Jackson Free Press

"It was like it was someone's opinion but it wasn't attributed to anyone," Lea Stokes, a MEMA spokeswoman, said of "Storm Hit Little, but Aid Flowed to Inland City," an article by Eric Lipton in the Nov. 20, 2005, issue of The New York Times. The article, which described widespread abuse of hurricane relief in the Jackson area, drew strong criticism from locals, among them Gov. Haley Barbour.

"I think the things in that article that were erroneous need to be straightened out," Barbour said at a Nov. 21 press conference in the Woolfolk Building in Jackson. "I mean, one thing that The New York Times complained about was that a disaster area was declared more than 200 miles inland in Mississippi. To which I would suggest they ought to get down here and look at a map, and find out where the hurricane went. We had 120-mph winds in Jones County, with 12 fatalities, which is more than 100 miles inland."

The article claimed that Katrina was relatively tame by the time it reached Jackson, and it questioned whether politics played a role in declaring Hinds County a disaster area. It also contended that most who received aid here suffered nothing worse than spoiled food. "The fact that some relief money has gone to those perceived as greedy, not needy, has set off recriminations in this poor, historic capital where the payments ... set off spending sprees on jewelry, guns and electronics," Lipton wrote.

Lipton declined to be interviewed for this story.

'Like Nothing Happened'

Lipton briefly quoted Larry Fisher, director of the Hinds County emergency department, on the discrepancy between his survey of housing damage and the number of claims that were made to FEMA. Fisher does believe that there was widespread fraud after the storm, but he says it was absolutely necessary that the disaster area extend to Hinds County.

"We had winds here up to 85 miles an hour, and subsequently we had a lot of timber damage, and those trees damaged a lot of homes. ... If you see it now, it almost looks like nothing happened," Fisher said.

Lea Stokes, whom Lipton also interviewed, said Lipton seemed to believe that Jackson should not have been in the declaration for Katrina. Lipton's piece did not include her explanation of the rules governing how emergency declarations cover counties.

"All it really does is let state agencies like law enforcement and National Guard come in and help local governments that are overwhelmed. We can't come in until the local governments ask us, and we have a state of emergency that allows it," Stokes said.

Hinds County initially reported 1,500 homes with major damage, and about 1,300 with minor damage, according to Stokes. That more than met the threshhold for a state of emergency.

"In the Jackson area, when I tried to drive home at night, I couldn't get to the interstate because of all of the downed trees and power lines," she continued. "Signs on the interstate were gone. The damage has been cleaned up in the Jackson area now, but the debris was horrible, with trees and power lines down all through the metro area. But no one from The New York Times was here to see that part."

'It's Easier to Point the Finger'

"Between the Coliseum and the Trade Mart we took care of about 3,800 people," said Donald Paxton, executive director of the Central Mississippi Chapter of the Red Cross.

Paxton, who was also quoted in the Times article, said he was proud of the Red Cross' service considering the trying circumstances. "Keep in mind that Katrina was 12 to 15 times larger than the largest single disaster the Red Cross had responded to in the past."

"I don't believe the system was rife with fraud," Paxton continued, "and I think the vast majority of people who came to us for assistance did so because they were in need."

Julie Propst, program director of Catholic Charities' Long Term Recovery Program, agreed. "I think it's often easier to point the finger at the victims and say they just want handouts than it is to think about how huge the loss is. I think people have a hard time getting their head around that."

Need comes down to more than damage to housing, Propst said. "People who have seven family members from New Orleans living with them, and they're having difficulty with their utilities, that's hurricane related."

MEMA's Stokes described a family who had to buy a generator to keep a dialysis unit working through the blackout. "They can't be reimbursed for that generator if they don't register."

Stokes says she thinks many people count themselves out of assistance, so MEMA encourages anyone who might qualify to file. The presumption is that FEMA will follow its own rules in evaluating claims.

Joe Blow Sold Some Guns

"Don't tell me you talked to Joe Blow at a pawn shop, and he said he sold some guns," Ward 4 City Councilman Kenneth Stokes said of the Times article, referring to Lipton's interview with Lee Montgomery, manager of the Terry Road Pawn Shop.

"If you tell stories about people who went and bought a gun, that's the way you play on people's emotions and ignorance. They're not talking about gas going up to $3 a gallon. They're not talking about the older people in this neighborhood who ... lost all of their food. These older people are not crooks."

The Times article minimized the importance of spoiled food for disaster victims. "There are people who kill a cow once a year and live off that food," Propst said. "Or they put up vegetables from the summer."

Councilman Stokes says many residents of his neighborhood grow gardens. He showed me lots that had been plowed into muddy furrows covered in rotting leaves for fertilizer.

