Proud To Be An Okie From Muskogee

September 4, 2005 3:29 AM

Over 2000 Katrina refugees bused to Muskogee, Oklahoma will "be met by approximately 300-400 National Guardsmen" who will check them for weapons and interview them before allowing them into barracks and tents at Camp Gruber, a World War II training facility deactivated in 1947 and located 14 miles southeast of Muskogee near the village of Braggs (population 301). This after 250 were arrested during a riot as the buses were loading. A 9 pm curfew was passed by Braggs councilmen in anticipation of the refugees' arrival. However as of Friday night, "there is no food or water on site". Further, Braggs High School enrolls 60 students and Braggs Elementary School enrolls 168. For those (few) wondering why Camp Gruber sounds familiar!
posted by mischief (21 comments total)

Folks, you ain't in Louisiana anymore.
posted by mischief at 3:30 AM on September 4, 2005

While some area residents are concerned, Pearson said, "Only a small percentage of those coming here won't be coming here for the right reasons.

Yes, because there were a bunch of people who have lovely dry homes with safe water and electricity in New Orleans, but they thought they'd just smuggle themselves on the buses to have a free vacation in a refugee camp in Oklahoma.

They are all bloody refugees! They are all going there for the wrong reason, and that is because a frickin' hurricane flooded their city! Did they somehow lose their humanity because they weren't always polite while being left to die for days in the heat?

I am rapidly loosing my respect for so many Americans, that they can't even look at the evacuees and see people in need, only scary/urban/dark/different things to be afraid of. They all want to save babies - I keep seeing notices from ghouls asking if they can adopt orphans - well, not all the needy are as cute as a little baby. They are tired and dirty and angry and hurt. And they need help.
posted by jb at 4:28 AM on September 4, 2005

I'm sorry, it's just getting too much. I've probably seen too much coverage, but those are people. They have names, and families, some of whom are likely dead, and everyone is treating them as one step from criminals just for being poor or foolhardy enough to get caught in New Orleans.

They have been through hell - and everyone is grateful to those on the front lines taking them in. But this assumption constantly that they will be violent, they will be dangerous - we're all a little violent, among all of us are the dangerous. Last year a grad student went peeping in girls' showers - a grad student! Respectable of the respectable, nerdy of the nerdy. I just wish the world would stop seeing the other, and see themselves - see their mothers and children, but also their brothers and fathers and sons.
posted by jb at 4:50 AM on September 4, 2005

Nothing to be sorry about, jb. You're spot on.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 4:56 AM on September 4, 2005

as big cities stop taking in more people, we'll be seeing more and more of these isolated and more prison-like camps. it's just going to be another compounded misery on these people who have already been thru so much.
posted by amberglow at 4:58 AM on September 4, 2005

this is by no means over ... what i'm wondering is if one of these people decided that they had people in detroit, say, and they wanted to go there, would they be allowed to go?

and as long as we're gonna quote merle haggard -

You don't have to get high to get happy,
Just think about what's in store.
When people start doin' what they oughta be doin',
Then they won't be booin' no more.
When a President goes through the White House door,
An' does what he says he'll do.
We'll all be drinkin' that free Bubble-Up,
And eatin' that rainbow stew.
posted by pyramid termite at 5:44 AM on September 4, 2005

The motivation for interviewing them might be questionable, but pehaps some good will come of it.

Aside from taking away guns and looking for "bad" people in the crowd, the interview process would be an excellent time to identify folks that have special needs and make sure those needs are met.

These people are gonna be hurt physically and mentally. Some more than others. This would be a good time to make sure anyone who needs insulin or colostomy bags or mental health intervention or whatever hasn't been overlooked.
posted by login at 6:26 AM on September 4, 2005

but is some isolated camp the best place to provide any of those services?
posted by amberglow at 6:32 AM on September 4, 2005

Cherokee County sheriff's deputy Jeremy Hitchcock told law enforcement on site that the Tahlequah office got notice that 250 people were jailed in Houston after a riot broke out as the buses were being loaded for the trip to Oklahoma.

Maybe this is why they decided to search them before entering. And I agree with login, the interviews will help mostly with identifying those with special needs.
posted by Ron at 6:35 AM on September 4, 2005

but is some isolated camp the best place to provide any of those services?

They are about 50 miles from Tulsa.
posted by Ron at 6:39 AM on September 4, 2005

amberglow: I doubt it's the best place, and I doubt the interviewers will be trained for this situation, but it has to beat the superdome.

Hopefully things get better for the displaced folks at this camp.
posted by login at 6:43 AM on September 4, 2005

The handling of the refugees will be act 3 of the Katrina tragedy.
posted by srboisvert at 7:16 AM on September 4, 2005

Heaven forbid that the refugees actually start telling all those Okie bush voters exactly what was going on down there.
posted by quarsan at 7:16 AM on September 4, 2005

Aside from taking away guns and looking for "bad" people in the crowd, the interview process would be an excellent time to identify folks that have special needs and make sure those needs are met.
posted by login

Special needs like being dead?

"Health officials told Pearson that when refugees arrived in Houston, there were several dead bodies on the buses."
posted by leftcoastbob at 7:51 AM on September 4, 2005

Leftcoastbob said:
Special needs like being dead?

