethnic cleansing rumors as much as you believe the savage survivor rumors? And if not, why not?

[barb162]

106. First, I'm dodging nothing. Second, I don't even know what

you mean by the term "survivor savagery." That's a new one on me and is there some connotation attached to that or what? Look, there are survivors who just made it out of there with sheer luck and determination. Some survivors helped others get out of there, some truly good people. Some people were helping each other out all damn day to where they could barely walk out of the water themselves. And some survivors preyed on others, the damned sociopaths. Now what the hell is this about ethnic cleansing and genocide? You are putting something in the stories of these survivors that just isn't there.

"Those rumors about deliberate levee breaches flooding black neighborhoods to spare white ones really do exist, and there really are people who believe them. I'm just pointing that out; it's purely neutral reporting on my part. I do not endorse as fact any of these unsubstantiated claims."
Answer: You know what? Areas that didn't flood were HIGHER in elevation. Science. Water flows downhill re gravity. So, the French Quarter didn't flood as it's the highest area of the city. I cannot figure where you are even going with this stuff. When Pontchartrain overflowed and broke a levee, I think it's because there was a 29 foot fucking high storm surge with lots of rain to boot and it flooded the lowest areas of the city. So, when white areas of Gulport and Biloxi were hit by this same enormous storm surge, as they were, is that GENOCIDE and ETHNIC CLEANSING too? You need to rethink what you are writing because a lot of people were hurt and killed by this hurricane and it had nada to do with race.

I think you and I should call it a day. Believe whatever you want.

[NorthernSpy]

108. yes, dodging is exactly what you are doing

You are insisting upon evidence for one bunch of rumors, while accepting the other bunch on people's say so. And, it seems, you choose to leave the reason for that to my imagination.

You wrote:

So, when white areas of Gulport and Biloxi were hit by this same enormous storm surge, as they were, is that GENOCIDE and ETHNIC CLEANSING too? You need to rethink what you are writing because a lot of people were hurt and killed by this hurricane and it had nada to do with race.

No one claims that where the hurricane hit had anything to do with any person's will to commit genocide. The point is that those who believe the ethnic cleansing rumors insist that in New Orleans, there were planned, deliberate levee breaches in black neighborhoods to relieve the pressure on the levees that protect white neighborhoods. It's true that water seeks the lowest spots, but if a levee breaks above high ground, then the high ground will indeed get flooded -- even if the flood waters eventually drain away to lower ground.

Mind you, these rumors about deliberate levee breaches in southeastern Louisiana are nothing new: such things have been alleged for decades -- both by blacks in New Orleans, and by whites and blacks in parishes surrounding New Orleans (who have claimed for years they have been deliberately flooded in the past in order to save the city during storms). As I've also said, I am merely offering up a bit a neutral reporting. These are more of the many unsubstantiated rumors that have come to life of late.

My bottom line: we should not make the mistake of accepting as established fact anything that is not actually established fact.

[iverglas]

112. NS, your initial analogy was not at all clear

I get it now. I didn't at first. If I had heard someone claiming that levees were deliberately breached in order to kill certain populations, I had not filed the claim away in memory as something worth a moment's thought, and so I just didn't get the gist of what you were saying, as I suspect barb162 didn't. You're accusing someone of dodging something she just didn't grasp, and that looked like a total red herring.

You have attempted to draw an analogy between

- something for which there is NO evidence, and that is contrary to what a rational and informed person would expect to happen in the world s/he is familiar with (which doesn't mean it didn't happen or won't happen) -- the deliberately caused deaths of thousands of people in a city of the US

and

- something for which THERE IS EVIDENCE, and that is completely consistent with what a rational and informed person would expect to happen in the world s/he is familiar with (which doesn't mean it did happen) -- the victimization of individuals made vulnerable by natural disaster and abandonment by civil society

The two are not analagous.

We really do have to assess the credibility of theories and reports we hear based on what we know to be true and also what we believe to be reasonable to expect. There are few things in the world that are "proved" to us, but we muddle along notwithstanding, based on past experience, otherwise acquired knowledge, etc. If we claim something to be true, rather than just believing it ourselves, we do need to provide a basis for believing it -- but the everyday world at large just not operate on the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or proof only by physical evidence, or proof only by video record, or any other formal arbitrary standard.

You appear to be insisting that it is not reasonable to expect that some people in disaster situations will victimize others. I have no idea what you might base this denial on -- but I do know that there is a very good basis for what *I* and many others expect.

You also appear to insisting that *none* of the reports of victimization are credible, and again, I have no idea what you base this denial on. I wish you would answer the question: have you watched the tape of Charmaine Neville's report of her experience? Do you find it non-credible? If so, on what do you base that finding?

Are you dodging?


My bottom line: we should not make the mistake of accepting as established fact anything that is not actually established fact.

Perhaps we can all haul out our epistemology textbooks and have a rousing discussion of how we know what we know. And then, of the degree of certainty that we must have about our knowledge for certain purposes.

I see no one suggesting that acknowledging that we do have knowledge of victimization happening in the disaster area means asserting that we have sufficiently certain knowledge to convict and punish individuals for crimes, for instance.

I also see absolutely no one here suggesting that acknowledging that we have that knowledge means accepting that it was tolerable to abandon any victims.

But I'd like to point out that whether *you* choose to regard something as "established fact" really is not determinative of whether it happened.

And since you don't seem to want to answer the question about whether it is an established fact that Charlaine Neville was attacked -- you have implied that you don't, since no one has offered corroboration -- I can't even know what standard you are applying in making your own determination. Perhaps if *you* didn't see it, it didn't happen? If ten people proved not to be suffering any ill effects from thirst or exposure swear that they saw it, it happened? Will there need to be video? Fingerprints? DNA?

NO ONE is attempting to try or convict or punish any individual, or any group, or calling for that to be done to anyone. No proof beyond a reasonable doubt is needed. Standards like that are imposed to avoid the risk of an innocent person being punished -- not to prohibit us from acknowledging what is in front of our eyes.

If there is a risk of an innocent person being punished -- if reports such as these made it more likely that less effort would be made to rescue people who then suffered or died -- that risk is not caused by anyone acknowledging obvious facts. It is caused by the fact that some people will use ANY excuse -- be it the allegation that crimes were being committed or the allegation that the people needing rescuing were the authors of their own misfortune by failing to leave the area -- to achieve that end.

