
Were the levees bombed in New Orleans? MSNBC \|\| December 11, 2005 [KDR: This article tries to make it sound like a few paranoid black people think there were bombs in the levees. For some actual detail on this topic please see this article Locals, Officials Suggest Levees were Intentionally Blown.] WASHINGTON - It's become a strongly held belief by some in the storm zone — the idea that the destruction of New Orleans’ heavily poor, heavily black Ninth Ward was neither an accident nor an act of nature. Dyan French, also known as “Mama D,” is a New Orleans Citizen and Community Leader. She testified before the House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday. “I was on my front porch. I have witnesses that they bombed the walls of the levee, boom, boom!” Mama D said, holding her head. “Mister, I'll never forget it.” “Certainly appears to me to be an act of genocide and of ethnic cleansing,” Leah Hodges, another New Orleans citizen, told the committee. Similar statements, sometimes couched as rumors, have also been voiced by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the nation of Islam, and director Spike Lee. “I don't find it too far-fetched,” Lee said in a recent television interview, “that they try to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.” Article Posted at www.KnowledgeDrivenRevolution.com Harvard's Alvin Pouissant says such conspiracy theories are fueled by years of government neglect and discrimination against blacks: slavery, segregation and the Tuskegee experiments, during which poor blacks were used to test the effects of syphilis. “If you're angry and you've been discriminated against,” Pouissant says, “then your mind is open to many ideas about persecution, abandonment, feelings of rejection.” The latest theory is partly rooted in historical fact. In 1927, the levees were bombed to save parts of the city, and black neighborhoods were inundated. But independent engineers investigating levee failures during Katrina say that's not what happened this time. Prof. Robert Bea, from the University of California, Berkeley, studied the levee failures and his team issued a preliminary report. “We didn’t find any evidence that would indicate explosions,” says Bea. New Orleans columnist Lolis Eric Elie says the federal government badly neglected black Americans during Katrina, but he does not believe the levees were blown up. “One of the problems with that theory,” Elie says, “is that there were a whole lot of other areas of the city, including some that are predominantly white, where there was flooding.” Harvard's Pouissant also says that latching on to conspiracy theories is a way for the powerless to cope with terrible losses — incendiary claims born of an enormous tragedy. About KDR \| \| Home \| \| Weekly Features Archive	Weekly Weekly Features Archive
In Depth The Number 1 Reason YOU became a Slave Coming Soon: 9-11 Liberals, Conservatives and NDP
Archive October November December 2005 27 28 29 30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Weekly Features

Were the levees bombed in New Orleans?

MSNBC || December 11, 2005

[KDR: This article tries to make it sound like a few paranoid black people think there were bombs in the levees. For some actual detail on this topic please see this article Locals, Officials Suggest Levees were Intentionally Blown.]

WASHINGTON - It's become a strongly held belief by some in the storm zone — the idea that the destruction of New Orleans’ heavily poor, heavily black Ninth Ward was neither an accident nor an act of nature.

Dyan French, also known as “Mama D,” is a New Orleans Citizen and Community Leader. She testified before the House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday.

“I was on my front porch. I have witnesses that they bombed the walls of the levee, boom, boom!” Mama D said, holding her head. “Mister, I'll never forget it.”

“Certainly appears to me to be an act of genocide and of ethnic cleansing,” Leah Hodges, another New Orleans citizen, told the committee.

Similar statements, sometimes couched as rumors, have also been voiced by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the nation of Islam, and director Spike Lee.

“I don't find it too far-fetched,” Lee said in a recent television interview, “that they try to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.”

Article Posted at www.KnowledgeDrivenRevolution.com

Harvard's Alvin Pouissant says such conspiracy theories are fueled by years of government neglect and discrimination against blacks: slavery, segregation and the Tuskegee experiments, during which poor blacks were used to test the effects of syphilis.

“If you're angry and you've been discriminated against,” Pouissant says, “then your mind is open to many ideas about persecution, abandonment, feelings of rejection.”

The latest theory is partly rooted in historical fact. In 1927, the levees were bombed to save parts of the city, and black neighborhoods were inundated.

But independent engineers investigating levee failures during Katrina say that's not what happened this time.

Prof. Robert Bea, from the University of California, Berkeley, studied the levee failures and his team issued a preliminary report.

“We didn’t find any evidence that would indicate explosions,” says Bea.

New Orleans columnist Lolis Eric Elie says the federal government badly neglected black Americans during Katrina, but he does not believe the levees were blown up.

“One of the problems with that theory,” Elie says, “is that there were a whole lot of other areas of the city, including some that are predominantly white, where there was flooding.”

Harvard's Pouissant also says that latching on to conspiracy theories is a way for the powerless to cope with terrible losses — incendiary claims born of an enormous tragedy.

About KDR | | Home | | Weekly Features Archive

Weekly

Chicken Little Terrorist: Al Qaida No. 3

Weekly Features Archive

In Depth

The Number 1 Reason YOU became a Slave

Coming Soon:

9-11

Liberals, Conservatives and NDP