Chiles Robinson says he has been keeping a garden on Woodrow Wilson for more than 48 years.

"I do it because it helps with my arthritis ,and it helps me and the family folks and my neighbors out," Robinson said of his gardening. "Mostly, it's just to keep me going."

Losing a freezer full of summer vegetables was a serious blow to Robinson, who relies on Social Security. "We didn't have no electricity for four days. I had okra, peas and beans in the deep freeze, and all that stuff got ruined." Without his freezer, Robinson has had to rely on food stamps. He received no money or assistance after the storm. "I just go with what the Lord give me."

"I can't give you those numbers because we were part of a larger operation, and we don't have any of the statistics or even the case records here," Paxton said.

MEMA does not have any figures yet on claims for spoiled food. "I know FEMA did not give him that number, and I know we didn't give him that number. It was a statement that had no fact to back it up," Lea Stokes said.

"There's no documentation of how much money went to spoiled food," Councilman Stokes said. "Yes, you may have had some who did that, but I'll bet you those numbers of people who did something wrong wasn't even enough to report that kind of story. You can't document any of the stuff he talked about; you shouldn't even write that kind of irresponsible stuff without documentation. That's making people all over the country get a bad impression of Jackson, Mississippi."

"We had people who really suffered here," Stokes continued. "An elderly woman just down the street here died from not having air conditioning. People died, and (Lipton) didn't say anything about that."

Previous Comments

ID

64816

Comment

i was out of town the weekend that mr. lipton was in town doing 'research' for his piece, but several of my friends were drinking at the bar at the walthall and happened to meet him. since they're all gracious, well-mannered folks (some of whom actually subscribe to the Times (!)), they invited him along for the rest of their evening's travels and tried to show him a good time in our admittedly limited, though not non-existent!, downtown barscene. what began as a well-intentioned field trip soon turned into a hilarious nightmare. mr. lipton, according to what i am told, had many preconceived notions about mississippi, and was hell-bent on proving them, no matter what. when he finally gave up on finding a group of white, toothless, racists, he began whining about the lack of 'good-looking women.' lead balloon, indeed. by then, the booze had set in and most everything could be chalked up to ignorance on the part of the interloper, and catasptrophe was averted. i'm glad i missed his visit, and i do regret that his article was published. it's truly a shame he declined to be interviewed for this piece.

Author

Jay

Date

2005-12-01T01:20:44-06:00

ID

64817

Comment

They're blogging about this Times article over on Mother Jones. BTW, as Jay describes, I can't tell you the bad impression Mr. Lipton left on some very smart young progressives he talked to in town. It is, indeed, the talk of the hipster crowd right now, it seems. The New York Times probably has fewer future subscribers due to the way he covered this story during his few days in town. I hear that he declared to people here that Jackson is showing no signs of future progress. And that he was shocked, shocked that so few white people go into the black parts of town. He's right; Jackson has similar problems to urban "ghettoism" that, say, New York Friggin' City does (even if his native Vermont has managed to escape such problems). And, you know what, I can love New York City, despite its flaws and manage to take more than a superficial view of the city. Pulitzer, Schumlitzer. This is another version of the Shaila Dewan story, in my mind. Narrow-mindedness is not limited to one geographic area. Now, I realize that southerners as a group (or voting bloc) can give off awful impressions of ourselves; however, the textbook definition of bigotry is judging an entire group of people based on actions of some of its members and attaching them in your head to the entire group—which seems to be what Mr. Lipton is doing about Jackson in this article and in the descriptions of his visit I'm hearing around town. This reminds me of the bigotry against the South I ran into when I was at grad school at Columbia -- one professor describing Rick Bragg as "Mama this, Mama that," for instance, in a whiny, fake little southern voice. It was especially precious considering how few African Americans there were in the "nursery school of the media elite" at the time. Don't-get-it-itus isn't limited to the less educated.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-12-03T12:25:01-06:00

ID

64818

Comment

I should also mention that I ran into some similar fit-the-frame reportage while covering the Killen trial. That is, some (not all, fortunately) reporters who were just interested in proving that there are still racists in Mississippi. Doh. Ya think, professor? (One particular British reporter comes to mind.) I suggested to one at point that we simply stipulate that there are still racists here and actually get to the point of discussing things that people don't already know. What's sad is how little many of them realize their own limited frame--their own attempts at "Afghanistanism." The problem here, of course, is not national media reporting in a smart way on the problems that still exist in Mississippi, and how we're confronting them and not confronting them. The problem is in assuming that "nothing" has changed and that nobody is trying to change anything and that we are the worst place on the planet -- and then letting that infect the writing and reporting, as Mr. Lipton clearly did in the above piece and Ms. Dewan did in her "analysis." These are not people who should be covering the South if they are not willing to question their own pre-conceived notions about the region. There is little interesting or new or challenging, either to southerners or non-southerners. And I say this, as most of you know, as someone who is willing to turn the hottest spotlight imaginable on my home state, as I am any place I report on. I am also determined to be fair and give credit where it's due. This is true, I believe, for many of the young progressives that Mr. Lipton encountered on his visit here.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-12-03T12:33:28-06:00