I wonder why you don't deny that people failed to leave the area before the disaster, in order to head off any racist allegations that the victims were stupid and lazy. Then there would be no excuse for not rescuing them; one would not be needed, because they just wouldn't be there. After all, if there were no proof they were there, we should deny that they're there, right? I guess they're just lucky that somebody got video of them to *prove* that they were there ... although hell, somebody could just have pre-staged all those shoots, to portray African-Americans as people too stupid and lazy to escape an impending disaster, to make future hay of ...

The very violence that the hurricane and flood victims were being victimized by was used as an excuse not to protect them from it and everything else happening to them. That is unspeakably despicable, and I just don't see the problem in saying that.

[barb162]

117. NOT!

When several people who were in the Superdome say the place was a hellhole with rapes, other crimes, filth all over, etc., I don't need a judge and jury to substantiate that for me. Nor do I need to see the inside of the place for myself. I think I can trust a few different reporters from a few credible news sources. Same thing with the reports of crimes around the city.

Also I have seen one body floating in the water on the news although I know there is now a blackout on reporters showing footage of that. But the reporters are saying they have seen many bodies floating in the water. I believe there are many bodies floating in the water. You probably don't re "established fact."

Fine.

[NorthernSpy]

119. please do see my post...

... on the reliability of eyewtinesses.

[barb162]

120. I meant to add I see no ethnic cleansing or genocide here

zero, nada, nyet

I see gross incompetence by the federal administration people in their untimely response to this disaster. "Late" is not the word to describe their getting their tails over to the disaster areas. I also see blame in the city, parish/county and state governments for not having shelters that hold more people and for not having food and water in the shelters. I see a lot of fault by government for letting people live in areas right on beaches or close to levees, but the governments are greedy for those tax dollars. I see a lot of blame for people who want to live on beaches and then want the rest of the country to absorb the extended costs of their rebuilding in the exact same spot...until another hurricane comes along and destroys their houses again. (The governments should be forcibly buying these lands/properties now and turning these areas into national seashores). I could go on and on with comments on this hurricane, but I certainly see no genocide or ethnic cleansing.

[NorthernSpy]

123. have you heard what the Army Corps of Engineers' project manager...

... on the scene has said about the possible cause of the first levee breach?

The first levee to give way as the hurricane blew through the area was the Industrial Canal Levee. This is the levee that was supposed to protect the predominately black 9th Ward. Water had been spilling over the top of the levee for a while, but the structure had been holding together. After the levee breach, the 9th Ward flooded very quickly -- hours before other parts of the city went under. Loss of life in the Ward was catastrophic.

Current thinking from the Army Corps of Engineers is that a sizable barge rammed the levee, and that this is what caused the levee to break. You can understand, can't you, why people who were flooded out in the 9th wonder just how that barge came to be left in a position to damage their levee?


From a mainstream source:

A loose barge may have caused a large breach in the east side of the Industrial Canal floodwall that accelerated Hurricane Katrina's rising floodwaters in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and adjacent St. Bernard Parish, Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi said yesterday.

Naomi said the barge was found on the land side of the floodwall, leading Army Corps officials to believe it could have crashed through the wall and sent a huge amount of water -- which was already pouring over the top -- into the neighborhoods immediately downriver.

"We have some pictures that show this very large barge inside the protected area. It had to go through the breach," Naomi said. "The opening is a little bit wider than the barge itself. One would think it's the barge that did it."


If it did strike the floodwall, Naomi said, the barge would have "precipitated a tremendous collapse" that would have quickly flooded the Lower Ninth Ward and then St. Bernard Parish.

There are two large breaches in the floodwall, said Ivor Van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who did an aerial survey of flood damage Sunday. The larger of the two, possibly caused by the barge, is about 800 feet long. The second is 500 feet.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-2/112598630787230.xml&coll=1


I think that claims of deliberate levee breaches will need to be substantiated. Just like a lot of other claims that we've been hearing ever since the world turned upside down Monday before last.

[barb162]

133. yes, I have seen this and photos of the barge

It reminds me of the floating casinos in Mississippi being carried a half mile inland from the storm surge and also the oil platform that got pushed into that bridge. And the thousands of boats all over the coast laying on land every which way.

[NorthernSpy]

97. fine -- change "actual evidence" to "actual corroborating evidence"

I should have written "corroborating".

[iverglas]

107. uh, yeah

and what did you imagine I was objecting to?

Charmaine Neville made the same "recent complaint" as I made -- she reported her story to the first person who would listen.

Maybe I should be believed and she shouldn't, because I was white and a white guy raped me, and she was black and a black guy raped her.

I just don't know, I swear.

How can you continue to talk about RUMOURS after watching that woman's first-person report?

[marshall]

111. Crossed wires?

I think wires got crossed a little here. I think the original argument about rumors started when it was the British and Australian backpackers who called home after being evacuated and reported to their parents that they had seen women and children raped. The parents told it to local papers which in turn lapped it up and couldn't wait to print it. People suggested maybe they were just scared or sick or just exagerrating because of the stress.
Then locals started saying the same thing, but it was still "I saw it happening...." or "Somebody told me it happened...." and there was similar skepticism about their stories.
Reports of the bodies being found in a refigerated room in the convention center were met with like skepticism because it was just one or two people, it was dark, and no one knew how the injuries happened. Maybe the throats were slit by a flying sheet of glass or maybe the rape-like injuries happened as they were buffeted about in the water.
Then Charmaine Neville shows up and gives a first person account saying she was raped and somehow the skepticism spills over to her account. Doubting her is a whole other kettle of fish.

[iverglas]

113. "Doubting her is a whole other kettle of fish."

It is indeed. And that appears to be exactly what NorthernSpy has done, and that is what I am objecting to, and wanting an explanation of.

I frankly have not seen all these reports of bodies with slit throats and Australian backpackers, except mainly second hand, in critiques of them. Hmm, maybe I should claim they never happened (I speak to the world in general not you ;) ).

Nonetheless, I have absolutely no doubt that there are many many people who would and have exploited those reports, whether or not any or all of them were true, to avoid bringing aid to the victims and justify the failure of aid.

