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Jewish World Review Sep. 1, 2005 / 27 Av, 5765 Mother Nature meets Human Nature By Michael Graham
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Across America, millions of people are responding to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina by opening up their hearts and checkbooks to help those in need. Across the Gulf Coast area, volunteers and rescue workers are responding to the horror by working around the clock, some risking their lives to pluck victims from rooftops and rivers.
And then there are those in New Orleans itself who, confronted by the devastation, reacted in a way that reminds us, not of the fearful power of Mother Nature, but the tragic depths of human nature: The stole everything that was not tied down.
These were scenes that made me shake my head in disbelief: Looters casually filling plastic bags, shopping carts, even handtrucks with loot, all in clear view of their neighbors, the media, even National Guardsmen.
What hit me like a punch wasn't the looting itself as much as it was the attitude of the looters. Reporters challenged them, asking the thieves and thugs if it was their own stuff they were taking, and the looters just laughed.
One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.
"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."
Moms and their kids lugged cases of beer and soda out of a grocery store, smiling at the TV cameras they passed. Men with bundles of clothes lumbered nonchalantly out of stores on Canal Street in the French Quarter, while others busted out windows to grab "emergency essentials" like jewelry and luggage.
Where were the cops, you ask? According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune website, they were at the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, helping themselves to computers and flat screen televisions.
A crowd in the electronics section said one officer broke the glass DVD case so thieving teenagers wouldn't cut themselves. "The police got all the best stuff. They're crookeder than us," one man groused to the press.
One looter, 25-year-old Toni Williams, shrugged when confronted by a reporter as she loaded up with stolen supplies. "It must be legal," she said. "The police are here taking stuff, too."
The more I watched, the more stunned and angry I became. The more I listened, the more outraged I felt—as when Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu defended those people looting stores of food and water ("That's understandable," she told MSNBC). Instead of condemning this opportunistic thievery outright, this Democratic Senator urged Louisiana's looters to "use good judgment."
What does that mean—only steal from Republicans?
One news story quoted a local named Mike Franklin, who stood nearby and watched the looters' progress. "To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.
Again and again as I watched these sickening images of brazen looting from an American city, I asked myself: Who ARE these people? Who are these pathetic losers who raise little kids to be lookouts while they steal and teach him the phrase "86" to warn of approaching police? Who are these people who, surrounded by the bravery of law enforcement and rescue workers in the midst of a crisis, choose to give into their lowest, most base selves? Who is this Mike Franklin who excuses this shameful theft and thuggery as a legitimate response to "oppression?"
"Get back at society?" You mean the society that gives you, for free, 12 years of education? Whose cops patrol your streets and whose taxpayers provide billions in welfare payments, health care and other benefits—not to mention billions in FEMA money? Is that the "oppressive society" you have in mind?
Because, speaking as a member of the oppressing class, I want my stuff back. The jeans and the computers and the beer and the chips—I want the selfish dirtbags who stole it to bring it all back. I want their ingratitude acknowledged and their shameful acts undone.
Because the store whose doors they kicked in did not belong to "everybody." Those stores, and the products for sale on their shelves, represented work. They represented investment and sacrifice and saving and risk-taking, all to build a successful business that one day would face the unavoidable devastation of a hurricane and the unforgivable destruction committed by their fellow human beings.
It's offensive to hear anyone, from a US Senator to a street-cruising sneak-thief defend this looting as legitimate. This thievery was not inevitable and it's not excusable.
My family and I were in Richmond, VA in September 2003 when Hurricane Isabelle hit and knocked out power and water for more than a week. Like hundreds of thousands of others with rotting food in our fridge and thirsty kids at home, we had to stand in hours-long lines for water and ice just to get by…and we did.
I believe the looting occurred because of what President Bush calls the "soft bigotry of low expectations." When a US Senator excuses your crimes and a neighbor can explain it as a sociological reaction, then why not? Why not steal? Why not (as occurred in New Orleans) shoot a fellow looter for getting better stuff than you? Or why not (as also happened) shoot a cop in the head for trying to stop the looting?
If you live in a community whose culture celebrates lawbreaking, and your neighbors and leaders expect no better from you, it must be awfully tempting to give in.
In many parts of America, a rising tide like the one in New Orleans would bring out the best, the most generous, and the most responsible elements in the human character. For whatever reason, the culture of New Orleans' inner city instead brought out the very worst.
Insurance companies are talking about $25 billion in damages from Hurricane Katrina. But the damage to the image of the American character may be far more destructive than that.
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© 2005, Michael Graham | ||||||||||
