Tag: looting

Looting: My story.

The word “looting” is a hot button. Push it and people reliably react with their prejudices about poverty, property, race, violence, and law. Use it on me, and I get a tape replay from the Los Angeles riots of ’92. Here’s what I saw then, and what I learned.

In 1992 I was living in West Los Angeles and working at home and downtown. I had a small failing DIY medical records business and my best friend Greg had a small failing DIY courier business. I used his courier business to deliver my work to California Hospital, which is in the industrial part of Downtown Los Angeles. I was also working part-time at Good Samaritan Hospital, which is just west of Downtown in the Westlake/Pico-Union district.

On the day of the Rodney King police beating verdict I was at a computer store run by some Iranian friends. When the news came out they shook their heads and said “There will be a riot”. I didn’t believe them and thought they were exaggerating or misinterpreting an adopted country. I went home that night feeling awful about the miscarriage of justice.

Good morning. Your city is on fire.

Don’t believe the hype

Watch out for hysterical urban legends, unconfirmed reports, and exaggerated nightmare scenarios about looting in New Orleans. There’s looting and violence all right, and when all is told there are going to be some sad and frightening stories about it.

But who benefits from a lot of scare talk about masses of armed looters, snipers, and great crowds of the unwashed attacking rescue personnel? The people who want to blame the victims, that’s who.

All those officials who failed us are going to talk long and loud about the breakdown in civil order and the need for zero tolerance and lots of soldiers with guns. Don’t forget the real villains here: the people who didn’t give the evacuation order in time, the local agencies that left people on their own without transportion to leave, the federal agencies that pulled the funding for the levees, the President who couldn’t be bothered leaving his vacation until the corpses were floating already. They’d just love for you to concentrate on all those grimy underclass losers stealing beer and taking potshots at helicopters.

Keep your focus. The “grownups” in suits who were supposed to spend our tax money to save lives stood around while Americans died. If they try to look good later by shooting some pathetic losers for boosting a beer, it’s doubling their own crime.