I *believe* this because of a whole lot of things that I know other than the particular fact that the reports were made, and I believe that I have sufficient basis for that belief to make it in public in good faith. I know that there are racist scum who will use any excuse to blame victims when the victims are African-American, for instance. I know that victim-blaming and finger-pointing in general is a great USAmerican pastime, and that huge numbers of white USAmericans hate African-Americans. I find it entirely credible that such reports were exploited to the detriment of the victims of the disaster.

Maybe the throats were slit by a flying sheet of glass or maybe the rape-like injuries happened as they were buffeted about in the water.

Maybe so. Maybe you have experience or specific knowledge that tells you that these sorts of injuries are commonly found in hurricanes and floods.

I have experience and specific knowledge that tells me that women are commonly sexually victimized in situations where the rule of law has disappeared and disorder prevails.

I would hope that you would not deny the reasonableness of the expectation that such things would happen, particularly without informing yourself about others' experience in such situations. (I have posted information in this thread about the experiences of women in displaced populations all over the world, e.g. -- and that's without even counting what is common knowledge to all women even at the best of times, that it is wise to avoid places and company where the ordinary protections of society are not available, like streetlights and passersby and occupied buildings and unlocked doors, simply the watchful and protective eye of the public, because there are always some people, everywhere, who will victimize us.)

I would not deny the reasonableness of your hypotheses, of course if I had informed myself sufficiently to determine that they are reasonable.

But if I learned, for instance, that a number of bodies had been found with slit throats, but very few bodies (or survivors) had been found with similar injuries on other parts of their bodies, I would be suspicious about claims that the injuries were not intentional. I would hope you would too.

And if I learned that a number of reports of sexual victimization were being made that sounded strangely similar, or involved strangely stereotyped assailants, or were being given especially to people who could be expected to exploit them for harmful purposes, I would be skeptical about them too.

I would not deny that *some* bodies with slit-throat injuries or injuries resembling the effects of sexual assault (a little far-fetched) may not be evidence of victimization, at the least, if I determined that it was reasonable to expect such things to happen. I don't know why anyone would deny that *some* criminal victimization of disaster victims occurred, even without knowing the details of specific incidents, since it would be completely and utterly unreasonable to expect such things *not* to happen.


(edited to insert a missing "not", to make sense)

[marshall]

114. When you've been there it's different.

I know that in regards to sexual assault when you've been there it's different, and you can get quite emotional about it in a way that others don't understand. When I was student teaching I was having a discussion in class about rape. It was in 1990 and Clayton Williams, who was the Republican running against Ann Richards for governor of Texas, had made a comment during a storm: "Bad weather is like being raped, it's inevitable so relax and enjoy it." It was mostly girls who were in the discussion, and two or three freshmen girls said something like girls ask to be raped by wearing short dresses or flirting, etc. A senior girl who had sat quiet through the whole discussion up to that point suddenly just BLEW UP! She said "You don't know what it's like, you haven't been there, you don't ask for something like that." She pretty much lost control of herself emotionally and I got the regular teacher (who was a woman, I'm a man) to take her out of the room and talk with her. It turned out that senior girl had been date raped and she just got really offended at the younger girls' naivete.

So, like I said, it's one thing to doubt reports of what people heard or even what people might have seen in a darkened Superdome, but how can one doubt (without over-riding reason to think otherwise) that a woman who reports she was raped wasn't raped?

[iverglas]

124. I just want to note

I did mention having been sexually assaulted, but I am in no way emotional about the issue of sexual assault -- at least, that is, any more emotional than I am about any other issue of victimization or exploitation or oppression. I would expect anyone else to be exactly as emotional as I am about women being sexually victimized, or children being victimized by inhumane working conditions, or anyone else who is uniquely vulnerable being victimized or exploited or oppressed.

The "naïveté" of anyone who says that women are sexually victimized because of their own behaviour (meaning: their sex) is no different from the "naïveté" of anyone who says that disaster victims in New Orleans have suffered because of their own behaviour (meaning: their colour/race, class). They both come down to the same thing: misogyny in the first case, racism in the other. Hatred of "the other", and refusal to acknowledge the other's reality. (Noting that it is entirely possible for women to define other women, and people of colour to define other people of colour, as "the other".)

It just shouldn't take personal experience for anyone to be able to empathize with victims, not to mention simply have an intellectual understanding of the nature of and reasons for their victimization. Obviously, it too often does.

So, like I said, it's one thing to doubt reports of what people heard or even what people might have seen in a darkened Superdome, but how can one doubt (without over-riding reason to think otherwise) that a woman who reports she was raped wasn't raped?

Maybe if one really works at it?

[RaleighNCDUer]

132. Well said. The problem is, Ms Neville's story is the only one I've

seen that claimed "I was raped". All the others were "I saw", "I was told", "I heard".

Even a single rape is a big problem, but it is not necessarily a wide-spread problem. A single true story can generate a thousand rumors. Now, the status of all the refugees is being judged by those rumors, so that all the victims are suspect. Their victimization is continued by the fear that they might all be criminals. That's why the sheriffs refused to let the people cross the bridge to marginally better conditions -- they didn't want all those rapists and looters running around in their (white) community.

The stories are being promulgated for a reason.

[ecstatic]

150. Sorry, not buying her story at all

She casually throws in, oh by the way, I was raped too. WTF? Did she report this to the authorities yet? And then, so soon after such a tragic and painful incident, she brushes it off by saying:

"What he took from me was nothing, because he can't take my spirit, he can't take my soul. My soul is New Orleans."

Give me a break. That type of peace comes months if not years later.

[iverglas]

153. ah, such womanly solidarity

Give me a break. That type of peace comes months if not years later.

I'll refrain from offering you that break, and asking where you'd like it, tempting though your request is.

That isn't peace. That's self-defence.

And it's little different from people who say that while they've lost their homes and all their treasured family photographs, they're alive and that's what counts. Does anyone really think that they're not going to grieve for everything they've lost?

Neville survived a life-threatening situation (a situation in which she was abandoned by her society in every possible way) in which she happened to be sexually assaulted. So have I. Rather than asking for a break, you should perhaps ask for an iota of wisdom and empathy and knowledge of history.

