Like any other person concerned for
the welfare of people facing the destructive impact of Irma, I was glued to my
television during the hurricane’s march through the Caribbean and up the
Florida peninsula. I was personally worried about my brother André, who lives
in Oldsmar at the head of Tampa Bay, and my son Marc, our three grandchildren,
and two great-grandchildren hunkered down in Jacksonville. Thankfully, they all
survived with no major damage to their health or their property.
Relieved that it could have been so
much worse for my family, I still have several images etched in my memory. One
is of the total destruction inflicted by the storm on the Virgin Islands. How
will they ever recover? A second is of the intrepid reporters who stayed behind
in places like Naples and Miami to bring us live images of the fury of Irma. A
third is of the rescuers and the volunteers who displayed not only an
indomitable spirit in the face of catastrophy, but also a boundless devotion to
the victims, especially the aged and the infirm. A fourth, regrettably, is of
looters whose despicable behavior in taking advantage of a disaster to enrich
themselves left me fuming at such depravity.
This is not the first time we’ve
seen looters carrying merchandise from stores; scenes of ransacking in Ferguson
and Baltimore are still fresh in our memories. But rather than condemning such
behavior, some on the left excused it, like journalist Sarah Jaffe who posted a
picture of imprisoned looters and tweeted, “The carceral state exists to
protect private property and is inseparable from white supremacy.” One critic
jumped on that ridiculous comment with, “You’re saying that non-whites can’t
help but steal?” After a flood of negative comments like that one, Jaffe
responded, “That s—t’s full of Nazis.” Sadly, moral depravity takes many forms.
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