Racism in Katrina pictures

[nolly]

I'm sure you've all seen the many variations of the "it's not looting if you're white" discussions and AP photos going around. I haven't read all of them, because it infuriates me too much. Not, however, for the reasons most of the people spreading it seem to be angered by, but because it's an overreaction to a non-existent slight.

First and foremost:
There are two people in the "finding food" picture. One is a Caucasian male. The other is a multi-racial woman. Not white.

Further:
Remember the old saying "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity/incompetence/etc."? Same thing. Many different photographers are at work. Many different people are writing captions. Editors are making their selections under all sorts of pressure -- and there's more than one editor, too! Perhaps one or more caption writers are avoiding the word "looting" altogether, and that "finding" photo landed on the desk of such a writer. Perhaps the writer who got the "looking through a shopping bag" photo wanted to refrain from making accusations about someone when there's no evidence -- we don't know what's in the shopping bag. The editors are more concerned about "Is it ready (cropped, etc.)? Is it in focus? Can we make the deadliine?"

Also, consider demographics. The people still in the city are, for the most part, the ones who couldn't afford to leave. The poorest of the poor. Now, I don't have numbers to hand, but I've lived in the South. Chances are very good that there are more non-Caucasian people than Caucasians in the city right now. There's white folks, too, of course, but I suspect that the balance in the photos is pretty close to the balance in the population.

There is no conspiracy here. I've seen no evidence whatsoever of racism. And it infuriates me that people are so quick to see what isn't there and blow it up when there are so many more important things to be concerned about, like the impact of the Iraq War on the availability of people and financial resources to deal with the aftermath -- people and money that probably could have reduced the impact in the first place, had they been available.

I'm not locking this, but I am screening comments by non-friends. I don't want to deal with random trolls.

Edit for clarity, since it's come up in comments a few times:
What bothers me is the immediate "It's the south, it must be all about race!" assumption, which seems to ignore real issues like "Is it really looting to grab food and other necessities, many of which are perishable?" and "Why wasn't more assisstance provided to help poorer folks evacuate?"

Edit the second: This is the post that put me over the edge on this. I initially refrained from linking to it to give the author a chance to reconsider it, but since he has made no response, there you go.

Comments

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well... there's two types of racism.

When "driving while black" is still a crime, there is racism. A police officer who pulls over black people who "look suspicious" might be willing to share his or her last crust of bread with a hungry black person... but still feels suspicious about black folks when looking out for suspicious characters.

Just because a person isn't a hateful bigot doesn't mean s/he doesn't have any racist prejudices.

(Re: prejudices, when I was teaching math, I had a black student in a class. I felt bad, because he was falling behind, and I thought maybe, hey, a lot of black folks come from bad schools, maybe he doesn't have enough prep work. That's prejudice. It's not a bad or evil prejudice, but it is me making an uninformed guess based upon race.)

Herm. In Star Wars I, George Lucas had one of the bad guy races have a Fu Manchu-ish bad Asian accent. Was that bigotry or hatred? No. But I bet there was some unconscious racism involved. Ditto with Jar Jar. That doesn't mean I think Lucas is evil, or that I'd boycott the movie. I don't think he would have done it, if he understood how it looked. Nevertheless, he didn't see it, and I wish other folks did... not to stamp out bigotry (because there wasn't any) but to help reduce racism, even on the unconscious level.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

But is highlighting the differences in captioning on the AP pictures, which may well be no more than coincidence, really, in any way, constructive? Since it's extremely unlikely that the same person used "looting" in cationing pictures showing only black folks, but chose not to in pictures with white folks in them, and more likely that different people wrote the captions, what is the point?

well

[roobug.livejournal.com]

there's a difference between racism and unconscious negative bias. most people in america have an unconscious negative bias for black people, and it isn't the same as thinking the black people are bad, but it does result in discrimination (unconsious) and profiling and all that. and it's fucked up.

it's measurable though, have you seen the iat tests from https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/measureyourattitudes.html

you can also measure your implicit associations (good/bad) for fat people, elderly, disable, and a bunch of other minorites...