Sexual assault does not steal a woman's spirit. It terrorizes the woman, and women in general, and keeps us down.

And sadly, women who have been sexually assaulted are all too used to other women telling us they don't believe us.

It's just that much sadder that we're told that at DU.

[Piperay]

65. My friend who is a nurse in NO

stayed behind to help at the hospital and was eventually evacuated to the Superdome says she saw men and women raped and children molested plus seeing people commit suicide. My friend says it was hell on Earth and she saw'HORRENDUS' things.

[NorthernSpy]

68. like I've said -- some truths, some falsehoods, lots of rumors...

... and a whole lot of mass hysteria.

Why is it that the folks who are the most red-hot eager to believe that so many people could commit mass mayhem, also seem to be the most shocked at the notion that anyone could ever hallucinate, get the facts wrong, pass along pure hearsay or, um, tell a lie?.

Until a claim is thoroughly substantiated, it is a rumor. And I, for one, do not accept this recent practice of reporting rumors as established facts.

And I'm glad that Gary Younge of the Guardian does not either.

[rustydad]

73. Stuff did happen

My daughter's companion is a Los Angles, California firefighter and was sent to N.O. early on for search and rescue operations. Their team was accosted by gun toting criminals and all their belongings including wallets and rings were taken. They left N.O. without being able to help. Civil disasters and the unrest that follows is very difficult to manage. FEMA is and always has been complete incompetence. Bob

[marshall]

75. Who takes care of the gun toting thugs?

Is FEMA in charge of major human security concerns like people with guns? I would think the extent of their security concerns is dealing with people trying desperately to get food or water. I didn't even think FEMA carried firearms. Isn't that the National Guard's duty? National Guard to take care of the human threat and FEMA to take care of the environmental threat, then Red Cross comes in to minister to the needs of the people.

[rustydad]

92. Correct

Security comes first but the overall responce to a natural disater is orchestrated by FEMA. They utterly failed in that. Bob

[freemen2005]

109. all lies

all lies to make the people accept military control

[vincent_vega_lives]

110. Here's some fascist propagandists for Stickdog

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050903/ts_nm/mayhem_dc

Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, said men had wandered the cavernous convention center in recent nights 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 young girl went missing from her parents inside the convention center.

"She was raped for four hours until she was dead," Joseph said through tears. "Another child, a seven-year old boy was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night."

A member of that family, Africa Brumfield, 32, confirmed the incident but declined to be quoted about it, saying her family did not wish to discuss it. But she spoke of general conditions here.

"There is rapes going on here. Women cannot go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats. They keep telling us the buses are coming but they never leave," she said through tears.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/sep32005/update64127200593.asp

"The stench was unbearable. We were treated like animals," Baron Duncan said.
"There was shooting," she said. "Our lives were in danger. A seven-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy got raped."

"One man couldn't take it. He jumped over the railing and died," claimed Audrey Jordan.

Keshia Gray, a 28-year-old resident said "people were dying off".
"There were people shooting, fights broke out, the bathrooms were all clogged up and there was no water. Then the police started shooting. I couldn't stay in there."

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16473513%255E954,00.html

Police Chief Eddie Compass said he had sent in 88 officers to calm crowds waiting for evacuation at the city's convention centre but they were driven back by an angry mob.
"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," he said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16477388-23109,00.html

John McNeil, a 20-year-old university graduate, rang his parents in Brisbane yesterday from a payphone in the foyer of the New Orleans Hilton, where about 60 foreign tourists, including 10 Australians, were sheltering under armed guard after they were rescued from the Superdome by US military personnel.
In a brief telephone call, John told his father, businessman Peter McNeil, of chaos and lawlessness in the Superdome, where more than 20,000 refugees sought shelter after the hurricane.

"He saw murders, stabbings and rapes in there," Mr McNeil said.

"It was just getting worse by the hour and there were gangs in there who were killing each other," he said.

[NorthernSpy]

116. speaking of fascist propagandists...

David Duke is all over that. Like a fly on shit, if you will.

And I repeat: all these various claims that are floating around right now require proof. And the more hysterical the rumor, the more solid the evidence should be.

I will never forget that when the London police assassinated that poor Brazilian electrician because they believed that he was a suicide bomber, the eyewitness accounts that appeared in the press confirmed the police story in every detail. The only reason that we ever learned the truth about that incident was that the security cameras had captured it all on tape. With that in mind, there's just no way I'm going to grant automatic credence to any eyewitness account that comes without hard evidence to back it up -- especially not accounts that may be affected by the phenomenon of mass hysteria.

[Tomee450]

121. Absolutely correct.

We need proof. Sometimes people, even the police lie. Sometimes reporters make false reports. The Boston police terrorized the black community looking for a black man who supposedly killed Charles Stuart's wife. It was later proven to be untrue. Stuart was the killer. Then there was Susan Smith who claimed a black man kidnapped her kids which was also a lie. And the Runaway bride said she had been kidnapped by a Hispanic and a white woman. Many in this country believed those lies and were shocked when the truth came out. The accusers knew that many people would readily believe accusations against black men.

[Roland99]

125. No rapes? No 7 year-olds with slit throats? Try again:

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html#077206

[NorthernSpy]

129. so one random guardsman pvt. makes claims about unexamined bodies...

... in a freezer, while merrily allowing journalists to tramp through what -- if we are to believe him -- should have been treated as a crime scene? That sure doesn't sound like protocol to me.

Exactly HOW does this person claim to have determined the exact age of any of the deceased? And why haven't any family members of purported murder victims -- or other people who were there -- reported these shocking crimes to the police onsite? When a murder is committed, most people notify the authorities, especially if the victim is a member of his or her own family.

At this point, what I'm reminded of most is the search for the Weapons of Mass Destruction that followed Bush's invasion of Iraq. Regular as clockwork, we'd get these breathless reports of somebody finding the WMD (always for real this time!), followed by silence, followed by murmurings about how somebody might have misinterpreted something, and so on...

[ElsewheresDaughter]

128. inside the superdome and civic center it was said too have happened

these people were locked inside both places in the dark without, food or water and NO communications or leadership for 5/6 days....they believed there was NO help coming ...there was a a total break down of society....they were grieving and fightend and of the mindset that they were abandoned and thought they left there to die....desperate people do desperate things but i doubt that any of that shit happened and that it is a cover their ass' campaign by FEMA...

and as far as the alleged slit throats and rapes none of these have been confirmed.