Yeah, actually that was something that came to mind as I posted.

Not dead folks' needs so much as living ones that got to share that bus-ride with someone in the process of dying. I really hope the authorities have had time to think about more than just the food and shelter aspects of this.

Some of these folks will need couch time.
posted by login at 8:02 AM on September 4, 2005

I just wish the world would stop seeing the other, and see themselves - see their mothers and children, but also their brothers and fathers and sons.

They will, I suspect, when the folks show up. The quote from the county undersheriff seems about right:

"People are worried because of all they have seen on TV...They want to help these people. They are glad to help them. All the churches are already buying food and clothing. But they're a little nervous."

Seems a bit unfair to characterize that as an unhealthily negative reaction. The article quotes officials who've gotten terrible reports and have probably been watching TV coverage that focused too much on looting. Some anxiety is understandable as they get ready to deal with what's going to be a huge influx of distraught people. And don't you think *not* searching for weapons would be a disservice to the majority of the refugees at this point?
posted by mediareport at 9:20 AM on September 4, 2005

but is some isolated camp the best place to provide any of those services?

Probably not, but what else are you gonna do? It may not be the best solution, and it probably will reek of the incompetence that FEMA has demonstrated in the last week, but I think we have to accept that isolated camps in "closed military bases, parks, and fairgrounds" are going to house thousands of refugees for months, even years. In other disasters they've been able to accomodate a few thousand people here and there in trailers, but this goes way beyond any previous disaster.

Anyway, I don't think even FEMA really wants to keep people in camps longer than necessary. They're going to be shifted off to FEMA housing vouchers and (probably) Section 8 lickety-split.
posted by dhartung at 11:46 AM on September 4, 2005

My mother grew up in a segregated town, and now lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Her first reaction to the pictures of suffering black people is to turn away, and probably, to blame them a little for being in such a mess. To worry that they'll be violent. Because that's what she was told about such people, most of her life.

But when her church asked for clothing and food, she gave, and she didn't hesitate, because the misery of these folks now at Dallas' Reunion Arena is so overwhelming--especially the babies, and the old. I hope that those in Oklahoma will be able to do the same.
posted by emjaybee at 11:48 AM on September 4, 2005

An acquaintance who volunteers for the Red Cross in Houston alerted me to this riot. These refugees were those who evacuated from Lousiana to the Astrodome before Katrina hit. They rioted because they were being displaced from the Astrodome to make room for the incoming sick and injured.

If I was told I was being bused to Hicksville USA, out in the middle of rural whitebread America with not even a major convenience store within walking distance, I would probably be just a bit upset as well.
posted by mischief at 12:59 PM on September 4, 2005

If I was told I was being bused to Hicksville USA, out in the middle of rural whitebread America with not even a major convenience store within walking distance, I would probably be just a bit upset as well.

Well fuck you. Glad you appreciate people, churches and communities coming together to give to these refugees. Why even bother, why don't we just string us up a few negroes when they get here.
posted by Ron at 6:13 PM on September 4, 2005

login - I wasn't talking about the interviews, that is standard refugee procedure, for exactly the reasons you say.

This educational CBC page on refugee camps talks about how they try to set up reception centres to register everyone.

"Reception Centre
When new refugees arrive at the camp, they can rest and get out of the sun at the reception centre while waiting to be registered. Registration is a big priority because keeping track of who is in the camp (how many men, women, children under age five, pregnant women, etc.) is the only aid workers can assess the needs of the population."

Though I noticed that Houston didn't really have much shelter out of the sun for the people waiting.

But my reaction really was to all the fear - I know the news media began by talking about looting, but I have been watching the same news all along - local reports, CNN, MSNBC, and since at least Tuesday or Wednesday, reporters have been contradicting the initial reports of violence - the reporters on the ground have been repeating over and over again, to try to get through to the anchors and to us, that the violence was wildly exagerrated (from one or two isolated reports of rape to "rapes and beatings" all over the city), that the people were orderly, that they organised themselves in the attempt to impress the government so that help would come.

It was like the soldiers going into downtown, bristling with arms - so much that their general had to yell at them to get the guns down. To be greeted by numb and sick people, and a nurse begging for help. They had waited days to go in, because they listened to that fear. And people died.

I'm also reacting to horrific attitudes like this:

Richard Gibbs was disgusted by reports of looting in New Orleans and upset at the lack of attention hurricane victims in his state were getting.

"I say burn the bridges and let 'em all rot there," he said. "We're suffering over here too, but we're not killing each other. We've got to help each other. We need gas and food and water and medical supplies."

Gibbs and his wife, Holly, have been stuck at their flooded home in Gulfport just off the Biloxi River. Water comes up to the second floor, they are out of gasoline, and food supplies are running perilously low.

I understand his frustration at the focus of attention - there are many people in very dire straits in rural Louisiana and Mississippi a like, but he at least had some water and food - none of his family had died from heat exhaustion - and then he talks about other PEOPLE as if their lives mean no more than an animal's. It just makes me feel sick.

I wonder how many people he would kill to get gas, if he had to look them in the eye and do it himself?
posted by jb at 6:16 PM on September 4, 2005