The two things in this article that surprise me the most are the claim by the Times-Picayune Editor that the false rumors would not have been as bad if the people were white. I just don't get this at all.
Quote:
Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part.
"If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people," Amoss said, "it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering."
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And the other thing is that only 6 people died at the Superdome and 4 at the Convention Center. From the news reports I saw with the reporters' and mayor's claims of rape/murders and starvation, etc... I thought the death toll there would be in the hundreds.
Quote:
State officials this week said their counts of the dead at the city's two largest evacuation points fell far short of early rumors and news reports. Ten bodies were recovered from the Superdome and four from the Convention Center, said Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
(National Guard officials put the body count at the Superdome at six, saying the other four bodies came from the area around the stadium.)
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