VIDEO of a New Orleans women's interview

http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=13&y=

[digno dave]

135. One of the Neville sisters who survived witnessed rapes and saw bodies w/

bullet holes.

[NorthernSpy]

137. I've read that account...

One thing that disturbs me about it is the near-total lack of details. I hope that her statement to police will give them something to go on.

She will be making a statement, won't she? The things she reports witnessing and experiencing are extremely serious felonies. The police say that no one has come forward and notified them of anything yet.

The best course of action available to this woman would be to tell the police everything, and to go to the emergency room for evidence collection. Apparently she's out of New Orleans and in Baton Rouge right now, so any hospital there should be able to collect physical evidence.

[iverglas]

138. and will you at some point be watching the video?

One thing that disturbs me about it is the near-total lack of details.

Yes, that's what we should be demanding of terrorized, traumatized, exhausted women who have just escaped from what they believed was going to be their deaths. Details, please, mesdames, or we just won't be able to believe you.

You may have noticed that the sexual assault she endured wasn't exactly the main theme of Charmaine Neville's outpouring. I do happen to be able to emphathize with her on that point -- the fear that one was going to die tends to become the focus of one's thoughts when one has been in a life-threatening situation, rather than the sexual assault that happened along the way.

She will be making a statement, won't she? The things she reports witnessing and experiencing are extremely serious felonies. The police say that no one has come forward and notified them of anything yet.

I'm having a very hard time believing that you could be this callous on even a very bad day.

The best course of action available to this woman would be to tell the police everything, and to go to the emergency room for evidence collection. Apparently she's out of New Orleans and in Baton Rouge right now, so any hospital there should be able to collect physical evidence.

Yeah, that's top of the priority list for enforcement and emergency workers anywhere in the area right now, I'm sure.

You may have noticed the reference to her being at a medical facility of some sort around when she disclosed what had happened to her. Somehow, I don't think that a medical professional would have made the collection of evidence his/her priority in the treatment plan, either.

Wanna know something? When I was raped, I submitted to the usual physical examinations as soon as the police were finished taking all the "details" from me and inspecting the scene and getting me to an urban area with the necessary facilities. There was no physical evidence. Funny thing, that. It happens.

Not every woman who is sexually assaulted suffers injuries. And given Neville's account of the rescue work she was doing, I'd expect she got a little wet, and just maybe what evidence there may have been at some point during the time she was in the situation got washed away.

I really don't think that what is uppermost in the mind of "this woman", or of anyone else who endured any of the many kinds of horrors people in the disaster zone endured, is having the people who assaulted her tried and punished. And I don't think that in the minds of the professionals assisting "this woman" and anyone else in her situation it would be regarded as ethical or appropriate to treat the victims of the disaster like witnesses, i.e. instruments for the building of criminal cases against other individuals who may, for all anyone knows, be dead. I think their priority, absolutely properly, is to attend to their needs, and provide them with some comfort and security.

The attitude you have chosen to take toward "this woman", an African-American woman from the very community that was abandoned, who apparently did so much to try to help others in the same situation, people about whom I gather you have been so concerned, is quite simply unfathomable to me.

The best course of action for "this woman" would be to do whatever she, with the assistance of competent people with her best interests in mind, decides is most likely to help her recover from this trauma -- of which, again, the sexual assault was a relatively minor element in her case, as it was in mine. She never will entirely recover, but the kind of treatment she gets in the immediate term will very definitely have a significant influence on how well she is able to cope with the effects of the trauma in the longer term.

People in her situation, trapped in the disaster zone last week, were treated as less than human both by the authorities and by the individuals who victimized some of them. I'm afraid that I don't see your treatment of Charmaine Neville here as much different.

She is the subject of her own life, not an instrument for anyone's agenda. She has been stripped of her autonomy and dignity in numerous and horrific ways, and all I see is you asking that it be done again, by demanding that her experience be defined and processed to suit your needs. Her needs are what matter here.

[NorthernSpy]

141. why is it bad to want a witness to report the crime and give evidence?

For crying out loud! According to Neville's account, there are dangerous men roaming free, and she herself could give evidence that ultimately gets them off the streets! Yeah, I think that she SHOULD give her evidence, and as soon as possible. I mean, we ARE talking about some dreadfully serious felonies. Shouldn't preventing harm to those who would be victimized in the future be a pressing concern to all?

Yes, that's what we should be demanding of terrorized, traumatized, exhausted women who have just escaped from what they believed was going to be their deaths. Details, please, mesdames, or we just won't be able to believe you.

The point is that the more vague such as account is, the less useful it will be to the investigators. And that's a bad thing.

You may have noticed that the sexual assault she endured wasn't exactly the main theme of Charmaine Neville's outpouring. I do happen to be able to emphathize with her on that point -- the fear that one was going to die tends to become the focus of one's thoughts when one has been in a life-threatening situation, rather than the sexual assault that happened along the way.

That's understandable. But a sexual assault is still a major crime against the person, and it's critically important to the safety of all the other persons in the area that the perpetrator is found and stopped. Don't you think so?

I said:

She will be making a statement, won't she? The things she reports witnessing and experiencing are extremely serious felonies. The police say that no one has come forward and notified them of anything yet.

You said:

I'm having a very hard time believing that you could be this callous on even a very bad day.

Callous? Time's wasting! These are extremely violent and horrific crimes that she's experienced and witnessed. Of course it troubles me that she seems not to have reported any of this to the police. How could it not?

Yeah, that's top of the priority list for enforcement and emergency workers anywhere in the area right now, I'm sure.

You don't know that. We've been hearing that quashing looting was considered a priority. And that's just a property crime. Rape and murder are crimes against the person. But she can still make her report, even if the police aren't able to investigate it immediately.

You may have noticed the reference to her being at a medical facility of some sort around when she disclosed what had happened to her. Somehow, I don't think that a medical professional would have made the collection of evidence his/her priority in the treatment plan, either.

Then they're incompetent. Unless she came in in critical condition, collecting sexual assault evidence shouldn't endanger her health or interfere with other treatment at all.

