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New Orleans Faces "The Nation"
It's holiday time and we probably all want to be thinking about something other than bloodshed and disaster. But the editors at The Nation feel otherwise. In the January 5 issue, they've run a long investigative piece on perhaps a dozen unsolved shootings of African-American men in the largely-white New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers Point in the days after the event shorthanded as Katrina. It's a lengthy, painstaking piece of work.
And, just like the work of much of the mainstream media about the disaster in New Orleans three-plus years ago, it lies.
Not about the shootings. Nor about the white vigilantes who brag about their activity in shooting, or at least shooting at, black men in the days following 8/29/05. But reporter A.C. Thompson, who says he (she?) spent eighteen months in this investigation, repeatedly mischaracterizes what happened in New Orleans to set the chaos and hatred he portrays into motion. It's neither denying nor justifying what the piece reports to point out that, absent a catastrophic man-made flood, this nightmarish flood of racist reaction might never have been unleashed.
The mendacity starts in paragraph 2:
It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans...Some "crash". Reporting from New Orleans on August 29, most observers agreed that Hurricane Katrina had "spared" New Orleans, that the city had once again "dodged a bullet". While coastal Mississippi lay flat, relatively minor wind damage -- we recall the Hyatt Hotel's windows blown out--was the worst sign that Katrina had dealt the city a glancing blow. Later, the National Hurricane Center, in its final report for the year, was to revise downward its estimate of Katrina's strength as it passed by New Orleans to either a strong Category 1 or weak Category 2 storm.
Maybe Thompson made a clumsy mistake in paragraph 2. Five paragraphs later, it gets worse.
When the hurricane descended on Louisiana, Algiers Point got off relatively easy. While wide swaths of New Orleans were deluged, the levees ringing Algiers Point withstood the Mississippi's surging currents...
A reader might take from that passage the idea that a "surging" Mississippi was responsible for the flooding of New Orleans. In fact, zero river flooding occurred anywhere in the metro area. Algiers Point is protected (not "ringed") by exactly the same river levees that protected downtown, the Quarter, the Garden District, and every other New Orleans neighborhood abutting the Mississippi, which is why New Orleanians refer to the slim parts of the city that escaped flooding as the "sliver by the river".
Thompson's at it again later in the story:
Around Algiers Point people say they rarely saw cops during the week after Katrina tore through Louisiana...
What is it Thompson, and the piece's editors at The Nation, refuse to say? Simply that, according to at least two respected forensic engineering reports (here and here), ultimately confirmed by a semi-confession from the involved agency, the flooding of New Orleans was caused by a series of design and construction flaws, stretching back over decades, in the supposed Hurricane Protection System overseen, in all details, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people drowned and otherwise perished in the flooding, white, black, rich, poor. Did The Nation ever do an eighteen-month investigation to find out why such a system, mandated by the Congress to protect New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Betsy, went so terribly, catastrophically wrong?
Or, like the mainstream media, did it content itself with a crime story that used the Katrina disaster merely as a fulcrum?
I write a post this long, and this harsh, because New Orleans has enough problems, self-inflicted and otherwise, without a respected national magazine asserting that the city had or has a race war. There are racists aplenty in New Orleans, white and black. Yet, after two decades of knowing the city pretty damn well, I'd venture to say that day-to-day living in New Orleans involves more casual, easy, frequent interactions between people of all backgrounds and colors than I see, say, in LA, NY, or DC. Flood 80% of any of those cities, flood the airwaves (local and national) with fearful rumors -- after those same airwaves have been gleefully saturated with grotesque images of rappers glorifying thuggery -- and see what latent emotions come to the surface.
But analyzing the systemic problems of the Corps of Engineers -- upon whom New Orleans is now forced to place its hope for future safety, barring a sudden change in federal policy -- apparently doesn't jibe with The Nation's agenda. Is this the best a wounded city can expect from liberal media?
