"Singer Charmaine (Neville) says ..." (ESSENTIAL reading/watching)

[iverglas]

http://www.chittlincircuit.com/Article73.phtml

A singer, Neville is a member of one of New Orleans' great musical families. Her father, Charles Neville, performs with uncles Aaron, Art and Cyril in the Neville Brothers band. She estimates the musicians in her family number well over 100. In New Orleans, she said, every neighborhood and every family has musicians.

... Just back from a visit to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center on Saturday afternoon, Neville was cut, bruised and a little despondent. Among the horrible things she'd seen last week, she said, was the rape of old women, girls and boys.

"Some people hate themselves, so they hate everybody else. Those people were not true New Orleanians," she said.

But Neville saw heroes, too. "There are many, many heroes that have come out this. People talking about what I did. I didn't do nothing. Everybody did something."

Neville said that she, too, was raped during those chaotic days. "What he took from me was nothing, because he can't take my spirit, he can't take my soul. My soul is New Orleans."

This is video. WATCH IT.

http://www.chittlincircuit.com/Article73.phtml

Want to know whether people were being assaulted and raped? Want to know whether anybody was shooting at helicopters -- and why?

WATCH IT.

Neville is an African-American woman. She was VICTIMIZED

by the hurricane and the failure to protect residents of the area from the KNOWN probable effects

by her society, that failed to get relief and rescue to her

by the violent criminals who preyed on her and others like her

by her society, that failed to protect her from them

Let us NOT victimize her or anyone like her yet again by denying their experience because we think it serves someone else's agenda to recognize it.

Enormous thanks to shireen for posting these in another thread.

[JAbuchan08]

1. I agree we should not minimizxe the chaos and disorder

if anything it serves as an indictment of the slow response.

[iverglas]

2. EXACTLY

It doesn't matter that the O'Reillys of the world try to spin it as an indictment of the poor or of African-Americans.

It is an indictment of the society that allowed these things to happen to ANYONE, and most especially of the society that allowed these things to happen to someone because of his/her race or class.

[shrike]

3. I personally think the guys who were shooting at helicopters

Were hoping Bush was in one of them.

[iverglas]

5. I was hoping for some slightly more thoughtful responses ...

The reality of the violence that has occurred in New Orleans is horrific in itself. It just doesn't need political spin, or caustic non sequiturs. It speaks for itself, but it needs to be heard.

Maybe people are watching the five-minute video ...

[Judi Lynn]

4. I'm getting zip on the link.

Checked out the source you've linked: it's an entertainers' promotion site.

Not a news site.

[iverglas]

6. don't know ...

I clicked on the two links shireen provided here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1757247&mesg_id=1758463

and got the article I quoted above here:
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/090405/new_soul001.shtml

and the video clip (which takes a while to load, even at high speed) here:
http://www.chittlincircuit.com/Article73.phtml

Just tried it again; it looks like this:

... Charmaine Neville, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, speaks to a Priest and details her experience during the storm in New Orleans 9th ward.
There are many many more stories like hers but, yet to be heard.
What Charmaine describes is beyond what anyone sould go through. In America her story makes it ever worse to beleive such events could happen. This video will and should being you to tears...

... and the video in the box underneath (9745K) is still loading ...

It's worth the wait.

[iverglas]

7. oh ... and then you have to click "play" ;) n/t

[pitohui]

8. neville is not promoting herself, try the NEWS site

there is a news site & a very respected one, the baton rouge advocate newspaper, others have linked it, simply click

saying you've been raped is not the way to promote yrself, ask connie stevens, there is no reason for her to say this if it didn't happen

they've already found the freezer full of bodies at new orleans convention center

don't call this woman a liar

[iverglas]

10. I don't think Judy Lynn meant that

The site itself isn't where one would expect to find this sort of reporting -- it's an entertainers' (plural) promotion site.

What else you say is right on, and is entirely my point.

There has been a raft of posts at DU asserting that all reports of violence are right-wing, racist propaganda, that there is no evidence of such events, etc. etc.

The attempt to SPIN these events into right-wing, racist propaganda is despicable -- but what on earth else would we expect?

The most vulnerable in a society -- already victims of poverty and racism -- are left to the mercy of the elements, both before and after the elements turned on them -- and *also* to the mercy of the people who exploit that situation to victimize them.

They are multiply victims of class and race hatred (and of course, women were further victimized). They are victims, not authors of their own misfortune -- whether by failing to leave the disaster area or by being somehow part of a mob that abandoned civilization.

Neville and the victims like her are no more examples of what poor African-Americans *do* than Connie Stevens is an example of what rich blonde people *do*.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Wouldn't you imagine the bodies were found in the neighborhood

after being killed in the storm, and the people stuck in the area felt they should be refrigerated to keep them from becoming a health hazard? Seems logical to me.

Repress your impulse to tear into me. It's inappropriate. I didn't call the woman a liar.

