THE NEVER-ENDING STORY

do not give us your tired, huddled masses
I know some of you are probably tired of hearing about Katrina and all the debacles that have followed it. You want to get back to the fun-loving old days of Poplicks where we posted about life-sized R. Kelly dolls and see-through skirts (both, oddly, related to Japanese folk but let's not go down that road right now). We'll get back to there. Maybe. Eventually.

But seriously, it's not our fault that every new story emerging from NOLA is unbelievably f---ed up. Case in point, CNN just reported on this today:

New Orleans residents fleeing the city as flood waters rose tried to cross into the neighboring town of Gretna, only to get turned away by police officers with shotguns. This was about 200 people, according to the CNN report, but police forcibly turned everyone back, including "people in wheelchairs, we had people in strollers, people on crutches," mostly, as it seems women, children and elderly.

Mostly Black.

"What we were told by the deputies is that they were not going to allow another New Orleans, and they weren't going to allow a Superdome to go into their side of the bridge, Gretna. So to us, that reeks absolute racism, since our group that was trying to cross over was women, children, predominantly African-American," said one witness.

Gretna's police chief, now joining a long list of what The Daily Show has delicately termed "The F**kers", claims that it wasn't race, but ill-preperation...

...and the need to protect other people's property. Talk about damning yourself with your own words:

"We had no preparations. You know, we're a small city on the west bank of the river. We had people being told to come over here, that we were going to have buses, we were going to have food, we were going to have water, and we were going to have shelter. And we had none. Our people had left. Our city was locked down and secured, for the sake of the citizens that left their valuables here to be protected by us."

I don't blame Chief Lawson for admitting that the town was woefully under-prepared to handle an influx of survivors trying to flee the city - if one thing is clear, everyone was under-prepared, right? However, his point that it would have been somehow irresponsible to help save hurricane survivors because they were trying to protect the "valuable property" of those who left is some pretty cold sh--. Once again, the private property of the few outweigh the needs of the many (who happen to be poor and Black).

Let's just read between the lines: he was worried that the people fleeing New Orleans might loot their pretty little town even though most of them seemed desperate just not to drown.

That's just upstanding of the Gretna police - let's give 'em a big hand for putting capitalism ahead of humanitarianism. At least they got the "Protect" part of the police motto right.

--O.W.