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Sensational Journalism caters to the masses. HS's point is missed. Failures of Katrina are massive:
Tax dollars to infrastructure * Outdated satellite warning system * FEMA response * State Response* Racial Priority * Post Disaster funding * Children Social Services * FEMA Housing/trailers * and the list goes on. As to the Mendacity of MSM to report the events and aftermath, I agree there has been some. I would conclude the failure to understand the trauma, helplessness and emotional factors of this disaster. My experiences in New Orleans has always been a favorable. The Nation article wasted eighteen months on a miscreant group and could have chosen an in depth investigation of the children of Katrina.
Posting with Columbia University report
http://puddydunne.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/i-just-cant-help-myself/
For Harry (satire)
http://puddydunne.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/fema-says-they-ordered-large-aluminum-coffins/
I'm willing to admit that a catastrophic event of the proportions of Katrina would not bring out the best of people in most U.S. cities. Based on this post—as well as an interview on NPR that I heard earlier this year—I feel like your desire to promote New Orleans as basically good and decent—a place characterized by mostly neighborly and warm interactions—is misguided because it essentially whitewashes (pun intended) a history of violence and social inequality in this country. You seem to have issues with coming to grips with the racial dimensions of what happened. Why? You insist that, despite everything, New Orleans is a welcoming place for former residents and future tourists, but this is to the detriment of, in this case, acknowledging that some people used Katrina as an excuse to act out sick racist fantasies (and to do so with impunity). Why aren't you as outraged about the actual substance of this story as you are about the author's mis-characterization of the causes for post-Katrina flooding? Why do you feel the need to point your finger at "grotesque imagery of rappers and glorified thuggery" as if some forms to Black cultural expression was itself responsible for racist backlash??!!!! As a final note, I'm not quite sure why you feel the need to be so defensive and harsh about those who have commented on your post. "The lady doth protest too much???"
See Harry Shearer's Profile
When commenters impute racist implications, and then sit back and ask, "why so defensive?", it's pretty amusingly two-faced. Let's be clear: I don't excuse, tolerate, or defend any racist behavior. But let's be equally clear: during the nightmarish hell that was New Orleans during the flood, horrible emotions were unleashed in many ways among many different people. Lots of folks were running around the city with guns, and people who should have known better, like the Mayor and police chief, went on TV and radio and spread unsupported rumors about what black people were supposedly doing in their unprotected, unpoliced, unsupplied "shelters of last resort". My reaction to the Nation story rests on this and this alone: when you lie repeatedly about publicly available facts, your credibility as a journalist about facts which you alone have unearthed is damaged. Period.
Im immensely confused. I suppose that everyone has his or her own opinion,but I don't understand this post. The Nation chose to emphasize these shootings within the context of the Katrina disaster, not the failure of the levees. Isn't that their right? Personally, I want to be informed of both....
See Harry Shearer's Profile
But, in the piece under discussion, they consistently and repeatedly misstated the cause of the Katrina disaster. In what way did that inform you?
The story is "Who Flooded New Orleans?"
To answer "Katrina" is to lie.
Yes, exactly.
Thank you for pointing out
what should be so darn obvious all by
itself, but isn't.
There was another hurricane...It was called Ike. But then, we are rural folk, unlike New Orleans.
Mr. Shearer - Thank you for standing up for our fair city, as you always do. It is obvious that you are not claiming that there is no racism in the Crescent City - there obviously is - but what most people do not realize is that N.O. neighborhoods are more racially mixed than the vast majority of the nation. In contrast, the Nation article paints (tars and feathers?) the whole city with a broad brush of racism in a time of crisis, which is unfair and yet another arrow fired at a city that is still trying to get off of its knees 3.5 years after Katrina.
Also, the fact that the city was essentially destroyed by man-made malfeasance coupled with a catastrophic failure at the city, state and federal level after the storm is wholly relevant to the story. Society had unexpectedly collapsed and those that remained did what they could. Some obviously acted improperly and those actions should not be excused. Others acted heroically. Looking through a peephole surrounded by shoddy reporting does not serve anyone unless they want only to further their own agenda.
so let me get this straight Mr. Shearer, your blog's point is that since the technicalities about how the city flooded were not exactly right, the part about blacks being shot, which you even agree happened is not important.... or dimissable... hmmm... thanks for giving me perspective... when's your next movie coming out... ?
