New Orleans First Hand
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2005 20:12:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Stacy Wykle
Stacy Wykle from ISAR registration desk, Kepler
College, Austin Burners, Eastern Europe, Portland, et
al. here. (If you get this mail you know me in some
fashion.) I am sending everyone I know news about the
tragedy in New Orleans. You are subject to more mails
on this subject, as I am just arrived from there (just
barely ahead of the hurricane), and am in close
contact with people who are first-hand witnesses to
many things in the aftermath possibly too unbelievable
to print or broadcast in the mainstream media. Please
tell me if you wish for me to desist from contacting
you, for I am on a mission. I must do something with
my outrage that is constructive.
My mother's family is from the city. She lives on St.
Charles Ave. (riverbend area which sits just at sea
level) and we were able to leave on Sunday before the
storm hit on Monday and did, though I was willing to
stay for reasons that people who are not from the Gulf
cannot understand. Until a few hours ago I had a 3
month pregnant friend who was missing. I was at the
end of my wits as some of you who have recieved other
mails from me have witnessed. Later on in this e-mail
her first hand account she wrote me from Baton Rouge
today is re-printed. All names are removed to protect
identity. Please cut, paste, and disseminate it or
any and all of what I send to you, please. The more
who know the truth the better. At this point I
strongly believe that ignorance is complicity, NOT
bliss.
The reason you are receiving this mail is that I
cannot sit by and allow misperceptions of this
horrific tragedy to go unchecked. There are so many
scathingly racist things being posted all over the net
that I have read and being implied in conversations I
have been having about the looting and violence that
is occuring in my hometown. I was just down at the
convention center here in Austin (where luckily I have
an apartment that my mother and I could flee to) that
is serving as a shelter for many displaced people,
helping my mom look for 2 of her friends. A few
thousand people were there. Many people were waiting
with us to hear if their loved ones were safe. I had
the dubious honor of talking to two rather typical
Texans who asked me "Why didn't all those people just
LEAVE?", and "WHY didn't the CITY DO something?" No
one seems to understand poverty. No one seems to know
that the Bush administration exploited the levee fund
that Clinton had set up for the war in Iraq. And,
certainly, as much as everyone from the outside likes
to come and let all their hairs down in the "Big
Easy", the hair gets pinned up as they leave and when
they get home without having had their purse stolen
because they never really ventured out to the East of
the Vieux Carre, they think, "Wow, what a FUN place
New Orleans is." It is a universal perception which
"foreigners" seem to have (as the natives call people
from the rest of the United States outside Louisiana).
The reality is that as a country we do not understand
our history. We leave the Civil War in 11th grade,
taught to us by underpaid football coaches.
Segregation? Racism? Isn't that what happened in
Alabama in the 1950s or something?
The main thing that I hope with every fiber of my
incensed being that people realize is that this
tragedy has ripped the lid off the boiling pot. We
are failing our own. The poor are often black and are
always disenfrachised... and very, very angry. I do
not know what you are seeing in the papers or on CNN,
but the REALITY is that a long ignored part of our
culture has now been exposed. Most of the people who
did not leave before the hurricane because they could
not leave. I left because I could. It is that
simple. The real question is: WHERE WAS THE
INFRASTRUCTURE TO TAKE CARE OF THEM WHEN THE %$#@ HIT
THE FAN? The violence that is occuring there is, in
the words of Malcolm X after the assassination of JFK,
a case of the "chickens coming home to roost." There
is no way to say that this tragedy is somehow like the
tragedy of 9-11. In fact, what overwhelmed us in New
York a few years back SHOULD HAVE readied us... what
happened to "homeland security," would someone clue me
in? What on Earth have my civil liberties been
curtailed for all this time when ensuring my own
survival was not an issue as well?
Please know that Katrina is not like any other natural
disaster our nation has seen to this point. We have a
displaced city of 1/2 million people fleeing to
various points all over the country, with a culture
and character that is not widely understood. New
Orleans is a tourist's haven (or at least WAS) for a
cheap vacation in the US, a way to go to get a taste
of Europe and the Carribean for a weekend. For the
near 40% of its residents living habitually far below
what is commonly accepted to be the "poverty line" in
conditions created by a history of supressive racism
dating back much, much farther than the days of 1950s
desegregation, the culture of violence the United
States is now witnessing (I do not watch TV but I am
aware that right-wing religious factions and other
conservative political zealots are somehow putting a
deserving "city of sin" spin on both the hurricane and
its aftermath...) is the reality of an everyday
struggle to survive for so many people in New Orleans,
New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and actually
every other urban center I have ever visited in this
oversized, motley country. Segregation is not over.
