I Am A Survivor

“He Was A Survivor,” is a historical and human drama of the first order centered around the ethos of an ordinary person, Robert Crew. Due to the fact that he was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941; Crew is propelled out-of-a basic existence and onto the forefront of a national veterans organization; The Pearl Harbor Survivors. Crew who physically survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Second World War, like so many veterans; in a mental - in a spiritual - sense he does not. The shadows of the war come up from the past and overtake him. “He Was A Survivor,” adheres to the strict no-nonsense historical line. Little known aspects of the United States Navy of the nineteen twenties and thirties are incorporated into the story. Obscure realities about what took place prior to and during the attack appear here for the first time. Most of the individuals who have made this story possible have passed away and many of the geographic areas no longer exist. It took more than a quarter century to research and formulate this story. Hence it would be impossible to write, “He Was A Survivor,” today.

This is a clear depiction of how devastating a hurricane can be. A hurricane of any magnitude should never be taken lightly. Unfortunately, for New Orleans and the surrounding areas, Hurricane Katrina wasnt taken seriously enough because of the many hurricanes that had previously gone through the city. New Orleans has survived many of them. But this time the city was completely destroyed. This horrific storm claimed more the 1800 lives. Some say unnecessarily. Many families are still separated. Im still displaced myself. Politicians play the blame game but the outcome speaks for itself. Many lessons have been learned. Not just to the ones who run the city but also to many citizens. Are homes or possessions or positions more important than lives? Will more women and children and the elderly and the indigent suffer again, while their men in the family stand by helplessly again? Hopefully not. When did being poor start being a crime? When will just being human be enough! New Orleans is so small compared to other cities you can ride around the whole city about 3 times and still be home before dark. I miss New Orleans so much! There will never be another city like the one we had already. I dont care how new it gets. That wanted to see what it felt like to just be you. They couldnt wait to get in that French Quarter or the Jazz Festival at the Fair Grounds or Mardi Gras time. Oh boy! There was not a lot of need of a car in New Orleans unless you were a contractor or something like that. There were bus stops on almost every corner of the streets all over the city. They ran almost 5 to 10 minutes apart. Even on Sunday. So you could still go to church! Or sometimes we just walked. Where in the world do you know of a place with a church on one corner and a liquor store on the other and then a funeral home or bar room a few feet away. There were a lot of corner grocery stores in case you didnt feel like going all the way to the big stores just get a loaf of bread and some sandwich meat and a cold drink. It was so very unique, I loved it! I loved living there too. The people were so much more personable than anywhere in the world. Why would you buy a car if you didnt really need one or couldnt afford one. Unless you were white or wealthy. Damn near every black person was on low income wages if you were lucky enough to have a job. Other than that you were on welfare and food stamps. The white and wealthy didnt really want to get rid of all the blacks. What would they do without us? Somebody told me that you have to have a certain percentage of poor people living in the city in order to receive government funds. We knew where the money was. We just couldnt get our hands on any of it. Can you guess why? We made the City of New Orleans what it was. There was no way for the citizens without transportation to leave the city. Mandatory or not! This was a very well known fact by everyone in City Hall and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So why wasnt transportation provided sooner? Yes, I feel that a lot of this tragedy could have been avoided. It still hurts to know that so many people lost their loved ones. Its a terrible feeling to know that you cant even go home to the Lower Ninth Ward because the Mighty, Muddy, Dirty, Nasty Mississippi River was allowed to infest your town with debris and raw sewer matter. We had sense enough to think, that there were still some people in the United States of America, in the year of 2005, with their noses stuck up so far in the air that they couldnt see themselves coming down far enough, just to help fellow human being to SURVIVE! Jesus Help Us All.

You survived, but are you living? Your loss has threatened your identity, and the question keeps replaying over and over in your mind: What did I do to deserve this? In this written and silent conversation, hope while in affliction is realized. A peek at the life of a biblical disciple, Dorcas (Acts 9), and a modern-day disciple, Audrey, demonstrates that in both sickness and death, their lives exemplify Gods glory.

Survivor Criminology: A Radical Act of Hope is a trauma-informed approach to the study of crime and justice that stems from the lived experiences of crime survivors. The chapters within this volume explore our authors’ who have each had close personal encounters with violence and death, as well as institutionalized oppressions based on racism, heterosexism, sexism, and poverty. As scholars, professors, practitioners, and students in the field, these lived experiences with crime and criminal justice have shaped their research, teaching, and advocacy work. Their voices represent experiences that are intersectional, mult-igenerational, global, trauma-informed and resiliency focused. They are deliberately and decidedly anti-racist, and their experiences acknowledge the harm that has resulted from institutionalized and structural trauma. Most importantly, their stories are grounded in their lived experiences. This volume offers survivor criminology as a radical act of hope. Our hope comes from the belief that a trauma-centered approach to crime, justice, and healing provides the opportunity for criminology to expand its theoretical and methodological roots. We see this work as transformative for the discipline - for students, scholars, members of the community, and policy-makers.