It seems incredible to have to make this point, but there is a difference between evidence and hearsay. Since apparently some of the smartest among us don’t seem to know this, allow me to elucidate.

On Sunday, The Washington Post ran my review of Rebecca Solnit’s new book, A Paradise Built in Hell. It’s a very good book, and I reviewed it as such.

I offered only one criticism. Toward the end of the book, Solnit claims to have “evidence” of a massacre of black men during Hurricane Katrina by white residents of New Orleans’s Algiers neighborhood. She had no such thing. She had rumors -- some of them quite compelling -- and hearsay. I pointed out that while the issues were worth raising, calling hearsay and rumor “evidence” is incorrect. New Orleans suffered a lot from such rumors. (Babies raped in the Superdome, etc.) I took exception to Solnit trafficking in the same inflammatory practice.

Hoo-boy. The night the review ran, I received this email from Ms. Solnit:

Dear Mr. Baum,

You slander me and my book. My leads, as documented in A Paradise Built in Hell, led to A.C. Thompson's full-fledged investigation, which triggered the current FBI investigation, a trail you could've easily pieced together.  I recounted considerable evidence, including, first of all,  vigilante confessions/boasts on video in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. Second of all I spoke with people to whom the vigilantes confessed in the immediate aftermath, as well as to a relative to whom other vigilantes had boasted of killings and shown a photograph of murderers posing with a corpse, and to Malik Rahim, who witnessed both corpses and men with guns and threats and racial epithets. There were enough stories by unconnected individuals to make a convincing case, and this material was the opposite of rumor, something people were reluctant to believe and reluctant to talk about--except for those drunken boasts on the videotape mentioned above. Thirdly, there were bodies of black men on the dry streets of an essentially undamaged Algiers, on the videotape I mentioned above (Amy Goodman of Democracy Now witnessed the same corpse on camera for her show). Bodies and confessions are usually considered good evidence of murder, except, apparently, by you. Fourthly I reported on an ongoing investigation by A.C. Thompson backed by the Nation and Pro Publica, along with the other evidence mentioned above; at my presstime, A.C. had published a very strong report concluding from many overlapping reports by both shooters and by other eyewitnesses and victims that several men had been killed and more shot. 

I did not call those people a mob, or elderly; this is part of your apparent desire to dismiss my account. Why is it that you want to dismiss it when you admit that the FBI is investigating the matter? The FBI doesn't investigate overheated rumors.  If you'd tried a search before you dismissed my material as "overheated rumor," you would have see that another videotape made by two Pennsylvania detectives in the immediate aftermath of the storm has further corroborated my account. In it,  another white man says they killed a lot of black men. A.C. reported of these detectives, "Orsini and Balogh say that they saw as many as five corpses lying around the neighborhood, which did not flood and suffered only minor wind damage. Orsini told WTAE, "Nobody took care of these bodies, and these were all individuals who had been shot." The men videotaped one of the corpses, which was lying beneath a sheet of corrugated metal. Orsini and Balogh have turned over their video over to the FBI." 

A.C. also checked out Donnell Herrington's story with doctors, medical records, his companions at the time of the incident and other sources, and both of us got to know him and found him a very credible person. Do you routinely dismiss accounts by people with grievous injuries as to how they were wounded as "overheated rumors"? Given how outrageous this dismissal is, it's hard not to wonder whether it's because of the victim's race.  

Finally, this vigilante behavior matches both the pattern of elite panic found in many disasters and corresponds to accounts such as Michael Lewis's in the New York Times, about lots of wigged-out white guys sitting on their porches with shotguns. It would have been more surprising, given the region's arsenal, racial history and the state of mind of those white men inflamed by irresponsible media rumor-mongering, had there not been shootings. 

The reluctance of the mainstream media to give credence to this story even in the face of substantial evidence has been one of the most shocking things about it. You owe me an apology. You owe a much bigger one to history.  

Rebecca Solnit

Here’s how I responded to Ms. Solnit. The exchange speaks for itself.

Jeez Louise, Ms. Solnit. If this is how you go after somebody who writes a glowing review of one of your books, how do you address people who review you negatively?

Let's go through your "evidence," as you list it, below:

I recounted considerable evidence, including, first of all,  vigilante confessions/boasts on video in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane.

Boasts! Spent much time in New Orleans, Ms. Solnit? Boasts are not evidence, especially there. 

Second of all I spoke with people to whom the vigilantes confessed in the immediate aftermath, as well as to a relative to whom other vigilantes had boasted of killings

That isn't evidence, that's hearsay. Second- or third-hand at that.

and shown a photograph of murderers posing with a corpse, and to Malik Rahim, who witnessed both corpses and men with guns and threats and racial epithets.

