Chasing
A Katrina Conspiracy: Was There An Attempt To Kill Blacks?
By
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, BlackNews.com Columnist
In the weeks since Katrina hit, Nation of Islam leader Louis
Farrakhan, a slew of activists and bloggers have spun a huge
tale of wicked intrigue about the hurricane. Katrina, so the
conspiracy theory goes, provided the perfect and long awaited
pretext for either the Army Corp of Engineers, secret government
agents, the Klan, FEMA operatives, corporate real estate interests,
or unnamed forces to blow the levees in New Orleans and send
torrents of waters raging through the city's poorest black
neighborhoods. The aim of the plot, depending on who spoke,
was to kill blacks, protect the white, upper income areas
from flooding, gut political strength in New Orleans, or grab
black homes and land at fire sale prices and dump pricey condominiums,
townhouses, upscale malls and gallerias in their neighborhoods.
To prove their point, the conspiracy theorists cited random
remarks made by a handful of tired, distraught and bitter
evacuees camped in the Houston Astrodome. They claimed to
have heard explosions immediately before the levees broke,
and they lambasted Bush and the federal government for their
inaction. This conspiracy theory would have been relegated
to a fringe corner on obscure websites if Farrakhan hadn't
fanned it in a speech in North Carolina a couple of weeks
after Katrina struck. A bevy of conservative talk show jocks
quickly pounced on it. That gave them yet another foil to
use to deflect heat from Bush's bungled relief response. They
railed at Farrakhan for stirring black paranoia, and anti-white
hatred.
There
is absolutely no proof that the levees were deliberately
blown. The predominantly black 9th Ward in New Orleans
was not the only section of the city flooded. The flood
devastated racially mixed residential areas, some white
middle-income neighborhoods in New Orleans, and other
Gulf Coast towns. The levees broke because of age, poor
maintenance, and the millions that Bush slashed from
the 2005 budget earmarked for their repair. Experts
also note that explosions and sudden noises can occur
during maximum force hurricanes. They attribute it to
the tremendous build up of water pressure, high winds,
and power outages.
During the past two decades, redevelopment agencies,
developers, land speculators, and young, white, middle
income home buyers have transformed deteriorating inner
city neighborhoods into gentrified, upscale residential
and business areas complete with lofts, townhouses,
and trendy shops. They didn't need a hurricane or natural
disaster to do that.
The belief that the Katrina disaster was anything other
than a confluence of Bush bungling, budget cutting folly,
and nature's wrath, is no surprise. The conspiracy bug
has long bit many Americans. There are packs of groups
that span the political spectrum that include Aryan
Nation racists, Millennium Christian fundamentalists,
anti-Semitic crackpots, and fringe left radicals. Their
Internet sites bristle with purported official documents
that detail and expose alleged plots. These groups and
thousands of individuals believe that government, corporate,
or international Zionist groups busily hatch secret
plots, and concoct hidden plans to wreak havoc on their
lives. Hollywood and the TV industry have also horned
in on the conspiracy act. They churn out countless movies
and TV shows in which shadowy, government groups topple
foreign governments, assassinate government leaders,
and brainwash operatives to do dirty deeds.
A near textbook example of that was the theory spun
by an Idaho meteorologist. He claimed that a Japanese
Yakuza crime group used a Russian Cold War era made
generator to trigger Katrina. This supposedly was punishment
for the Hiroshima atom bomb attack. The theory was fantastic
nonsense, but the Associated Press and USA Today took
it seriously enough to treat it as a legitimate news
item, with quotes from experts to refute it. The conspiracy
bug bit many blacks especially hard in the 1960s. They
claimed that murky government agencies flooded the ghettoes
with drugs, alcohol, gangs, and guns to sow division
and disunity among black organizations, eliminate militant
black leaders, jail black politicians, and quash black
activism.
The racial conspiracy theorists at least had a suspect
to point the finger at, and that was the FBI. For years,
it waged a disgraceful, relentless, and illegal war
against Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights
leaders. That was hardly the case in the Katrina catastrophe.
There was no single suspect that anyone could blame
the disaster on. Farrakhan declined to finger any person
or group that he believed blew up the levee. That would
have required hard evidence, and the citing of expert
testimony, to boost the contention that Katrina was
an anti-black plot.
New Orleans was the culmination of a half-decade of
the Bush administration's costly, and reckless war and
fiscal policies that have resulted in the neglect and
deterioration of the nation's roads, bridges, tunnels,
and, levees. That neglect forced thousands of poor,
blacks in New Orleans to flee for their lives. And there
was no hidden hand in that.
Earl
Ofari Hutchinson is a columnist for BlackNews.com,
an author and political analyst.
For
media interviews, contact:
Mr. Hutchinson at 323-296-6331 or hutchinsonreport@aol.com
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