Katrina victims demand government address racism

Victims of Hurricane Katrina told Congress on Dec. 6 that they were held at gunpoint, treated like criminals and left to sleep next to dead bodies because the government at all levels failed to protect them as they tried to escape floodwaters. In an emotional and sometimes contentious hearing, most witnesses said they believe racism played a key part in the aftermath of the disaster and that they are still suffering without basic services and fear that promised help and housing will never arrive. Patricia Thompson, a lifelong resident of New Orleans, told a harrowing tale of trying to escape floodwaters with her family only to be neglected and mistreated by police. "We slept next to dead bodies. We slept on streets... next to human feces and urine," she said. "The way we were treated by police was demoralizing and inhuman. They made everybody lie on the ground with their hands on their heads, even babies." Leah Hodges said with tears in her eyes that people were allowed to die as New Orleans was turned into a "mass grave." She called the response an "ethnic cleansing" and an "act of genocide" and said that police screamed racial slurs at members of her family who were trying to get help for sick neighbors. Hodges also said that white people were picked to ride first in buses taking evacuees out of the city. The hearing of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina was prompted in part by a request from Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) for a hearing on "African-American voices" related to Hurricane Katrina. McKinney said that a history of racism in the region should not be ignored, including reported incidents of racial profiling and racist comments by police in Jefferson Parish. The federal government has denied that any facet of the response was racially motivated. Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said she was "one sunrise from being consumed by maggots and flies." Another woman said military troops focused machine gun laser targets on her granddaughter's forehead. "No one is going to tell me it wasn't a race issue," said Thompson, who is now living in College Station, TX. "Yes, it was an issue of race. Because of one thing: when the city had pretty much been evacuated, the people that were left there mostly was black." "Racism is something we don't like to talk about, but we have to acknowledge it," McKinney said. "And the world saw the effects of American-style racism in the drama as it was played out by the Katrina survivors." The five white and two black lawmakers who attended the hearing mostly sat quietly during two and a half hours of testimony.