I was there for the disaster, Ms. Solnit, and I don't need to be shown photographs or speak to Malik Rahim to know there were corpses, men with guns, and racial epithets everywhere. (I had more guns pointed at my by fear-crazed white folks than I care to remember.) It was an ugly scene. But if that's your idea of "evidence" of a massacre, we live on different planets.

There were enough stories by unconnected individuals to make a convincing case,

Stories again. As I say in my review, illegal killings may have happened, the FBI is investigating, and you're right to raise the issue. The matter at hand, though, is your overheated use of the word "evidence," which is something very different from hearsay, rumor, and boasts. Can't you see that?

and this material was the opposite of rumor, something people were reluctant to believe and reluctant to talk about

On the contrary. A large cross-section of black New Orleans is only too eager to believe such stories, just as a large cross section of white New Orleans was eager to believe in the untrue rumors of rampaging blacks. Your stoking those hateful fires is what has me critical of your final chapter.

 Thirdly, there were bodies of black men on the dry streets of an essentially undamaged Algiers, on the videotape I mentioned above (Amy Goodman of Democracy Now witnessed the same corpse on camera for her show). Bodies and confessions are usually considered good evidence of murder, except, apparently, by you.

There were bodies everywhere, Ms. Solnit. Heatstroke, heart attack, falling debris, and yes, homicide numbered among the causes. I stepped over plenty of dead people, on both sides of the river. And please: Embarrass yourself no further. Anybody who'd call Algiers "undamaged" is truly out of her depth. Algiers didn't flood, but it was devastated by wind. There were a lot of ways to die on the streets of Algiers, and while murder may be on the list, a photograph of a body is not "evidence" of a massacre, even on Amy Goodman's show. 

Now let's talk about those "confessions." Do videotaped confessions of white folks boasting about massacring dozens of black men really pass your smell test? In my experience, people who commit murders don't go around confessing them to strangers with video cameras. Boasting about "shooting nigger looters" was very common currency in the days during and following the disaster. Is it worth investigating? Of course. That isn't the issue. The issue is your piecing together a lot of New Orleans yakkety-yak and calling it "evidence."

Fourthly I reported on an ongoing investigation by A.C. Thompson backed by the Nation and Pro Publica, along with the other evidence mentioned above; at my presstime, A.C. had published a very strong report concluding from many overlapping reports by both shooters and by other eyewitnesses and victims that several men had been killed and more shot. 

I read Thompson's report in the Nation. He doesn't have any more evidence than you do. What he has is a strong case for the FBI investigating.  

I must say there’s something vaguely creepy about your implied assumption that African American New Orleans is so fractured, alienated, disorganized, and incompetent that a group of black men could simply disappear with nobody but Rebecca Solnit and A.C. Thompson raising an alarm. Where are the missing men's families and friends? Who has filed the missing persons reports? New Orleans is not Philadelphia, Mississippi, circa 1963. Does it really make sense that white folks could massacre a bunch of black men -- and boast about it on videotape -- in a city with a black mayor, a majority black city council, and a black police chief? Look at the Danziger Bridge incident; people were all over that from the beginning. 

To be clear: I believe there is plenty of good reason for the FBI to investigate certain incidents in Algiers. The story about the policemen possibly burning a wounded man to death in his car is particularly disturbing. But I stand by the conclusion of my review:  "(Solnit) is right to raise the issue, but she fails to turn rumor into proof." To find, at the end of a such a terrific book about the corrosive power of rumor and prejudice a lapse into just such rumor-mongering was a disappointment. Everything you raised at the end of "A Paradise Built in Hell" was worth discussing. It just wasn't "evidence," and that was my point.

So I respectfully decline to apologize, to you or to history. But it is nice to know who has been assigned the guardian and protector of history. If in future I need to speak with history, I'll be in touch.

Are we all clear now? Rumors, stories, boasts, and hearsay are useful things. They can be the start of an police or journalistic investigation that can uncover ugly truths. After another furious email from Rebecca Solnit, which is in the comments below, I have added a link above to A.C. Thompson’s very good story in The Nation, which in fact has rightly prompted the New Orleans Police and the FBI to investigate what happened in Algiers.

People’s stories, however compelling, aren’t “evidence,” especially in post-Katrina New Orleans. Thompson comes a lot closer to having the goods in his piece than Solnit does in her book, which is why I pointed out the difference between what she presented in A Paradise Built in Hell and what she said she was presenting. 

A Paradise Built in Hell, is a very good book. My review speaks for itself. But Ms. Solnit got a little ahead of herself, and she was let down by her editor, who should have caught the mistake and dialed her back.