[pitohui]

14. sorry

i'm also on another site where ppl have been very cruel

everybody's a liar, everybody's a bum who was too lazy to put gas in their car to evacuate, yadda yadda yadda

i've lost my faith in human nature i guess

didn't mean to read ya wrong

on edit- as far as the freezer, tho, i think the 7 yr old w/ his throat cut is pretty definitive proof that the philosophy of ebay "most ppl are good" is not true when society breaks down, there is a small but destructive percentage that only restrains itself from killing raping & torture because of fear of punishment

[Judi Lynn]

18. I know the feeling. I think we always knew these guys were around

but they really are the first ones out the door when help is needed, to stomp the suffering into the ground.

[iverglas]

20. that's why I started the thread

Around here, anyone willing to acknowledge that violence may have been committed by disaster victims against other disaster victims has been pilloried as a dupe of the right-wing media who want to make all poor African-American people look bad.

People who don't leave a danger zone because they don't have the means to leave or a place to go aren't stupid. They're victims.

People trapped in floodwater surrounded by dead bodies and filth and ignored for days by their society aren't bad. They're victims.

But women who are raped by other people who are the victims of those things are also victims. We must not allow their experience to be exploited as evidence of their own stupidity or of their community's evil. But we must not deny it.

The oppressed will ALWAYS be portrayed as stupid and evil by the oppressor. This first struck me about 25 years ago when I attended a municipal meeting to discuss the idea of the city buying a rural property where single mothers and their children could get a few days of respite in the summer. The idea had been developed by a grassroots community group made up of the people in question. The various speakers from the floor who were opposed to the idea had two themes: (a) this wasn't really what those women needed, they needed X, and we're the ones to tell them how it should be done; and (b) those women don't need this, they're just greedy feeders at the public trough.

I finally got up and suggested that it was time to stop assuming that just because someone was poor and female she was also greedy and stupid.

That is not why Charmaine Neville and so many others have gone through these atrocities. They have gone through these atrocities because no one offered them the assistance they needed to avoid the situation and to get out of the situation, and no one protected them from the things that happen to people in that situation, no matter what their class or colour. It just seems to happen that the people in these situations are more often than not poor people and people of colour ... and also women, and children, and old people ...

And if their class and colour are not the reason why they were denied all that assistance at all those many points when they could have been helped, somebody needs to come up with a better explanation. That they are evil and stupid is not it.

[shireen]

22. thank you.

You've expressed my thoughts very eloquently. These days, I just can't find the words. It's mentally and emotionally exhausting. I just want to curl up into a ball -- tighter and tighter -- till I disappear from this madness.

[Judi Lynn]

9. This may be the same clip, it's from a TV station.

I just located it, listened to the first minute, and put it on "pause" so I could post the link here, for those who couldn't get a response from the original link:

~~~~ link ~~~~

I haven't heard the entire clip yet, but it is probably the one you've linked.

[iverglas]

12. yup - just don't try it in old netscape ;)

Thanks!

[Judi Lynn]

15. It's definitely something to study. She seems completely sincere.

A person would have to be a MEpublican not to want to hold her so close and pray she could be comforted someday.

I hope a lot of people will hear and see this.

[stillcool]

13. Wow....

...i'm not comprehending what's going on..its like alot of things in life that you hear or you see but you don't get it. I'm not getting it. Its' outside my realm...I know its there....but I don't want to get too close and have it suck me in.

[fortyfeetunder]

16. Chilling.Beyond.Comprehension

This is a MUST SEE video

Kicked and Nominated.
:kick:

[candice]

17. A courageous woman...who rowed multitude of people to high ground

in the French Quarter and then commandeered a bus to save people, but she had to leave many who were desperate.

She saw hundreds of bodies in the street, bodies of babies.

Had the government been able to provide water and food and help within even 24-hours, most of the mayhem wouldn't have happened, and thousands of people would have lived and those who survived would have had their dignity in tact.

Shame on this government that gave pork to build a bridge to nowhere in Alaska and refused to help restore the levees.

[Judi Lynn]

19. I hope voters will remember this next election, that is, if the Diebolds

haven't rendered voters obsolete by then.

[CanOfWhoopAss]

24. That is already a problem that must be overcome

That is why repukes never panic when they f*ck up. They don't have to be personally responsible or accountable for anything and they know it.

[Sarojin]

21. Don't forget how this started

Ripping people from their homeland to enslave them, then oppress them for hundreds of years...

I've seen people with money go crazy over an incorrect order being delivered to their table. How would you react after being treated like they treat folks lacking white skin in the deep south, and then see rescue helicopters waving but not helping for 5 days, see convoys of food come in and not get to you, and then see buses come in and take out the well-to-do from the Hyatt while you sat there watching your friends and family die?

Frightening how engrained the social stereotypes and racial propaganda exists, even in progressive minded people. Not pointing any fingers, just a daunting obstacle to overcome.

[CanOfWhoopAss]

23. Other links to video very gripping

Link to Charmain Neville's Video

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/06.html#a4827

or

http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=13&y=10