Jesus, those poor people. I remember seeing one of the victims interviewed during When the Levees Broke but I didn't understand what that was all about til now. This is a devastating report, no one can read it without sensing the terror they must have gone through. The shooters don't even deny it, but gloat about hunting N-grs and there has been no state or federal investigation?! Sign the petition!

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/391083/justice_in_new_orleans?rel=sidebox

It's kind of a coincidence that you are posting this just now because a few days ago I watched an amazing film on a closely related topic that I am ashamed to say I never watched before Mississippi Burning. Wow -- really shocking and moving. I highly recommend it. It's a true story from the sixties. I thought things were different now but maybe they're not. This is tragic.

who were presenting no threat to anyone
Their threat was the color of their skin.
Sad world.

How TOTALLY chilling is it to read THIS in 2008 as we are about to inaugurate our first African American president? ...

"Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, he smiles and tells the camera, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."" ...

Although, Sarah Palin helped to bring a lot of this kind of stuff into broad daylight, so theoretically, if one has been paying attention over the past three or four months, we shouldn't be all that surprised.

Surprised? Sadly, perhaps not.

Disgusted and embarrassed to call myself an American? You betcha.

I recall NPR reporting on locals shooting on those who were fleeing. A couple of white reporters were trying to leave on foot with a few African-Americans from New Orleans.

They crossed over a bridge to a neighbouring town, only to be threatened with gun-wielding citizens. The reporters were offered safe passage, which they refused.

I was at a protest this week-end, where I met a white kid from NJ. He was a tad off centre to begin with, I think. But he tossed out the kind of ignorant "knowledge" about Philadelphia, our "hoods and ghettos" and violent population, to the point where I was offended.

I would have stayed longer, but his nervous insinuations and disturbing ideas made me leave. It was awful. We were there to protest chain-stores that supply animals from puppy-mills.

He made me think that he had been raised in the human equivalent. His dad was there, and they were clearly frequent protesters for the cause. I felt that there was no talking to him, he was so rabid.

I will be contacting the organizer, to find out her perspective. I cannot be around people who insult my city, who tell me "how it is", who live with such vitriol.

"Although, Sarah Palin helped to bring a lot of this kind of stuff into broad daylight, so theoretically, if one has been paying attention over the past three or four months, we shouldn't be all that surprised."

I don't understand, Christine - can you explain more?