{"id":27076,"date":"2010-08-28T10:28:28","date_gmt":"2010-08-28T15:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=27076"},"modified":"2014-08-26T01:14:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T06:14:24","slug":"guest-post-racial-violence-in-the-aftermath-of-katrina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/08\/28\/guest-post-racial-violence-in-the-aftermath-of-katrina\/","title":{"rendered":"Racial Violence in the Aftermath of Katrina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trigger warning: racial violence and racist language.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A disturbing picture of racial slaughter emerges in the days following Katrina, at the hands of private residents and police officers. Racially-motivated murders were carried out in Algiers Point, a predominately white enclave nestled in mostly black Algiers, not far from Gretna. This part of the city is connected to the rest of New Orleans by bridge and ferry only, and it did not experience flooding. After the storm, a band of\u00a015 to\u00a030 white men formed a loose militia targeting anyone whom they deemed \u201cdidn\u2019t belong\u201d in their predominately white neighborhood (source<\/a>). They blocked off streets with downed trees, stockpiled weapons, and ran patrols.<\/p>\n

At least eleven black men were shot, although some locals expect that the actual number is much higher. On July 16, 2010, Roland Bourgeois was charged with shooting three black men in Algiers in the days following Katrina (source<\/a>). He allegedly came back to the militia home base with a bloody baseball cap from Ronald Herrington, a man he shot, and told a witness that \u201cAnything coming up this street darker than a paper bag is getting shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, this is the only arrest\u00a0of militia members, but the FBI is investigating the situation\u00a0and will likely make more arrests\u00a0given that two Danish filmmakers interviewed multiple residents who admitted shooting black people.\u00a0In \u201cWelcome to New Orleans,\u201d militia member Wayne Janak smiles at the camera: \u201cIt was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it.\u201d A woman nearby adds \u201cHe understands the N-word now\u2026 In this neighborhood, we take care of our own.\u201d Many of the victims reported that militia members called them racial epithets during attacks, and a family member of militia members reports that her uncle and cousins considered it a \u201cfree-for-all\u2014white against black,\u201d and her cousin was happy they were \u201cshooting niggers.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Malik Rahim, a long-time Algiers resident and activist who co-founded Common Ground Relief after the storm, took me on a tour of bodies in his neighborhood a week or so after the storm. I only made it through one viewing \u2013 a bloated body of a man under a piece of cardboard with a gunshot wound to his back. I assumed that this death was being investigated, but should have\u00a0known otherwise given that the state had essentially sanctioned these actions with a \u201cshoot to kill\u201d order that allowed civilians to make their own assessments of who should live or die.<\/p>\n

One of Many New Orleans Vigilante T-Shirts Slogans:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cross-posted at\u00a0Caroline Heldman\u2019s blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nCaroline Heldman is a professor of politics at Occidental College<\/a>. You can follow her at her blog<\/a> and on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trigger warning: racial violence and racist language. A disturbing picture of racial slaughter emerges in the days following Katrina, at the hands of private residents and police officers. Racially-motivated murders were carried out in Algiers Point, a predominately white enclave nestled in mostly black Algiers, not far from Gretna. This part of the city is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,8080,304,283,250,285,1760,1757,133],"class_list":["post-27076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-housingresidential-segregation","tag-the-state","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-guns","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27076"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63901,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27076\/revisions\/63901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}