ID

64819

Comment

One last thing: I dare a national media outlet to come down here and do a real story about the progressive change in the air in this state. Of course, they'd have to send someone who would actually recognize what they're seeing, and seek out people who don't fit into the bigoted southern narrative so many of "them" carry around in their heads. They might start by pondering this little development last fall—that was so ignored by the media. Why? Because it doesn't fit the frame of Mississippi as the most backward, most conservative, most "red" state in the country. That is, they ought to figure out what the real story is.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-12-03T12:38:25-06:00

ID

64820

Comment

One more last thing: The irony of Mr. Lipton's story, if he really was down here handwringing about how racist the city is, is that it is now being used by the wingnuts as evidence that African Americans just want something for nothing. Thanks for playin'. (You can read Lipton's full piece here.)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-12-03T12:39:52-06:00

ID

64821

Comment

Whenever I see people write this kind of silliness about the south, I look at how they cover (or don't cover) African-American communities--and the ongoing problem of segregation--in the north. And liberal segregationism/racism is a huge problem right now. I'll give you one example: James R. Adams, president of the Center for Progressive Christianity, once wrote a book called So You Think You're Not Religious? Excerpt from page 190: "Because religion is both a personal and a tribal affair, people find as a rule that worship is most satisfactory when they are worshiping with people much like themselves. Skeptics sometimes have a hard time accepting their natural instinct to be with people like themselves, thinking that they should want to spend time with poor people or people of different racial backgrounds, but parish life works best when parishioners have common attitudes and interests. Churches with a racial or cultural mix exist, but by examining them closely the visitor will likely find them to be congregations in transition from one kind of people to another. Most skeptics would be better off in a more stable community with a clear sense of its own identity." So, to sum things up, this is my parsing of what Adams seems to be saying. If any of this seems an inaccurate or unfair summary of the above paragraph, please call me on it, but it sounds to me like his argument goes like this: - Skeptics (e.g., thoughtful religious people) shouldn't go to church with poor people. If you're wondering whether or not you're a skeptic, check to see if you're poor. If you are, you aren't a skeptic. - If you're white, be sure you attend a white church or it's not going to work. - If you're not white, don't attend a white church. Find one where your kind is more prevalent. - Integrated churches are doomed to failure. Avoid them, or risk losing your religious community when an invading ethnic group inevitably takes it over. And this is supposed to be a progressive? Hel-lo? But at least he practices what he preaches: His author bio puts him in lily-white Cambridge, Massachusetts. One of Morgan-Quitno's favorite cities. That, my friends, is why I don't volunteer for the Center for Progressive Christianity. Well, that and the dismissive and condescending attitude the Rev. Adams had when I called him on the phone a couple of years ago, before I had noticed the above paragraph, asking what I could do to help the cause. Apparently, skeptics--among other things--can't have southern accents. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-12-03T15:21:59-06:00

ID

64822

Comment

Oh, and in case anyone thinks I'm digging up dirty laundry: The book in question was published in 1989, still in print, and still heavily promoted by the Center. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-12-03T15:23:06-06:00

ID

64823

Comment

In thinking about NYC / Mississippi on the question of race, it strikes me that there are some interesting parallels. Like Mississippi, and unlike many other parts of the country, I think New Yorkers have less twitchy racism, by which I mean outright fear at the mere sight of a black person. This is simply because people of color make up such a large percentage of the population. In both NYC and Mississippi, even outright racists are more or less comfortable being around black people. Yet, like Mississippi, NYC has terrible housing segregation. Yes, there are relatively integrated neighborhoods in NYC, though many of them are only temporarily integrated until gentrification is complete. (See my old neighborhood of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.) And worst of all is the towering income inequality in NYC. It's been commented on a million times, but you will not see a starker material manifestation of racism than if you walk from Harlem into the Upper East Side. They're right by each other. One has an average income of like $19K a year, and the other is closer to a million. One is entirely black, and one is (almost) entirely white. The question I would pose to holier-than-thou New Yorkers is: when was the last time you hung out in the Bronx? Yankee games and visits to the zoo do not count.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2005-12-04T13:45:10-06:00