Re: well

[nolly.livejournal.com]

But how is that relevant? Is there any reason to believe that's playing a role here? I haven't seen one.

Re: well

[roobug.livejournal.com]

it's relevant because it affects decision-making, like word choice.

Re: well

[roobug.livejournal.com]

oh, and the other half of that is words that were chosen as a result of negative association reinforce negative association. like the cyclic hell of child abuse, except it just makes people uncomfortable with black people for no reason, instead of physical abuse.

Re: well

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Do we know that? Do we know it's not just a matter of one caption writer using "looting" across the board and another avoiding it as much as possible?
Or some captions written early in a shift, and others later?
I thikn people are jumping to conclusions based on insufficient data when they attribute this to racism, unconscious or not.

Re: well

[nolly.livejournal.com]

It can, and if we had any reason to believe that one person wrote all the captions in question, or if we had a large enough data set to see a pattern in word usage, then it would be a factor to consider. But neither of those criteria have been met -- we have, that I've seen, one picture with one white person and one black person, which applies "looting" to only the black person (who is exiting a store; the white person is not, but is carrying a shopping bag), two pictures of black people with large bags which use the word "looting", and one picture of a white person and a mixed-race person, which does not use the word "looting". Four pictures is a very small data set, particularly when it's likely that multiple writers are involved.

Re: well

[roobug.livejournal.com]

do you have a reason to believe reporters are some sort of elite that don't share the unconsious negative bias of our culture at large and are producing bias-free captions and articles? I do agree with you--it is not racism. but it is a problem, and a troubling one in light of the fact that people aren't aware of their negative bias when choosing pictures, writing teasers and captions and articles, and hiring people and welcoming their neighbors.

I'm pretty sure they've made db of news reporting of actual crime, and black offenders are much more likely to be pictured that whites in proportion to the ratio they represent in the total numbers of lawbreakers. But I don't have a reference, so feel free to dismiss it... :)

Re: well

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I'm not denying that bias exists. I'm just questioning a) whether this is really an example and b) the stregth of the response to it. (There's a specific post that really triggered my response, which I haven't linked to because I don't think the author has seen the comments and had a chance to reconsider yet. I'd rather not send a bunch of folks over there until zie has had that opportunity. If zie stands by it, I'll link.)

Re: well

[nolly.livejournal.com]

The author has made no response, so here's the link:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rmjwell/469137.html

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well... how would it make things better if this were just blown off and ignored? What bad things would be avoided?

What bad things could happen if it was blown off, and there was some unconscious racism involved? It's a balancing act.

Keep in mind that, right now, what I've seen is people making noise. Is this worth making some noise over? I don't know; noise is such a funny thing.

Would it be worth diverting energy from something that is clearly going to have an effect, something that might actually make the world a bit better for a few people? Probably not.

So, I'm approaching this from the perspective of "okay, some people are making noise, but, really, it's no big deal."

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I've seen an awful lot of people making an awful lot of noise.
I've seen more noise about this than about the fact that the National Guard were unavailable for preparation and recovery because they're in Iraq.
I've seen some extremely rude and hurtful noise about this.
The noises seems way out of proportion to the alleged offense, and distracts from other aspects of the story.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Fair enough; I've seen some rumblings, but nothing more than a scornful "how *dare* they! I will write a nasty letter about this!"

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Since the author has made no response, I consider the post fair game. Here it is: http://www.livejournal.com/users/rmjwell/469137.html

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Okay, having read that, I now understand what you were talking about. I hadn't seen anything even a tenth that bad. Again: for me, it was nothing more than a maximum of "I'll write a nasty letter!" (one that I didn't expect would actually be written, much less mailed/e-mailed). A little scorn, a little "Racism is still alive", etc..

I don't even *understand* that satire, unless it's meant to be satiring those who view the captioning as racially biased.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

You know, I have no idea what he was thinking. I really don't.