Wanna know something? When I was raped, I submitted to the usual physical examinations as soon as the police were finished taking all the "details" from me and inspecting the scene and getting me to an urban area with the necessary facilities. There was no physical evidence. Funny thing, that. It happens.

Not every woman who is sexually assaulted suffers injuries. And given Neville's account of the rescue work she was doing, I'd expect she got a little wet, and just maybe what evidence there may have been at some point during the time she was in the situation got washed away.

As far as forensic science is concerned, things have changed emormously since the early Seventies. Evidence that they could not detect and recover back then is readily detected and recovered now. Even if significant time has elapsed, and even if the victim has walked through a flooded city since then.

I really don't think that what is uppermost in the mind of "this woman", or of anyone else who endured any of the many kinds of horrors people in the disaster zone endured, is having the people who assaulted her tried and punished.

Why the hell not? Public safety matters I bet her attacker's next victim won't think too much of her failure to do everything in power to help the police capture him.

And I don't think that in the minds of the professionals assisting "this woman" and anyone else in her situation it would be regarded as ethical or appropriate to treat the victims of the disaster like witnesses, i.e. instruments for the building of criminal cases against other individuals who may, for all anyone knows, be dead.

But they are witnesses, and they have a duty to their fellow people.

I think their priority, absolutely properly, is to attend to their needs, and provide them with some comfort and security.

Those things are very important. Just like public safety is important.

The attitude you have chosen to take toward "this woman", an African-American woman from the very community that was abandoned, who apparently did so much to try to help others in the same situation, people about whom I gather you have been so concerned, is quite simply unfathomable to me.

And your seeming indifference to the need to STOP the criminals in Neville's account is unfathomable to me.

The best course of action for "this woman" would be to do whatever she, with the assistance of competent people with her best interests in mind, decides is most likely to help her recover from this trauma -- of which, again, the sexual assault was a relatively minor element in her case, as it was in mine. She never will entirely recover, but the kind of treatment she gets in the immediate term will very definitely have a significant influence on how well she is able to cope with the effects of the trauma in the longer term.

I agree that she must decide her own course of action. Except for one thing: give evidence!

People in her situation, trapped in the disaster zone last week, were treated as less than human both by the authorities and by the individuals who victimized some of them. I'm afraid that I don't see your treatment of Charmaine Neville here as much different.

Why? Because I urge her to give evidence? I don't see how my doing that is anything like treating her as less than human. And I think that her attacker's future victims will agree with me on that point.

She is the subject of her own life, not an instrument for anyone's agenda. She has been stripped of her autonomy and dignity in numerous and horrific ways, and all I see is you asking that it be done again, by demanding that her experience be defined and processed to suit your needs. Her needs are what matter here.

No. I'm just asking her to please give evidence! Her fellow people don't want to be victimized! They don't want to be harmed any more than I would, and I think that their need to be safe is as important as her autonomy.

[iverglas]

143. I'm sorry ... what does any of that have to do

with whether the events she has publicly reported occurred?

Isn't that the question on the table?

Will her going to the police / submitting to medical examination (we don't actually know she hasn't done either ... and may I add that I hope that women who make these reports to anyone are getting appropriate medications to protect them against pregnancy and disease ... or maybe we should require them to fill out forms containing the "details" and have rape kits run on themselves before doing that either) prove what happened to her?

How about if there simply is no evidence beyond her word?

She has already said she does not know who the men were. There may be no semen in her body -- and of course, semen would prove intercourse, but not rape; she might just have had consensual sex, how the hell are we supposed to know?

You've lost me. A woman states that she was raped by men she did not know. Even if she named names, what would that PROVE? She might be lying about who did it. Even if she had semen in her body, what would that PROVE? She might be lying about how it got there.

There are many reasons for trying to discredit women who report sexual assault. Yours is about the most bizarre I have ever seen, but the effects are exactly the same.

[Tomee450]

144. Paula Zahn

just interviewed the head of the Sex Crimes Unit who said he wanted to dispel some of the urban myths. There have only been reports of ATTEMPTED RAPES, not actual rapes. In both instances, the culprits were dealt with. As some have said here, accounts of widespread violence have been exaggerated.

[iverglas]

145. yes, and Charmaine Neville is a liar and a racist and

a mouthpiece for the PNAC.

Your "responses" to my posts are of no interest to me, but there may be someone who will want to take note of them.

Oh, by the way, do you have a link to video of that interview, or a verbatim transcript of it? We'll be needing it. Evidence, you know, none of this third-hand heard it on the grapevine stuff, thankee.

[Tomee450]

146. If my responses to you are of no

interest, why did you bother to respond? Paula Zahn's program will probably be repeated later tonight. Why don't you stay up to watch. The problem is certain people here are inclined to believe any cock and bull story of violence allegedly perpetrated by black people. I don't give a darn about what Neville said. Apparently, she hasn't reported her being raped to the police. And if she was raped, it's only one rape. Hardly evidence of widespread raping. There were thousands of people around, the size of a small city. If there was that much raping and violence going on, a lot of people would have reported it. I've heard other reports refuting claims of great violence. People lie, some to make themselves important. But of course certain people holding preconceived negative views of black people, will believe any account of deviant behavior by African Americans. In fact, such people usually ignore evidence to the contrary and seize upon anything that would support their prejudice.

[iverglas]

148. your words speak loudly enough

I don't give a darn about what Neville said.
and yada yada yada.

Yeah, you and a few others hereabouts really give a great big damn about something ... sadly, it just doesn't seem to be the well-being of African Americans, or anyone else. This verbal abuse of a victimized woman who isn't present to respond to it is simply foul.

But of course certain people holding preconceived negative views of black people, will believe any account of deviant behavior by African Americans. In fact, such people usually ignore evidence to the contrary and seize upon anything that would support their prejudice.

Gosh ... if only you could find some of those people to talk to, eh?

The problem with your "responses" to my posts is that none I've seen so far has actually merited the term.

But I don't mind pointing that out.

[Tomee450]

149. Oh baloney

I am an African American and this tragedy has greatly upset me. It's because I am black that I know about the lies that have been told about black people, later to be proven untrue. Black men and women have been lynched on the basis of lies. I will never paint with the broad broad. I will never believe accusations of violence allegedly cause by blacks unless there is some evidence.