See Harry Shearer's Profile
Well, you don't have it straight, and thanks for the threat. It's not a "technicality" whether the city was hit by a natural disaster or by "the greatest man-made engineering disaster since Chernobyl". It's a publically-available factual conclusion, and to assert the contrary is to dishonor the folks who perished at the hands of Federal mal- or mis-feasance. I never said the crimes alleged in Thompson's piece were "unimportant", that's you putting words in my mouth.
Well now it's your turn to risk misperception ... the mere mention of your next movie seemed like a threat to you... Your column felt like to me a dismissal of vigilantism gone very bad and the 'big issue' getting the cause of flooding wrong. My Marine son married a young lady from New Orleans in a neighorhood very near the ferry location. I visited there not long ago and I definitely felt the discomfort of the races interacting with each other. I certainly don't want to live there... not in a place where I could be shot and there be no investigation... sorry, that's my perception. As for dismissing the catastrophe in N.O, I don't believe I did that; I simply sought to clarify your position... but hey, you feel the need to defend yourself with both barrels blasting....>.?
The article doesn't actually assert the contrary. Maybe some word choices imply that, but nothing there is contrary to fact.
Off the subject, but you nailed it so hard in "For Your Considerstion." I've watched that movie again and again just to be blown away by how you played that character. You're amazing.
For those of you who need a reminder of what happened here, just watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEjmLwvLUGU&NR=1
That is your Katrina. This is mine. (recorded 7 months after the storm).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POx4hpuTzXI
I took similar videos, heartbreaking, isn't it?
I feel harry Shearer is being a bit of an apologist in this blog. Because the reporter got certain facts wrong that immediately discredits the whole story? Well, Mr Shearer, if that is the case, you with your powerful media platform should launch an investigation yourself. Because these accusations, and the very open confessions of the Algiers Point residents seem to have some merit.
I don't understand why this is being treated as new news. It was in Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" 2 1/2 years ago. If America wanted justice, it could and should have acted years ago. NOTHING will be done because that is what this government does about Katruna related issues - nothing.
That’s why it’s still news...I’m with AC Thompson on this one tell the story until justice is served.
I often (almost always) agree with the author, but this time I think he is way off the mark.
It is by now abundantly clear that the two issues -the murder of innocent people stated in The Nation and the failure of the Corps to adequately protect the citizens of New Orleans - are inter-related. If the nation had not allowed the Corps to renege -for decades- in its mandate to bring the levees up to code, then The Nation would not be writing about murders in the wake of that failure.
In other words, both of these issues stem from systemic racism, right? It was the racism that allowed the Corps to drag its ass for decades and it was further racism that allowed not only the murder of innocent people, but the failure of the government to prosecute such crimes.
And seriously, the notion that The Nation is some loose cannon of "liberal media" is frankly absurd. The magazine and its writers have been one of the few journals in the US to considerately tackle the hard topics including, if I am not mistaken, the very issues that the author addresses.
See Harry Shearer's Profile
On what basis do you attribute the Corps' proven incompetence to racism? The Corps started building the so-called Hurricane Protection System in the mid-1960s, when the demographic distribution in New Orleans was far different from that of the 1990s, or even today. And the Corps' way of doing business is in no way limited to its work in New Orleans. Check out Michael Grunwald's 2000 series in the Washington Post on the Corps for an eye-opener.
I want Justice for those 1200+ people killed, regardless of their skin color, by the Corps of Engineers' failed levees.
Then we can move onto prosecuting the ones who killed each other?
If you folks, and Mr. Thompson, fail to note the murder and violent crimes rate among blacks upon blacks in New Orleans and from Blacks upon Whites --Before the Federal Flood-- then you really have no place here worrying about them after the storm do you?
We were having to literally dodge 5-10 Black Shootings per week in New Orleans during the week leading up to the Federal Flood.
That is the way it was and I dare anyone to contradict that who lived in New Orleans.
That is the Truth.
