What you won't hear, except from me, is that 'Let the good times roll' is an especially risky message for African-Americans. The plain fact is that they tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus they need stricter moral guidance from society. ... In contrast to New Orleans, there was only minimal looting after the horrendous 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan — because, when you get down to it, [the] Japanese aren't blacks.
15 comments
Kobe was very well prepared for earthquakes; New Orleans was very poorly prepared for floods. Much of the looting was people trying to get food and water and many of the tales of murder, carjackings and rape turned out to be just that: tales. Kobe displaced 300,000 people; Katrina displaced anywhere between 1 and 1.5 million. I'd suggest you tried comparing like with like, but that wouldn't fit your racist agenda, would it, dirtbag?
Japanese civilians don't take as readily to "looking out for number 1" as Americans, many of whom look to it as a religious doctrine. Additionally, the Japanese government's response to the disaster was competent unlike George W. Bush's direction of FEMA which couldn't have killed more of the survivors if it had been actively trying.
And let me be the first to point out: Whether it's called scavanging supplies or looting seems to depend entirely on who does it.
Yet there was a shitload of looting and rioting, in addition to massacres of ethnic minorities in political dissidents, after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Socioeconomic factors do matter, but "native judgment" and race sure as hell doesn't.
Hmm... I seem to recall that the vast VAST majority of people rioting and stealing shit in London a couple of years back... were WHITE!
Funny how wankers like Steve here forget about things like that...
When quakes and tsunamis hit Japan, the government looks to get the citizens out and the citizens look to cooperate. Media covers it as a tragedy, everybody pulls together.
In America? Things differ.
When Katrina hit I recall hearing that the National Guard was called in and not only blocked aid from outside but blocked bridges and fired warning shots at people trying to leave New Orleans. FEMA refugee camps were so poorly organized people were as likely to die in them as out in the flooded streets. Supplies were diverted around camps uselessly and the trailers made for temporary housing were deadly poisonous to occupants.
So take a populace that is constantly bombarded with the message that the government is out to get them, add being shot at by the military, add further that the refugee camps more closely resembled internment camps, add once more that a lot of media streaming in from outside the disaster area is trying with disgusting fervor to declare that everyone in New Orleans was being punished by God and/or should be left for dead with particular focus on race painting any black people who salvaged supplies as looters rather than survivors of a disaster, then finally sprinkle outright lies over that media coverage to spice up the incidents where survivors shot at helicopters because they were terrified the government was coming to kill them off by saying it's a nonstop orgy of crime and mob rule.
This is what you're using as a baseline for your demented judgements. People pushed to the edge and beyond in a deliberately crafted shitstorm drenched in malicious lies and sensationalism.
Seriously, how can anyone believe there were carjackings in waist high water? Bit of a logistics problem there. Point is, you're talking shit.
Maybe it is because in Kobe they were more organisation than in the New Orleans and thus, people didn't nhave to loot to survive and police could deal with the remaining looters.
@Passerby , Hasan Prishtina and othersimage
I was going to post the picture that JeanP posted, so thanks for putting that up. When white people loot, they're just finding items they need to survive. When black people do it, they're worthless criminals.
The Japanese knew their nation would bend every effort to save them. The African Americans in New Orleans knew many of their fellow citizens (including Stevareno) would give two shits about saving them. In fact, they knew some of the cops would use them for target practice.
Besides, have you heard of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant? Look it up, and then tell me all about the Japanese post-flooding clean up was so cool.
Maybe it's because the Japanese were mostly raised from the time that they were small children to accept the idea that they are members of a society, that people depend on one another, and that this society only functions if people can rely on one another and work together.
Meanwhile, here in the states, we've mostly been raised to believe that each of us is an island, that our goal is to get ahead at all cost, that the second winner is the first loser, and that we have to take everything we can and fuck everyone else, because they're going to do it to us, screw everyone and screw them first, and this has helped to cause a complete atomization of society that results in us treating each other like packs of starving wolves preying on each other. And people not so different from you hold this up as the highest moral good.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.