You make no sense whatsoever. In order for you to determine that my posts are not what you call responses you must read them and you continue to do so. If they are of no interest, stop reading them. That's a simple thing to do.

As far as Neville is concerned, if she was raped that's horrible. However unlike you, I am not going to readily believe anyone who says they have been assaulted unless there is evidence. It does not appear that she reported the rape. Certain people so inclined to believe the negative reports about black people, will always reject any evidence to the contrary. The officer on the Zahn show said he wanted to dispel the myths going around. White police officers are not known to be that fond of black people and had he received reports of widespread raping, he would have said so. You seem determined to ignore anything that disproves your beliefs. I don't doubt that there was some violence but I will wait to see if it was as widespread as some people have reported.

Now, you have said my posts are of no interest, they are not responses. Surely, I can expect that you won't be responding to this one.

[iverglas]

154. guess what, pal

I am an African American and this tragedy has greatly upset me. It's because I am black that I know about the lies that have been told about black people, later to be proven untrue.

I am a human being and this entire atrocity has greatly angered me.

It's because I am a human being that I know about the lies that have been told about women. I happen to be a woman, but any man who cares to admit the truth knows about them too.

I will never believe accusations of violence allegedly cause by blacks unless there is some evidence.

Large numbers of people throughout human history and geography have refused to believe accusations of violence allegedly committed by men against women no matter what their colour or class, and no matter how much evidence there was.

The officer on the Zahn show said he wanted to dispel the myths going around. White police officers are not known to be that fond of black people and had he received reports of widespread raping, he would have said so.

And your determination to believe that the first thing that a woman who escapes from such conditions is going to do is report a rape, or that while still trapped in those conditions she is going to report a rape rather than keep trying to protect herself when she knows that there are no protections available to her no matter whom she reports what to, is just part and parcel of the myths about sexual assault that keep women vulnerable to it.

Sexual assault is not the end of a woman's life. Sexual assault does not steal a woman's honour or virtue or femininity or self-respect. Sexual assault is not worse than fear of death by dehydration or exposure. Sexual assault is not worse than hurricane and flood.

Sexual assault is an instrument of terror.

I don't doubt that there was some violence but I will wait to see if it was as widespread as some people have reported.

And since I HAVE NEVER SAID that anything was as widespread as some people have reported, once again you are just non-responding to what I have said.

And once again, I don't mind saying so.

[Tomee450]

158. I thought my posts were of no interest, yet

you are still reading them and continuing to respond. Doesn't make sense to me.

I stand by everything I wrote. I am both African American AND FEMALE! I have nothing but sympathy for the victims of rape. I however,am not going to believe every rape claim without evidence, even if it is a black woman making the accusation. I saw that segment of the Paula Zahn show again and the head of the Sex Crimes unit was adamant;there were only reports of attempted rape, two in number, and the offenders were arrested. I know how black men have been framed for rape in this country and have been totally innocent. When black people are involved, there is a tendency to believe any claims of violence.

If people engage in violence, they should be arrested and prosecuted. However, it should be done on the basis of evidence. Unfortunately, in this country there are too many people who have in their minds the image of the savage black man and they will believe wild stories of blacks going on the rampage even before there have been investigations into the accusations.

[iverglas]

159. well here's a funny thing

I saw that segment of the Paula Zahn show again and the head of the Sex Crimes unit was adamant;there were only reports of attempted rape, two in number, and the offenders were arrested.

Didya watch the video of Charmaine Neville telling her experiences to Archibishop Hughes?

Didya notice the part where the first thing she reports saying to the police she met when she arrived on dry ground with the people she had rescued was that women had been raped where she was?

Do ya think that maybe the police she was talking to weren't spending a lot of time taking down witness statements and making numbered reports to headquarters?

Didya notice that what the individual you are talking about was talking about was events in one specific location?

Are you telling us that only things that are reported to the police actually happen?

I however,am not going to believe every rape claim without evidence

Why do you think that what YOU BELIEVE about anything is of interest to anyone else?

If you want to ASSERT that something happened or did not happen, feel free, and feel free to back up your assertions. I am no more interested in what you SAY YOU BELIEVE about this than I am interested in what you might say you believe about the presence of faeries at the bottom of your garden. What you say you believe about anything is of no consequence to anyone.

*I* say that it is reasonable to assert that criminal sexual victimization of women took place among the survivors, and that it is utterly unreasonable to assert that it didn't.

I know how black men have been framed for rape in this country and have been totally innocent.

And you have no clue how women -- and in particular black women, as it happens -- have been disbelieved when they have reported sexual assaults, and also suffered the consequences of reporting sexual assaults, I assume.

One has to close one's eyes and believe really hard in order not to have such a clue.

When black people are involved, there is a tendency to believe any claims of violence.

When women are involved, there is a tendency not to believe anything we say. But you have no clue about that either, I suppose.

If people engage in violence, they should be arrested and prosecuted. However, it should be done on the basis of evidence.

NOBODY IS FUCKING TALKING ABOUT prosecutions except the apologists for violence against women.

NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT PUNISHING anyone.

The issue is the VICTIMIZATION OF WOMEN in situations where they are not afforded the protections that their society owes them, AND YOUR UNJUSTIFIED, COUNTER-RATIONAL AND ENTIRELY POINTLESS denial of that reality.

Unfortunately, in this country there are too many people who have in their minds the image of the savage black man and they will believe wild stories of blacks going on the rampage even before there have been investigations into the accusations.

Unfortunately, your choice to elevate the interests of black men above the interests of the black women whom SOME black men victimize is just the same fucking old same old that women of all colours and classes have got used to over millennia. Misogyny exists, it exists among men of all colours and classes, and your refusal to acknowledge it doesn't make it go away, but it sure does make it easier for it to go on.

Now if you want to make some further juvenile remark about my continuing to respond to your pointlessness in the manner that is appropraite, you just go right on ahead.

[NorthernSpy]

161. I take serious exception to this:

NOBODY IS FUCKING TALKING ABOUT prosecutions except the apologists for violence against women.