Racism? I lived in Portland, Oregon last year and was
witness to some of the most racist remarks I have ever
heard come out of white, educated, middle-class
mouths, and friends, I was RAISED in Birmingham,
Alabama.
Being from the South and having spent much time
traveling around the United States and the world, it
is easy to say, in no uncertain terms, that because of
our disparate (and desparate) masses of people all
banded together yet ignorant of our own history, we
are all complicit, tacit racists. We were supposed to
have been in a state of readiness and we were not,
abundantly not. In the words of the grafitti spray
painted onto boxcars rolling into the Bay Area only
days after the main disaster struck, there is "More to
follow..." Are you ready?
Love, Stacy Wykle (Hazel Twiggs)
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
Just a note to say I'm alive.
I am extremely traumatized.
The anarchy, storm, flood water and the smell of rot
in the city can not be put into words.
I am healthy except my stomach is sick and my feet are
slightly infected from contaminated water.
My house is perfectly intact and all the trees fell
away from it.
The French Quarter from Canal to Burgundy up to Poland
Avenue is an island.
It is starting to smell like bodies and birds are
starting to flock.
We didn't get water in our neighborhood until
yesterday.
I've become a pro at looting for food and all the
neighbors got together.
I am now outside Baton Rouge.
We had to siphon gas to leave and it was stressful
with all the down trees and lines, military, and
gangs.
People in our neighborhood are walking on the streets
with shotguns, axes, bats.
Houses are getting robbed and buildings are getting
blown up.
People are hotwiring city buses and running them into
houses.
People are getting shot over gasoline and water.
I don't know who's alive and who's dead.
People from the neighborhood are taking canoes over
St.Claude and France area to pull people out of water.
There are dead children on Canal Street.
Dog Packs are forming.
I am mentally having some problems.
People are getting raped.
New Orleans is the scariest place on the planet.
The cops are looting and drinking beer riding on the
back of cars with rifles.
It's a police state.
They are shooting people and taking away our weapons.
We had a gun, ax, hooks, a staff, cleaver and a few
knives.
I will be able to respond but please don't expect too
much from me right now.
I'm really over alot of this.
M*****-Couldn't even get past Claiborne to check your
house. Water too deep.
S****-Your house is still intact-no damage water
receded,your car is there but someone put a
screwdriver in the gas tank to get gas.
R****-Couldn't get to your house because of water and
violence.
T*** and D****-Houses are fine as far as I can see
S**** G*******-House looks ok but the brick fence is
all over the road. One window may be broken.
People are robbing houses so this is only storm
damage.
I do have photograps to download and will later but
I'm really f***** up right now.
I'm having a hard time in society. [Note from Stacy:
She means the world outside of New Orleans.]
I hope we can all return.
I may have more stories later when I can.
The government are idiots. They left us to die.
J*****.
Also-
S**** we had to use your house for resources-thank
you.
Friends that gave me keys to their houses-thank you.
You helped us survive.
No one ever take anything for granted.
I am grateful for a flushing toilet.
We had to use buckets and go to neighborhood pools to
gather water.
I am grateful for ice.
And for life.
There are still children there!
There are old people!
People with their limbs rotting.
People lying on the street on mattresses.
Yes this is the bywater.
This was our home.
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
Two other anecdotes: (1) A small band of people
(friends of friends of friends) have locked themselves
in a bar in the French Quarter after having looted
guns, food, ammo, batteries. People like you and me.
They found some random women who were distraught and
wandering about with nowhere to go and are protecting
them from the ever-growing violence, from the cops,
from the absolute anarchy that is reigning in what
used to be New Orleans. They have already had to kill
several people including one who is lying in the
doorway which they will not move out of fear of being
seen and also to serve as a warning for anyone else
who tries to break in. I only HOPE that the troops
brought in from Iraq will not be too PTSDd out and
trigger happy to know the difference between civilians
protecting themselves and the real violence.
(2) In a nursing home out Chef Menteur HWY (East N.O.)
16 elderly people died because no one evacuated them
or remembered about them. LOOTERS helped the
survivors they found there out to the West of town
after stealing Depends, food, etc. for them. I talked
to a woman at the convention center today whose 95
year old mother survived this. This poor woman and
her haven't slept for 5 days from the trauma they have
experienced. (Alot like me.)
