Katrina Update

Via Glenn Reynolds is an LA Times article that does a pretty good job, for the most part, of summarizing the current status of the looting and shooting pursuant to Hurricane Katrina -- which has been with us here in the months since the refugees were sent to live in apartment complexes across town. The article takes as its point of departure a gun shop commercial I was unaware of since I rarely listen to the radio.

"When the 'Katricians' themselves are quoted as saying the crime rate is gonna go up if they don't get more free rent, then it's time to get your concealed-handgun license," warns the radio ad by Jim Pruett, who co-hosts a bombastic talk-radio show and owns Jim Pruett's Guns & Ammo, a self-styled "anti-terrorist headquarters" that sells knives, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles and other weapons. As Pruett describes the dangers posed by "Katricians," glass can be heard shattering, and a bell tolling ominously.

The radio spot highlights what many gun-store owners say is a hot trend in Houston: trade in weapons amid a surge in the homicide rate that police attribute to the more than 100,000 hurricane evacuees still in the city. Though the gun sale reports are largely anecdotal, Texas officials said applications for concealed-weapons permits were up statewide: 60,328 from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1 this year, compared with 46,298 for the same period last year.

The Houston Police Department estimates that one in five homicides in the city now involves Katrina evacuees -- as suspect, victim or both. Many Houston residents, including some evacuees, are worried that crime will only get worse once housing and other public assistance end.

My regular readers will, of course, have already read about this crime problem (roundup at end of "crime" link). On that score, little has changed since January.

But the LA Times fails in attempting to sensationalize this genuine problem, by making residents of Houston -- the city with the best race relations I have ever lived in -- sound like a bunch of rednecks gittin' likkered-up fer a lynchin':

Hurricane evacuees and the nonprofit groups that have been helping them rebuild their lives are saddened by what they see as a growing tendency in Texas to stereotype the predominantly African American newcomers as hoodlums, based on the crimes of a few.

This insinuation of racism is preposterous. For one thing, the snooty left-coasters at the LA Times know not that they speak of a city that survived desegregation in the sixties without race riots! If they want to examine a city with a history of dysfunctional race relations, they could check their own back yard.

On top of that, the black New Orleanians stand out from the local black populace in their manner of speech, dress, and grooming. We could just about have dispensed with the wristbands when the refugees showed up at the Astrodome here in Houston. If black New Orleanians are in fact being stereotyped, it needn't be racial and, in this cosmopolitan city, it isn't. It is cultural. And apparently, one of the aspects of this culture is that it breeds crime.

I recently overheard two black women in Wal-Mart discussing a man one of them went out with recently. She was not impressed. In fact she underscored her disappointment by using the word "refugee" disparagingly to describe him. And if that isn't enough of an indication that Houstonians have other problems than race with some of the Katrina evacuees, perhaps the LA Times would instead prefer to listen to what our native criminal element thinks of Katrina refugees. (After all, the women in Wal-Mart had to have been selling out to say anything bad about another black person.) In our local prisons, the question, "Are you from New Orleans?" is considered an insult since the criminal element from the Big Easy has a reputation for being senselessly violent -- even among criminals!

I grew up in Mississippi, a race-conscious place if ever there was one. I also moved around the country quite a bit when I served in the Navy. I have never lived in a place so color-blind as Houston. I love it here. Everyone out here is just a human being trying to make his way through life. In fact, when the Katrina refugees first arrived in Houston and flooded the grocery store where I normally shop, I realized two things: (1) They were black (and had huge chips on their shoulders). (2) It was the first time in years that I really gave any thought to anyone's race. (I've lived here over a decade.) I have since come to appreciate something I used to take for granted about Houston: I don't have to think about race all the time like I used to when I was a kid. It's easy to take that for granted because it's natural and it is the way things should be.

But other than that cheap shot, the LA Times got the two main points right: (1) Many Katrina evacuees have distinguished themselves as ingrates. (2) We will not take criminal behavior sitting down here in Houston. I have a crazy feeling that the only refugees who have the time to be "offended" by the stereotype of laziness and criminality are the ones who deserve it. And to them, all I can say is, "If the shoe fits, wear it." To the rest, I agree with the man quoted in the article who said, "The people who are here and have gotten jobs, that's a wonderful thing. They're Houstonians now."

And, uh -- oh yeah. Whatever you do, please don't take Kinky Friedman as representative of this city or this state. He's a counterfeit cowboy that the broad-minded liberals think will get elected because he acts like their notion of a stereotypical Texan.

-- CAV