My basic point is that clearly racism is going on (in the general sense).  Personally I will not call people horribly racist as individuals when there is not some fairly clear bit of evidence.  I know that means that a lot of racism goes uncondemned, because racists don’t slip up and give you that evidence often enough. Someone telling me about their experience does not get dismissed.  Evidence/fact, as “luxury of the privileged” as your link says it is, does plenty to support the idea that racism is a real problem, I think.  Systemic inequities tell us that is something is up.  Real people are doing real things that perpetuate all of it.

So, I guess, what is to be done?

Kind of like not opening your door when there’s trouble around, really, unless it’s some one you know.

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html#opinion

Or is it this way?

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html#proveit

The questioning I was put through by the police to determine my race (before I even told them I was reporting a lost mobile phone) was like a scene from a Monty Python sketch.

I was asked if I was White, Hispanic or Black. When I replied that I was a foreigner and didn’t fit into any of these categories, I was asked again. This time, I told them I was brown but not Hispanic. Again, the same question. So I told them where I was born and which country I was living in (and a citizen of). Again, it didn’t fit into any category, so again the same question. Again, I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer. Eventually, in exasperation, I was granted honorary White status.

I wondered if the police response to an incident is determined by the race of the victim and maybe (to some extent) this is the same attitude that pervades US society.

The phone was never found and I never returned to the US (and probably never will).

Actually we do.  The main guy was a white man named “Dan” (last name withheld) who’s excuse now that he’s been shamed is that he thought Glenda Moore was a scary *man*, oh, and that he had on ‘flip flops and shorts’……

He said he did not know the fate of the children. Told that their bodies had been found, he said the deaths were a tragedy, but implied that the woman was at fault. 

“It’s unfortunate. She shouldn’t have been out though. You know, it’s one of those things,” he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/02/world/americas/sandy-staten-island-brothers/index.html

The people who stay behind in catastrophes like hurricanes are people who have no where else to go, or who are willing to bunker down and die alone with the property they have.  They aren’t negotiating from positions of strength; they are the victims of these circumstances, at least as much as this woman and her poor children are.

And so, when a mother who happens to be black desperately pounds during a hurricane on the doors of white people (who live in a largely Republican district, thereby suggesting their even greater susceptibility to the fiction of inherent and significant racial difference), said white people are undoubtedly more likely to slam the door in her face than they would in a white woman’s face, because they have been taught by an ongoing white supremacist legacy that “black” = “dangerous.”

Please, you’re trying to divert the blame. The story isn’t that somebody was expected to go swimming off into the hurricane to find her kids, but that (if accounts are true) people wouldn’t even open their doors to a fellow human in a desperate situation, and didn’t even appear to even show sympathy. There are obviously other ways to assist that don’t involve mounting a one man Coast Guard rescue.

I always find it interesting how so many anonymous internet commenters have these kinds of credentials that immediately give them some kind of authority over everybody else.  Kind of like all the anonymous libertarians who claim to be wealthy small businessmen who clawed their way up from poverty..

Oops our bad, you win sir, we’ll just shut up now…

Flood survivor and a war hero, that trumps everything.

I grant that it would have been great had they tried to assist in some way and I personally would have (Katrina Survivor/2x War Vet), but they are not required or trained to do that any more than the mother was prepared to save her OWN kids.  The lady behind the door was not in a better position to assist than the mother in distress who LEFT her kids to find help.  It’s very easy to sit from afar and judge others in this chaos, but when the thin veneer we call civilization breaks down all that “good samaritan” stuff goes right out the window for most regular folks.  They have their own families to consider – this is not a case of flat tires on a sunny day – it’s a nightmare scenario that tests peoples resolve, training, and life experiences.

Lastly, no there should not be a law requiring people to risk their own lives for strangers.  People are allowed to be selfish, scared, unprepared and unequipped, which is why we exalt those who CHOOSE to answer the call of duty when the time comes, it is uncommon courage and valor and putting others before yourself.  It is also unfair to hold everyone to that standard of living, because we are all created equal – but we develop in different areas UNEQUALLY.  That gives us the diversity to achieve greatness, we don’t live in the utopia people here seem to imagine, not yet at least – and I really do hope we make that happen…

I frequently trumpet news articles on Facebook, but always check a second source to verify its authenticity.

You are correct, all bets are off when a situation becomes untenable or feels like it’s become untenable.
One thing is for certain, though:  Fuck chaos.