The people who believe that prosecution is in order for the things Ms. Neville reports witnessing and experiencing are "apologists for violence against women"?

Gawd. How the hell are you ever going to be able to top that one?

[NorthernSpy]

155. in my opinion, you're not making a lot of sense at the moment...

Will her going to the police / submitting to medical examination (we don't actually know she hasn't done either ... and may I add that I hope that women who make these reports to anyone are getting appropriate medications to protect them against pregnancy and disease ... or maybe we should require them to fill out forms containing the "details" and have rape kits run on themselves before doing that either) prove what happened to her?

Medical treatment can proceed simply because she wishes it. Giving evidence will give the authorities a shot at catching the perpetrator.

How about if there simply is no evidence beyond her word?

She has already said she does not know who the men were. There may be no semen in her body -- and of course, semen would prove intercourse, but not rape; she might just have had consensual sex, how the hell are we supposed to know? You've lost me. A woman states that she was raped by men she did not know. Even if she named names, what would that PROVE? She might be lying about who did it. Even if she had semen in her body, what would that PROVE? She might be lying about how it got there.

We won't know whether there's no evidence beyond her word unless we look for it. So why not look for it?

There are many reasons for trying to discredit women who report sexual assault. Yours is about the most bizarre I have ever seen, but the effects are exactly the same.

I haven't discredited Ms. Neville. I've pointed out that violent criminals must be stopped, in part for the sake of the people who would otherwise be their future victims. And so I have urged Ms. Neville to give evidence. And you keep coming up with lame reasons why she needn't.

[iverglas]

156. diversionary grooming

I haven't discredited Ms. Neville. I've pointed out that violent criminals must be stopped, in part for the sake of the people who would otherwise be their future victims. And so I have urged Ms. Neville to give evidence. And you keep coming up with lame reasons why she needn't.

The giving of evidence, the responsibility of victims to give evidence, the catching of criminals ... NONE of these was ever the subject of discussion here.

The subject of discussion has always been whether criminal victimization occurred at the disaster sites, and specifically whether woman, and one woman in particular, was sexually victimized.

The making of criminal reports does not prove that criminal victimization occurred.

Physical evidence of sexual intercourse does not prove that sexual victimization occurred.

Attempts to apprehend persons who engaged in criminal victimization are irrelevant to whether criminal victimization occurred.

I did say: There are many reasons for trying to discredit women who report sexual assault. Yours is about the most bizarre I have ever seen, but the effects are exactly the same.

but I wasn't quite remembering reality.

African-American women have been told for decades not to say bad things about African-American men, because doing so will hurt the community and the cause.


http://www.ed.uab.edu/acoker/BlackWomenFeminismandCounseling(MasterCopy).htm

Socialization as an African American Girl

I grew up in New York City, and like most African American girls, I was socialized to discuss discrimination only on the basis of race. Sexism was never discussed at length, with many African American women believing that to speak about their own pain as women would be an indication of cultural disloyalty, man-hating, or the ultimate no-no: lesbianism.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/582.html

The Color of Violence Against Women
By Angela Davis, keynote address at the Color of Violence Conference in Santa Cruz, Colorlines, Vol.3 no.3, Fall 2000

We have since come to recognize the epidemic proportions of violence within intimate relationships and the pervasiveness of date and acquaintance rape, as well as violence within and against same-sex intimacy. But we must also learn how to oppose the racist fixation on people of color as the primary perpetrators of violence, including domestic and sexual violence, and at the same time to fiercely challenge the real violence that men of color inflict on women. These are precisely the men who are already reviled as the major purveyors of violence in our society: the gang members, the drug-dealers, the drive-by shooters, the burglars, and assailants. In short, the criminal is figured as a black or Latino man who must be locked into prison.

One of the major questions facing this conference is how to develop an analysis that furthers neither the conservative project of sequestering millions of men of color in accordance with the contemporary dictates of globalized capital and its prison industrial complex, nor the equally conservative project of abandoning poor women of color to a continuum of violence that extends from the sweatshops through the prisons, to shelters, and into bedrooms at home.

Another interesting bit to note from that presentation:

The major strategy relied on by the women's anti-violence movement of criminalizing violence against women will not put an end to violence against women -- just as imprisonment has not put an end to crime in general.

I should say that this is one of the most vexing issues confronting feminists today. On the one hand, it is necessary to create legal remedies for women who are survivors of violence. But on the other hand, when the remedies rely on punishment within institutions that further promote violence -- against women and men, how do we work with this contradiction?

... We want to continue to contest the neglect of domestic violence against women, the tendency to dismiss it as a private matter. We need to develop an approach that relies on political mobilization rather than legal remedies or social service delivery.

I wonder what Angela Davis would have to say about this vilification of an African-American woman, this attempt to reframe the problem as a criminal law matter involving one isolated victim and the individuals who attacked her and to place the onus on her to prove the existence of the problem and require her to accept the externally imposed definition of it and remedy for it?

I think I know.

Anybody remember what Stokely Carmichael said?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael

The only position for women in SNCC is prone.
(cutting off discussion when women raised the issue of sexism during the 1964 SNCC conference)

I'm hearing echoes.

[NorthernSpy]

157. you're saying that my urging Ms. Neville to give evidence to the police...

... is an instance of "the vilification of an African-American woman", and that Angela Davis would not approve?

Pardon me, but what the fuck?

[iverglas]

160. oddly enough, no, I'm not

But I won't be so disingenuous myself as to invent something to ask you whether you're saying, in return. I can't imagine how I could even do that, because I can't even imagine how to be sufficiently disingenuous to represent anything I had said myself in the way you've represented what you've said.

By the way, watched the video yet? That's such an easy question to answer, you know.

Good easy link to it here:
http://www.wafb.com/

Do listen for the part where the first thing that Neville reports telling the cops they encountered when she and the people she was rescuing got to dry land was that women had been raped.

Maybe they took down her statement and had her sign it and submitted a numbered report to HQ. Or maybe they were kind of occupied with other things, kind of like she was.

[Carolab]

151. Anyone wonder if the "mutilated bodies" on CNN today were really there?

Or WHO mutilated them, and when (i.e. postmortem?), if in fact they were in the Convention Center at all.

[Moderator]

162. locking

thread has run it's course, no longer productive discussion.