Hate Mail
Dear Noble Johns:
Horrifying!
I'm not referring to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. Actually, I'm referring to your so-called "coverage" of the story. Keep in mind, I'm not going to begin to comment on the misspellings or incorrect use of commas and semicolons.(Black News should fire its editor immediately!)
If you could, please explain the following paragraphs to me:
The desperation of the poor must not be over looked; it’s immoral to punish good people for the lawlessness of a few tugs when thousands of people are in a live or die situation. People have even been complainting that the cops are doing most of the looting to feed their families. Consider this; if the stuff that is being looted is contaminated in the first place, what is wrong with the poor people taking advantage of it to survive? The insurance companies are going to pay for the shit anyway.
Nagin, ordered 1,500 police officers to leave their search-and-rescue mission Wednesday night and return to the streets to stop looting that has turned increasingly hostile as the city plunges deeper into chaos. How stupid can you get; you will let the Blacks who elected you as mayor die to protect these crackers expensive properties.
1) The desperation of the poor must not be over looked;
What are you trying to say? The government is ignoring the poor in New Orleans? The poor people left in New Orleans are desperate? If so, say it. Don't make grandstanding statements that take away from your point. And once you say it, back it up with facts, not nonsense. EDITORIAL NOTE 1: Overlooked is one word, not two.
2) it’s immoral to punish good people for the lawlessness of a few tugs when thousands of people are in a live or die situation.
Who, actually, is punishing good people? Evil White people? George Bush? Hurricane Katrina? Mother Nature? New Orleans is in the midst of a terrible tragedy, and has fallen into anarchy. In such a setting, everyone is being punished. (FYI: Hurricane Katrina and Mother Nature are not mean white ladies. Neither are the tugs, er thugs. EDITORIAL NOTE2: live-or-die is hyphenated).
3) People have even been complainting that the cops are doing most of the looting to feed their families.
Is this your opinion, or is it something you're read or watched on TV? If so, cite your source. Are you writing a commentary or a factual news story? If it's a commentary, explain to your readers how you know this to be true.You are trying to state an opinion as fact. If it is factual, cite your sources. If not, articulate your opinions. EDITORIAL NOTEs 3 and 4 It's complaining, no "t" in the word; AP syle says to use "police" not "cops.".
4) Consider this; if the stuff that is being looted is contaminated in the first place, what is wrong with the poor people taking advantage of it to survive? The insurance companies are going to pay for the shit anyway.
These might be the two most idiotic two sentences ever written next to one another. Consider this: the first sentence condones desperate people eating contaminated food, which of course would immediately lead to deadly third-world diseases such as Cholera and Dysentery, making matters even worse. By suggesting this, you are encouraging what people should NEVER actually do in catastrophic disaster situations.
The second sentence tells everyone in your audience that you have no background in business or insurance whatsoever. And it's vulgar. Your point actually tells people more about YOU, and your lack of a vocabulary, as well as research on simple financial issues--than anything else. EDITORIAL NOTE 5: Shit not an acceptable noun.
5) Nagin, ordered 1,500 police officers to leave their search-and-rescue mission Wednesday night and return to the streets to stop looting that has turned increasingly hostile as the city plunges deeper into chaos.
This is the only sentence in the two paragraphs that actually reads as though written by a journalist or editorial commentator. It is the only sentence in the two paragraphs that isn't misleading.
6) How stupid can you get; you will let the Blacks who elected you as mayor die to protect these crackers expensive properties.
Wow. And you're a racist to boot. Aside from being simple and stupidly written, your own opinion is factually INCORRECT. Why? It incorrectly implies that by moving the police to stop armed looting, the mayor is killing black people who otherwise might be saved by them. The police in N.O. haven't been able to leave the city either. As a result, the mayor is trying to stop the destruction and looting of property--businesses and homes and personal owned by both black and white people, as well as people of other creeds. New Orleans is two-thirds black. Do the math. EDITORIAL NOTE 6: "crackers" should be capitalized
There's an old saying, Noble Johns: Sometimes a story reveals more about the author than the subject matter. I'm afraid your anger, feelings of hopelessness, and lack of faith in the government caused you to write this story. Your entitled to all of those feelings. But you must not be talented enough, or smart enough, to articulate your points to your readers without infusing racism.
That is hardly "Noble." And do you know what is worse than not being noble? It's being racist. My heart breaks for the people in New Orleans. The black people and the white people suffering. Overwhelmingly, most of the people suffering are black. That is a fact. My heart breaks for them.
And if you look very closely, most of the people who stayed to help them--doctors, nurses, Red Cross workers, EMTs, helicopter pilots and rescue search teams--are white. That, too, is a fact.
Racism is like a flood. Some get carried under its waves of hatred, ignorance and fear. Others rise above it and swim to shore. So, I wish you good luck facing your own personal flood. I hope you can swim. Opps, forgot. You're Black. You'll sink like the Titanic.
Racist? Yep. True? No.
But not any dumber than the thoughts in your story today.