Check out this interesting and important article by A.C. Thompson published in a recent issue of The Nation. Thompson discusses, among other things, events occurring in Algiers Point in the days following Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans. "Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims. Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the steets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about fifteen to thirty residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply 'didn't belong.'"
And Thompson writes that an anonymous source stated that her "uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all--white against black--that he could participate in. For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy." One of her cousins "sent an e-mail to her" and "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 niggers.'"
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