How to Destroy an African-American City in Thirty Three Steps – Lessons from Katrina

Thursday, June 28, 2007 by CommonDreams.org | How to Destroy an African-American City in Thirty Three Steps – Lessons from Katrina | by Bill Quigley

Step One. Delay. If there is one word that sums up the way to destroy an African-American city after a disaster, that word is DELAY. ...

Step Two. When a disaster is coming, do not arrange a public evacuation. Rely only on individual resources. People with cars and money for hotels will leave. ...

Step Three. When the disaster hits make certain the national response is overseen by someone who has no experience at all handling anything on a large scale, ...

Step Four. Make sure that the President and national leaders remain aloof and only slightly concerned. This sends an important message to the rest of the country.

Step Five. Make certain the local, state, and national governments do not respond in a coordinated effective way. This will create more chaos on the ground.

Step Six. Do not bring in food or water or communications right away. This will make everyone left behind more frantic and create incredible scenes for the media.

Step Seven. Make certain that the media focus of the disaster is not on the heroic community work ... but mainly on acts of people looting. ...

Step Eight. Refuse help from other countries. ...

Step Nine. Once the evacuation of those left behind actually starts, make sure people do not know where they are going or have any way to know where the rest of their family has gone. In fact, make sure that African-Americans end up much farther away from home than others.

Step Ten. Make sure that when government assistance finally has to be given out, it is given out in a totally arbitrary way. ...

Step Eleven. Insist the President suspend federal laws requiring living wages and affirmative action for contractors working on the disaster. ...