African-American man from New Orleans presented to the office this week -- and I'm quite a distance away from NO. Said that the African-Americans believed Katrina stood for "Cleansing" from God because of the total corruption of NO. Rita stood for "Rinsing".
Said that the reason many African-Americans didn't want to leave NO was to protect what little they owned. They knew that the New Orleans POLICE would come in and loot what they had. They feared the corrupt police.
I believe him.
Sounds good, but.... I wonder if it isn't just after the fact BS.
Consider:
Those who ended up in the Superdome ultimately didn't stay behind to protect their goods (as many vietnamese in the area did).
Also, although the NO police might be pretty bad, do you really think that those who lived there more feared the police as thieves than their neighbor down the street?
It's hard to distinguish between who stayed behind to protect their property and who stayed behind to loot.
Did anyone see Anderson Cooper last night? He showed a compilation of stories from the past month; a lot of it in the 9th ward. I'm not a CNN fan, but Anderson did some fine, sensitive, reporting during this crisis...
One of the stories was a wonderful old woman (probably in her 60's) who is blind and has a seeing-eye-dog... she was living in a house that had lost the roof and waiting until someone came to rescue her -- with her dog... this woman was very religious and would walk around singing Christian songs to her dog in this most melodic voice.
Well, CNN found out about her and Anderson was there when the police came to rescue her. HER -- not her dog! They told her she had to leave her dog and she stood face to face with these unseeing eyes and informed them she was staying put because she was blind and her dog was her eyes and her life... they still refused...
I guess some negotiations went on behind the scenes because finally they relented and said she could take the dog (I only hope wherever she ended up they allowed her to keep the dog)....Anderson wanted to help her pack some belongings and she didn't even have one bag to put anything in to take with her... she just cheerfully said she'd carry a couple of dresses with her and this was God's plan for her. She'd lived in NOLA all her life and he was telling her it was time for a new adventure and as long as she had her dog she would be okay... I was in tears at the end and you could tell Anderson was really choked up just re-relating the story.
My question is are these cops so crooked, so unfeeling that they would even make an old lady leave her seeing-eye dog behind?