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

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i'm shrugging this one off as "much ado about very little". i do find the word choices interesting, and i have absolutely no doubt that there's a racial bias in play. that is news?

btw, this notion that the woman is "multi-racial" -- say what? how white does she have to be before she's "white"? to me she looks like she could easily be italian. the arguments about her ethnicity are pretty interesting too, IMO; there's a pile of unspoken assumptions present as well.

but yeah, i am not gonna get all het up about those captions. they were not even from the same agency, which would at least make them somewhat comparable, as it stands, they're just two blips in the big media see.

what i find much, much more upsetting is the racism that leaves the poorest of the poor behind to drown.

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[nolly.livejournal.com]

this notion that the woman is "multi-racial"

This is why I hesitated a good while before I made this post. Because it's really hard to talk about without steppiong on tomatoes. But I grew up in the South. I saw who was considerede "white" by the tiny minority who cared -- and I want to emphasize that it was a tiny minority -- and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be. It's partly skin tone, partly facial structure. She doesn't look Italian to me. She looks like one of the common Southern blends -- strong Native American component, some white-European. some black, maybe other things. Maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh, you're not stepping on my tomatoes. i am just noticing that with a white-appearing (at first casual glance, to most people who found the "finding/looting" distinction offensive) woman there are quite a few people arguing her whiteness. i mean, we can't know, unless somebody finds the woman and a) gets a better shot of her or even better b) asks her. :) and it doesn't change anything; the boy with her looks about as white as wonderbread -- the caption stands.

the whole set of ideas of what makes somebody black has always struck me as interesting. but i don't see it as a southern thing per se, though i grant that i view the south as more racist than the north, overall.

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Yes, the man is definitely white -- but I think that, if she did appear non-white to the captioner, and zie still used "finding" instead of "looting" -- unlike the cationer on the "shopping bag" picture -- that says something.

We don't know, of course, who wrote the caption, and how zie perceives the woman. But I see it as evidence that it's not quite as simple as "black people loot, white people find".

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i can't tell you how very tempted i am to start a search for the person who captioned that image, *little grin*. i wonder whether zie is aware of the shitstorm zie's started in the blogosphere.

as to the post that set you off in specific, i'll just say "consider the source".

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[nolly.livejournal.com]

In the past, I've gotten along fairly well with rmjwell. I don't always agree with him, but this is just beyond the pale.

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i think he's a fine person with whom to get on well. but to me it's always seemed like he values performance more highly than thought/content -- that's what i meant.

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I can see that. Had he responded to the comments with something along the lines of "I'm sorry; I wasn't thinking", I'd consider it water under the bridge. Since he has, so far, completely ignored all the responses, well...he's no longer on my flist.

Re: Racism in Katrina pictures

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I wondered about that, too at first. But your explanation makes perfect sense to me--as someone who is often just assumed to be hispanic in the south, but generally seen as white anywhere else in the country.