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2005 20:12:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Stacy Wykle
Stacy Wykle from ISAR registration desk, Kepler
College, Austin Burners, Eastern Europe, Portland, et
al. here. (If you get this mail you know me in some
fashion.) I am sending everyone I know news about the
tragedy in New Orleans. You are subject to more mails
on this subject, as I am just arrived from there (just
barely ahead of the hurricane), and am in close
contact with people who are first-hand witnesses to
many things in the aftermath possibly too unbelievable
to print or broadcast in the mainstream media. Please
tell me if you wish for me to desist from contacting
you, for I am on a mission. I must do something with
my outrage that is constructive.
My mother's family is from the city. She lives on St.
Charles Ave. (riverbend area which sits just at sea
level) and we were able to leave on Sunday before the
storm hit on Monday and did, though I was willing to
stay for reasons that people who are not from the Gulf
cannot understand. Until a few hours ago I had a 3
month pregnant friend who was missing. I was at the
end of my wits as some of you who have recieved other
mails from me have witnessed. Later on in this e-mail
her first hand account she wrote me from Baton Rouge
today is re-printed. All names are removed to protect
identity. Please cut, paste, and disseminate it or
any and all of what I send to you, please. The more
who know the truth the better. At this point I
strongly believe that ignorance is complicity, NOT
bliss.
The reason you are receiving this mail is that I
cannot sit by and allow misperceptions of this
horrific tragedy to go unchecked. There are so many
scathingly racist things being posted all over the net
that I have read and being implied in conversations I
have been having about the looting and violence that
is occuring in my hometown. I was just down at the
convention center here in Austin (where luckily I have
an apartment that my mother and I could flee to) that
is serving as a shelter for many displaced people,
helping my mom look for 2 of her friends. A few
thousand people were there. Many people were waiting
with us to hear if their loved ones were safe. I had
the dubious honor of talking to two rather typical
Texans who asked me "Why didn't all those people just
LEAVE?", and "WHY didn't the CITY DO something?" No
one seems to understand poverty. No one seems to know
that the Bush administration exploited the levee fund
that Clinton had set up for the war in Iraq. And,
certainly, as much as everyone from the outside likes
to come and let all their hairs down in the "Big
Easy", the hair gets pinned up as they leave and when
they get home without having had their purse stolen
because they never really ventured out to the East of
the Vieux Carre, they think, "Wow, what a FUN place
New Orleans is." It is a universal perception which
"foreigners" seem to have (as the natives call people
from the rest of the United States outside Louisiana).
The reality is that as a country we do not understand
our history. We leave the Civil War in 11th grade,
taught to us by underpaid football coaches.
Segregation? Racism? Isn't that what happened in
Alabama in the 1950s or something?
The main thing that I hope with every fiber of my
incensed being that people realize is that this
tragedy has ripped the lid off the boiling pot. We
are failing our own. The poor are often black and are
always disenfrachised... and very, very angry. I do
not know what you are seeing in the papers or on CNN,
but the REALITY is that a long ignored part of our
culture has now been exposed. Most of the people who
did not leave before the hurricane because they could
not leave. I left because I could. It is that
simple. The real question is: WHERE WAS THE
INFRASTRUCTURE TO TAKE CARE OF THEM WHEN THE %$#@ HIT
THE FAN? The violence that is occuring there is, in
the words of Malcolm X after the assassination of JFK,
a case of the "chickens coming home to roost." There
is no way to say that this tragedy is somehow like the
tragedy of 9-11. In fact, what overwhelmed us in New
York a few years back SHOULD HAVE readied us... what
happened to "homeland security," would someone clue me
in? What on Earth have my civil liberties been
curtailed for all this time when ensuring my own
survival was not an issue as well?
Please know that Katrina is not like any other natural
disaster our nation has seen to this point. We have a
displaced city of 1/2 million people fleeing to
various points all over the country, with a culture
and character that is not widely understood. New
Orleans is a tourist's haven (or at least WAS) for a
cheap vacation in the US, a way to go to get a taste
of Europe and the Carribean for a weekend. For the
near 40% of its residents living habitually far below
what is commonly accepted to be the "poverty line" in
conditions created by a history of supressive racism
dating back much, much farther than the days of 1950s
desegregation, the culture of violence the United
States is now witnessing (I do not watch TV but I am
aware that right-wing religious factions and other
conservative political zealots are somehow putting a
deserving "city of sin" spin on both the hurricane and
its aftermath...) is the reality of an everyday
struggle to survive for so many people in New Orleans,
New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and actually
every other urban center I have ever visited in this
oversized, motley country. Segregation is not over.
