| Hate Groups Respond To Hurricane
Katrina
By Mary Annaïse Heglar
Almost before she made landfall Hurricane Katrina was designated as
the worst natural disaster in American recorded history. Not only did
she destroy large areas of the Gulf Coast, she blew away any flimsy
covering over America’s tense (to put it mildly) racial climate.
But if the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was slow to respond
to the catastrophe, America’s anti-black hate groups did not waste
any time.
American Renaissance Magazine describes itself as “America’s
premiere publication of racial-realist thought.” A quick glace
over their website reveals that “racial realism” must be
synonymous with white supremacy and ultra-conservatism. Renaissance
responded to Katrina’s wrath in an article entitled “Africa
in Our Midst: Lessons from Katrina” from their editor, Jared Taylor.
“[New Orleans became] Africa in our midst, that utterly alien
Africa of roadside corpses, cruelty and anarchy…. New Orleans
has had only black mayors since 1978 and has spent decades making the
police force as black as possible. Katrina blew away any pretense that
the force was competent…. We will never know the full extent of
the mayhem blacks loosed on their own city…. When blacks are left
entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of
civilization—disappears.”
White Revolution, a neo-Nazi group based in Arkansas, immediately boasted
of a “whites only” tent settlement for Katrina victims in
Wiggins, Mississippi. That claim is apparently false. But they did not
stop there. They initiated “Cartridges for Katrina,” with
which they assured any whites in affected areas, “For every black
looter you shoot, and provide proof of a clean kill, White Revolution
will provide reimbursement of all expended ammunition, at no cost. That’s
our guarantee to you.”
Scott Morris, leader of Sons of Confederate Veterans, said that the
black victims were “vile criminals,” “pestilent vermin,”
and “leeches [who] will go on to pollute the communities where
they’re relocated.”
The chat rooms featured similar, if not more graphic, remarks. On the
Aryan Resistance website, someone wrote that “the niggers were
probably too stoned to get out of town when the warnings came.”
At Stormfront, a woman wrote “I feel a great pity for any city
having to house these animals in their communities.” On the same
site, a visitor wrote, “Never before have I seen so many ugly,
black faces suffering.”
And the sentiment is echoed on many a website throughout the internet.
There were remarks that if Katrina managed to rid New Orleans of its
black population, half the urban problems in the South would be solved
and that black victims should be left on their rooftops so that they
would swim back to Africa.
At the same time that Hurricane Katrina exposed that the federal government
“doesn’t care about black people” (in the words of
Kanye West), it exposed these hate groups who call themselves “pride
groups.” The vast majority of the ultra-conservative, neo-Nazi,
white supremacist groups in the country justify their existence on the
grounds that they are not hateful; they are simply proud to be white.
Katrina proved that myth to be utterly false.
Still, these ideologies are disturbingly similar to the apparent sentiments
of the federal government. The attitudes of “blame the victim”
and “shoot to kill” are mirrored from governmental policy
to the internet. But the real brain teaser is trying to figure out who
is echoing who.
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