Heh. It's encouraging to read that this particular group of humans didn't behave as 'animalistically' as many of us (me) were led to believe. I'm glad I read this.
We'll never know the truth about the rapes, but it does seem that so much information was greatly exaggerated.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Because if a bunch of white racists were reporting that black gangs were killing and raping all kinds of people, the lies would make a bit more sense, unfortunately.
Posts: 537 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I'm...not really sure what to think of this. Because I'm really not sure if I believe it.
I haven't heard personally from anyone who was at the Superdome or the Convention Center, but I have heard from other people who were in the city who said that things were actually WORSE than were reported on the news.
But I hope it's true and that the reports really were exaggerated.
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I think it's more a case of media sensationalism, yet again. A reporter hears an unsubstantiated rumor of violence at the convention center, reports on it because it's exciting and dangerous. It gains credibility as other reporters follow suit and it gets blown further and further out of proportion because its so shocking.
The sad thing is, corrections like this almost never get anywhere near the same amount of coverage. When the truth is so much tamer, it doesn't get good ratings.
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*nod* I believe it. My husband said the same type of stuff from his first hand experience in Biloxi - all the talk of looting and lawlessness - he saw zero evidence of it.
I mean, yeah some homes were looted after the storm let up but the people were well behaved and there were no problems for anyone.
Things do get out of control - one rumor spreads and soon the people repeating it are saying it's gospel, yet details and actual eye witnesses are hard to track down. This really doesn't surprise me, I expected it to be much less horrific than made out on the news.
Not that I would have wanted to be one of the people staying in the dome, mind you - the people there had to put up with a lot and the cirumstances were far from ideal.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I really enjoyed listening to This American Life's coverage of what went on in New Orleans after Katrina.
quote:In the days following Hurricane Katrina, Denise Moore was trapped in the New Orleans Convention Center, with her mom, her niece and her niece's two-year-old daughter. There she witnessed acts of surprising humanity by armed thugs, taking charge and doing good.
This American Life producer Alex Blumberg talks with Lorrie Beth Slonsky and her husband Larry Bradshaw. They're paramedics from San Francisco who were visiting New Orleans for a convention when Hurricane Katrina hit. After the storm, they tried to escape the city in a number of ways. When they tried to leave the city on foot, they were told, at gunpoint, by police, that they must turn back. After the Flood
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That "This American Life" show was eye-opening and saddening to me. The Gretna, LA officials' actions were truly horrible. How could they fire their guns toward the exhausted, dehydrated, starving group of people and send them back to die? There were old people, babies, everything! How could they DO that? Especially the crazed cop running off the group of 70 who had found a place of shelter under the bridge. Whom were they hurting? Then the helicopter blowing away everything they'd collected together to make a relatively decent place to stay for the night.
I just cry for my country when I hear stuff like this. People who haven't had anything to drink for days being turned away because of fear? How can that happen here and now? It makes me just cry.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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