But the Corps of Engineers kills over 1200 innocent citizens, because of corrupt engineering --and y'all ain't gonna blink an eye?
Come on, Y'all, at least blink,
One Peace at a time,
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
Would Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Palm Beach or any other wealthy white bastion receive such shoddy service? I think not.
Harry, earlier I commented without reading the article.
You can talk about the failings of the levees and the hurricane all you want to, but the Nation's article is the real story that needs to be told.
As a child of the 60's south, it's impossible for me to express my feelings about the Thompson piece. It is shocking and extremely hurtful to have acts like this documented in today's America.
I can only hope that the incoming DOJ makes a CLEAR statement regarding this occurrence and any similar ones.
Just get the facts straight about the cause of the flooding is all we ask.
The flooding was caused by exactly the event for which Congress mandated the protection. It was somewhat below the threshhold Congress mandated, in fact.
I don’t give a good GD if AC Thompson didn’t accurately describe the storm surge or levee failures to your liking! Ordinarily, I appreciate your efforts from your far-flung environs to support our city’s recovery. But as a black New Orleanian, I’m completely offended that you would choose to ‘nitpick’, as others here have accurately characterized it, this horrific report for its background info and not support this reporter’s journalistic effort to help victims like Herrington get justice, especially when the NOPD has refused to pursue this.
Okay, so the media hasn’t done the best job reporting on the levee failures. Got it. But the local authorities haven’t done jack to provide justice to these residents that were victimized by hate crimes, even after they reported it and were willing to provide witness testimony which is almost unheard of in this city full of Black residents that for good reason don’t trust the NOPD. This speaks to the race dynamics that exist here that you refuse to acknowledge because, I guess in your part-time resident celebrity world, they doesn’t exist. Lucky you!
As another poster said, “Don't deny the victims of these shootings their chance to grab a piece of the spotlight just because your other cause has been under-lit.” We citizens of New Orleans that are here slugging it out daily in this very racially polarized environment with an administration that’s undermining us at every turn deserve better from you, as do the victims.
Can't the Nation be celebrated for it's in depth story to help Herrington get justice AND let Harry write about how he is completely discouraged and demoralized by the Nation writers' lack of understanding about why New Orleans drowned? Soon, it may be completely devoured by the Gulf of Mexico if people don't wake up!
"It was great! Like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, we shot it." - Wayne Janak, admitted gunman and Algiers Point resident.
A former New Orleanian, this source spoke to me anonymously because she fears her relatives could be prosecuted for their crimes. "My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all -- white against black -- that he could participate in," says the woman. "For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy."
"They didn't want any of the 'ghetto n&%ggers' coming over" from the east side of the river, she says, adding that her relatives viewed African-Americans who wandered into Algiers Point as "fair game." One of her cousins, a young man in his 20s, sent an e-mail to her and several other family members describing his adventures with the militia. He had attached a photo in which he posed next to an African-American man who'd been fatally shot. The tone of the e-mail, she says, was "gleeful" -- her cousin was happy that "they were shooting n&%ggers."
The afore-cited quotes from the article are the point of the story Harry.
I haven't yet received my January 5th issue of The Nation, so I haven't read the article, other than the bits and pieces that have been included in your criticism, Harry. But, the assertion that NOLA does not and has not had a racial war is also misleading. NOLA is one of the most racially stratified cities in which I have spent time. Considerable time. While racism does, in fact, exist everywhere - and noting that the degrees of racism are distinctly overt or subtle depending on the geography, ethnicity, economics and even politics of specific locales - that which is practiced in NOLA is genteel but no less real. Even the term 'race war' doesn't have to mean Watts, 1965, or Detroit, 1968. Race wars will continue to be fought, even at the most subliminal level, in every corner of the world.
So, while I can't speak to the mendacity you ascribe to Thompson's piece, I can and do suggest you, also, set the hyperbole aside. Rebuilding New Orleans involves more than repairing the levees or recovering the Ninth Ward.
Democracynow.org broadcasted the story last Friday, December 19th 2008. Amy Goodman interviewed the journalist (AC Thompson) and they talked about the issue in depth.
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