Torrent+of+racist+abuse+on+Internet,+The+Star



=Torrent of abuse on Internet a racist deluge=

The Star, Johannesburg, Saturday, September 3, 2005

 * By Andrew Gumbel**

The growing tragedy of death, hunger, gun violence and societal breakdown in New Orleans is beginning to inspire outbursts of naked racism against the poor, predominantly black residents stranded in the city.

On Internet weblogs and in casual conversations, the usual taboos against racist rhetoric appear to have lifted entirely, suggesting the collapse of one more floodwall - the wall holding in the American South's brutal segregationist past.

Of the increasingly desperate survivors, some of whom resorted to looting and gun violence, a certain Joe B writes at the widely read New Orleans Metroblog site: "These people are no longer people. They are rabid animals and they need to be put down."

Vinesgirl, from Jefferson Parish, opines: "Since many of the city's urban blacks have given up on being productive members of the New Orleans community, perhaps the time has come for the community to give up on them."

Such strikingly vicious sentiments are, disturbingly, attracting as much applause as condemnation. The long rant by Vinesgirl - she tells them to "get over" the legacy of slavery and segregation - has attracted a torrent of responses, most of them approving.

"Your message is exactly what I've been wanting to say but feared saying," one writes. "God bless you for your wisdom and compassion and truth," another writes.

It is impossible to divorce such statements from the incendiary history of the Mississippi delta. Black people built the levees holding in the river waters, and those who refused were beaten or jailed. During a flood along the Mississippi in 1913, blacks were used as human sandbags. - Independent Foreign Service


 * From: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=131&fArticleId=2862519**