Racism? I lived in Portland, Oregon last year and was
witness to some of the most racist remarks I have ever
heard come out of white, educated, middle-class
mouths, and friends, I was RAISED in Birmingham,
Alabama.
Being from the South and having spent much time
traveling around the United States and the world, it
is easy to say, in no uncertain terms, that because of
our disparate (and desparate) masses of people all
banded together yet ignorant of our own history, we
are all complicit, tacit racists. We were supposed to
have been in a state of readiness and we were not,
abundantly not. In the words of the grafitti spray
painted onto boxcars rolling into the Bay Area only
days after the main disaster struck, there is "More to
follow..." Are you ready?
Love, Stacy Wykle (Hazel Twiggs)
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
Just a note to say I'm alive.
I am extremely traumatized.
The anarchy, storm, flood water and the smell of rot
in the city can not be put into words.
I am healthy except my stomach is sick and my feet are
slightly infected from contaminated water.
My house is perfectly intact and all the trees fell
away from it.
The French Quarter from Canal to Burgundy up to Poland
Avenue is an island.
It is starting to smell like bodies and birds are
starting to flock.
We didn't get water in our neighborhood until
yesterday.
I've become a pro at looting for food and all the
neighbors got together.
I am now outside Baton Rouge.
We had to siphon gas to leave and it was stressful
with all the down trees and lines, military, and
gangs.
People in our neighborhood are walking on the streets
with shotguns, axes, bats.
Houses are getting robbed and buildings are getting
blown up.
People are hotwiring city buses and running them into
houses.
People are getting shot over gasoline and water.
I don't know who's alive and who's dead.
People from the neighborhood are taking canoes over
St.Claude and France area to pull people out of water.
There are dead children on Canal Street.
Dog Packs are forming.
I am mentally having some problems.
People are getting raped.
New Orleans is the scariest place on the planet.
The cops are looting and drinking beer riding on the
back of cars with rifles.
It's a police state.
They are shooting people and taking away our weapons.
We had a gun, ax, hooks, a staff, cleaver and a few
knives.
I will be able to respond but please don't expect too
much from me right now.
I'm really over alot of this.
M*****-Couldn't even get past Claiborne to check your
house. Water too deep.
S****-Your house is still intact-no damage water
receded,your car is there but someone put a
screwdriver in the gas tank to get gas.
R****-Couldn't get to your house because of water and
violence.
T*** and D****-Houses are fine as far as I can see
S**** G*******-House looks ok but the brick fence is
all over the road. One window may be broken.
People are robbing houses so this is only storm
damage.
I do have photograps to download and will later but
I'm really f***** up right now.
I'm having a hard time in society. [Note from Stacy:
She means the world outside of New Orleans.]
I hope we can all return.
I may have more stories later when I can.
The government are idiots. They left us to die.
J*****.
Also-
S**** we had to use your house for resources-thank
you.
Friends that gave me keys to their houses-thank you.
You helped us survive.
No one ever take anything for granted.
I am grateful for a flushing toilet.
We had to use buckets and go to neighborhood pools to
gather water.
I am grateful for ice.
And for life.
There are still children there!
There are old people!
People with their limbs rotting.
People lying on the street on mattresses.
Yes this is the bywater.
This was our home.
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
Two other anecdotes: (1) A small band of people
(friends of friends of friends) have locked themselves
in a bar in the French Quarter after having looted
guns, food, ammo, batteries. People like you and me.
They found some random women who were distraught and
wandering about with nowhere to go and are protecting
them from the ever-growing violence, from the cops,
from the absolute anarchy that is reigning in what
used to be New Orleans. They have already had to kill
several people including one who is lying in the
doorway which they will not move out of fear of being
seen and also to serve as a warning for anyone else
who tries to break in. I only HOPE that the troops
brought in from Iraq will not be too PTSDd out and
trigger happy to know the difference between civilians
protecting themselves and the real violence.
(2) In a nursing home out Chef Menteur HWY (East N.O.)
16 elderly people died because no one evacuated them
or remembered about them. LOOTERS helped the
survivors they found there out to the West of town
after stealing Depends, food, etc. for them. I talked
to a woman at the convention center today whose 95
year old mother survived this. This poor woman and
her haven't slept for 5 days from the trauma they have
experienced. (Alot like me.)