Email promoting hate towards Katrina evacuees debunked (DallasMorningNews)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/092505dnmetblow.1e2f7dc.html

(snip)

One particular e-mail came so many times that I finally had to investigate. The writer – unidentified of course, seemingly a woman – tells how her parents worked at the rest stop on Interstate 20 at the Texas state line. Busloads of Katrina evacuees stopped there.

"Daddy worked pretty much all night. He and my mom said the people were HORRIBLE. Nasty, filthy mouthed, ungrateful," she writes. "TxDOT had to pretty much scour the rest area and restrooms after they left."

(snip)

Ms. Wilson is supervisor of the state's travel information center at that rest stop. She was on duty almost nonstop for the four days of the evacuation.

(snip... no bad behavior observed by or related to Ms. Wilson, who asks what was the point of the apparently false email aside from stirring up hatred...)


It's a good question. And a better one is why thousands of people see fit to keep spreading it. On one forward, the sender wrote, "Perhaps it's true and perhaps it's not. ..." So why send it? Is concern for the truth really that casual?

[moc]

1. Why? Because racism is alive and well in America

Anyone who doubts it just need to read this story, or the hundreds of others (probably equally as false) that are circulating.

I like what Ms. Wilson said about how this awful email turned something so positive (the outpouring of compassion for those evacuees stopping at the rest stop) into something sour.

That's what hatred and racism do, turn the good into something sour. Shame on all those who participated in spreading this filth.

Thanks for posting the story.

[A-Possum]

2. Just emailed the columnist

Good for him to take the trouble to find out the truth. And how wonderful to hear that the true situation was exactly the opposite.

[tanyev]

3. A better question: Who originally wrote it?

I know people who forward these things. They just read it and then automatically send it to everyone in their address list, not caring if the email is accurate and not caring if the recipient really would be interested in it. But SOMEONE went to the trouble of creating this lie, with the hopes that it would get forwarded all over the place. That is who we need to find.

[Tomee450]

4. I'm not surprised

that the E-Mail is a lie. I also will not be surprised when, upon completion of a thorough investigation, it is found that the claims of widespread violence also were untrue.

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Also debunked by Snopes

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/personal/reststop.asp

[CatBoreal]

6. Thank you...

I'm going to forward that to my FIL who's been bitching about this very thing.

Can't wait to see his head explode.

[justgamma]

7. " Is concern for the truth really that casual?"

It is in Shrub's world.

[mandyky]

8. Since racism is "so chic" these days

and I imagine these evacuees probably were "minorities" of some sort, I'll call it what I think it is - racism and lies. I remember travelling North to Oklahoma from San Antone and the southern drawl along with "other southern attitudes" seemed to get stronger.

It was in Texas where a group of US Army folks were refused service due to a white girl being seated next to a black guy. Thiis was in 1979, but I am sure it is still like that today in some rural North Texas towns.