(no subject)

Read this.
Read the post linked in the second edit, too.

(no subject)

This is an excellent article on fundamentalism, Christianity, and politics. Conservative Christian may be put off by the author's Universalist leanings towards the end of the article, but I think his eariler points stand regardless -- specifically, the truth of what he says about the differences between fundamentalist Christianity and the teachings of Jesus. I recommend reading this article if you are an American, a Christian, a fundamentalist, or someone who must interact with any of the above.

Racism in Katrina pictures

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.

On a more personal note...

I heard from my grandmother tonight; my grandparents live in Birmingham, AL. The effects there were, of course, much less severe than they were on the coast, but many, many trees and power lines were downed. My grandparents (and many others) are still without power; they have a generator, but it didn't work -- probably due to a lightning strike. It's fixed now, but there are power lines down across the street they live on, and the main road into their area is also closed, as are others. Power restoration is delayed because many of the crews are down at the Gulf, where the needs are worse.