Shelly Gremillion,
Hammond, LA

I lost my home in Hurricane Ida.
When we arrived home after evacuation there were kids running and riding bikes stopping to throw things through windows and keep going.
They were black, about 13 years old. I didn’t call the police. I didn’t want to be “that person”.

After spending hours putting storm damaged property in neat piles and bags so adjusters could assess my damages a couple came in the late evening and slit open the bags and scattered welt and moldy items across my lawn and my neighbors. They were throwing things in the back seat of their car. They left a giant mess. They didn’t care or consider that someone else would have to clean up the mess. They were black.

We all know to seal a refined refrigerator with tape. This family down the street didn’t and rotten food tumbled out of the refrigerator and into the street while they stood around in their yard howling and laughing. They didn’t care that rotten food was being spread all over and people were unable to walk because of the smell. They were black.

My home was uninhabitable, so I rented a home in a quiet neighborhood. A few months passed and new family moved in. Instantly there was screaming and loud music all hours. People parked all over the streets and stood in the road. They didn’t care that people could not get into their own driveways or get out of their driveways. I saw a fight and a woman throw a gallon of water at a man and knock him out of a chair. They were all black.

We decided to buy a house in a nice neighborhood instead of rebuild. We looked at one and there were cars on blocks and people standing in the street and music being played through open car doors and men screamed over the music to be heard. They laughed and blocked traffic. They looked over their shoulder unbothered by the line of cars forming in a residential street. They were all black.

We chose a new development. Everyone has excessive trash when they move in so we took all our trash to the landfill. Now there are piles of trash and garbage food containers, used diapers, shoe boxes (most is not in bags) down the street. Total disregard for civil code and disrespect for neighbors. They are black.

There is a family down the street with two dogs who run loose and have started chasing cars an barking as people walk or bike in their vicinity. The family is black.

When whites move it and property values increase it causes rage. The rage is that whites can cause a property value to increase. Gentrification “forces them to sell”. No. It doesn’t. It gave them an opportunity to make money and they took it.

Any honest objective person can see how people hanging around in a front yard smoking weed with loud music and piles of trash would drive down property values.

I will not be an ally anymore. I will not see your “struggle”. I will not notice. Black people have chosen not to notice the devastation they cause and the burden their “culture” of noise, road blocking, piles of trash and destruction is to society.

Black people do not want to be an ally to society. They want to dominate and subjugate.