To the Editor
I'm sorry, Mr. Wittman, but your thoughts that the anarchy in New Orleans was caused by man's "evil nature" are ignorant. Put yourself in the place of tens of thousands of people in a state of desperation for days and days, with no one to give them any information about when they might be rescued. Sure there was "looting," or at least that was what it was called by a sensational press.
If there is no humanitarian aid supplying food and water, do you think people will starve before they break into grocery stores and get supplies for their loved ones? In addition, none of the stories of rape and murder at the Superdome have been substantiated. You can imagine (or perhaps you can't) families who have lost everything, probably haven't slept for days, no food or water, conditions in the Superdome and Convention Center becoming toxic and hazardous, authorities providing no answers as to possible courses of action, locking you and your family with thousands of others in a place with soaring temperatures, piles of dead bodies in the streets and in the corners of those buildings, more dying every day-is it any surprise that they become desperate and irrational? These human beings were under severe psychological stress! It is easy to say, from the relative comfort of our fair college campus, that you would handle things differently, but that would be naive, wouldn't it?
Keir Fogarty
Graduate student
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.