[extropy-chat] Getting AId to people in need

Fri Sep 2 04:01:27 UTC 2005

This whole article is crap. Indeed, why are so many of them poor? Could it
be the spirit of entitlement in the area? The fact that everyone there
xepects a handout? The fact that everyone expected that if anything
happened, someone would take care of them?
And who would be responsible for this? Me? You? The racist "american
people"? This is crap. Their mayor is black. If anyone is responsible it is
him. These journalists act like this is the result of some huge racial
conspiracy. No doubt someone will say this was planned by white people.
This has nothing to do with race. It is incompetence and ignorance.
I know I started this thread. and I just had a thought. These people have
been sitting there for 4 days and yet camera crews and police cars can drive
by? Why the hell do they just sit there? Sure, there are some who couldn;t
make the walk, but by the looks of the peopole I would guess that most of
those "trapped without food" could just walk out at any time.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Olga Bourlin" <fauxever at sprynet.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Getting AId to people in need

> From: "Dan Clemmensen" <dgc at cox.net>
> Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 6:53 PM
> >
> > What astounded me was the inattention the press gave to the levees. The
> > press did their hurricane thing, looking at the "standard" hurricane
> > damage in Biloxi and Gulfport,and they thought New Orleans was the same.
>
> This is another interesting perspective on some possible inattention due
to
> ..?:.
>
> press box
> Lost in the Flood
> Why no mention of race or class in TV's Katrina coverage?
> By Jack Shafer
> Posted Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005, at 4:22 PM PT
>
>
>
>
> I can't say I saw everything that the TV newscasters pumped out about
> Katrina, but I viewed enough repeated segments to say with 90 percent
> confidence that broadcasters covering the New Orleans end of the disaster
> demurred from mentioning two topics that must have occurred to every
> sentient viewer: race and class.
>
> Nearly every rescued person, temporary resident of the Superdome, looter,
or
> loiterer on the high ground of the freeway I saw on TV was
African-American.
> And from the look of it, they weren't wealthy residents of the Garden
> District. This storm appears to have hurt blacks more directly than
whites,
> but the broadcasters scarcely mentioned that fact.
>
>
> Now, don't get me wrong. Just because 67 percent of New Orleans residents
> are black, I don't expect CNN to rename the storm "Hurricane" Carter in
> honor of the black boxer. Just because Katrina's next stop after
destroying
> coastal Mississippi was counties that are 25 percent to 86 percent
> African-American (according to this U.S. Census map), and 27.9 percent of
> New Orleans residents are below the poverty line, I don't expect the Rev.
> Jesse Jackson to call the news channels to give a comment. But in the
their
> frenzy to beat freshness into the endless loops of disaster footage that
> have been running all day, broadcasters might have mentioned that nearly
all
> the visible people left behind in New Orleans are of the black persuasion,
> and mostly poor.
>
> To be sure, some reporters sidled up to the race and class issue. I heard
> them ask the storm's New Orleans victims why they hadn't left town when
the
> evacuation call came. Many said they were broke—"I live from paycheck to
> paycheck," explained one woman. Others said they didn't own a car with
which
> to escape and that they hadn't understood the importance of evacuation.
>
> But I don't recall any reporter exploring the class issue directly by
> getting a paycheck-to-paycheck victim to explain that he couldn't risk
> leaving because if he lost his furniture and appliances, his pots and
pans,
> his bedding and clothes, to Katrina or looters, he'd have no way to
replace
> them. No insurance, no stable, large extended family that could lend him
> cash to get back on his feet, no middle-class job to return to after the
> storm.
>
> What accounts for the broadcasters' timidity? I saw only a couple of black
> faces anchoring or co-anchoring but didn't see any black faces reporting
> from New Orleans. So, it's safe to assume that the reluctance to talk
about
> race on the air was a mostly white thing. That would tend to imply that
> white people don't enjoy discussing the subject. But they do, as long as
> they get to call another white person racist.
>
> My guess is that Caucasian broadcasters refrain from extemporizing about
> race on the air mostly because they fear having an Al Campanis moment.
> Campanis, you may recall, was the Los Angeles Dodgers vice president who
> brought his career to an end when he appeared on Nightline in 1987 and
> explained to Ted Koppel that blacks might not have "some of the
necessities"
> it takes to manage a major league team or run it as a general manager for
> the same reason black people aren't "good swimmers." They lack "buoyancy,"
> he said.
>
> Not to excuse Campanis, but as racists go he was an underachiever. While
> playing in the minor leagues, he threw down his mitt and challenged
another
> player who was bullying Jackie Robinson. As Dodger GM, he aggressively
> signed black and Latino players, treated them well, and earned their
> admiration. Although his Nightline statement was transparently racist, in
> the furor that followed, nobody could cite another racist remark he had
ever
> made. His racism, which surely blocked blacks from potential front-office
> Dodger careers, was the racism of overwhelming ignorance—a trait he shared
> (shares?) with many other baseball executives.
>
> This sort of latent racism (or something more potent) may lurk in the
hearts
> of many white people who end up on TV, as it does in the hearts of many
who
> watch. Or, even if they're completely clean of racism's taint, anchors and
> reporters fear that they'll suffer a career-stopping Campanis moment by
> blurting something poorly thought out or something that gets misconstrued.
> Better, most think, to avoid discussing race at all unless someone with
> impeccable race credentials appears to supervise—and indemnify—everybody
> from potentially damaging charges of racism.
>
> Race remains largely untouchable for TV because broadcasters sense that
they
> can't make an error without destroying careers. That's a true pity. If the
> subject were a little less taboo, one of last night's anchors could have
> asked a reporter, "Can you explain to our viewers, who by now have surely
> noticed, why 99 percent of the New Orleans evacuees we're seeing are
> African-American? I suppose our viewers have noticed, too, that the
> provocative looting footage we're airing and re-airing seems to depict
> mostly African-Americans."
>
> If the reporter on the ground couldn't answer the questions, a researcher
> could have Nexised the New Orleans Times-Picayune five-parter from 2002,
> "Washing Away," which reported that the city's 100,000 residents without
> private transportation were likely to be stranded by a big storm. In other
> words, what's happening is what was expected to happen: The poor didn't
get
> out in time.
>
> To the question of looting, an informed reporter or anchor might have
> pointed out that anybody—even one of the 500 Nordic blondes working in
> broadcast news—would loot food from a shuttered shop if they found
> themselves trapped by a flood and had no idea when help would come.
However
> sympathetic I might be to people liberating necessities during a disaster
in
> order to survive, I can't muster the same tolerance for those caught on
> camera helping themselves in a leisurely fashion to dry goods at Wal-Mart.
> Those people weren't looting as much as they were shopping for good stuff
to
> steal. MSNBC's anchor Rita Cosby, who blurted an outraged if inarticulate
> harrumph when she aired the Wal-Mart heist footage, deserves more respect
> than the broadcasters who gave the tape the sort of nonjudgmental
commentary
> they might deliver if they were watching the perps vacuum the carpets at
> home.
>
> When disaster strikes, Americans—especially journalists—like to pretend
that
> no matter who gets hit, no matter what race, color, creed, or
socioeconomic
> level they hail from, we're all in it together. This spirit informs the
1997
> disaster flick Volcano, in which a "can't we all just get along" moment
> arrives at the film's end: Volcanic ash covers every face in the big crowd
> scene, and everybody realizes that we're all members of one united race.
>
> But we aren't one united race, we aren't one united class, and Katrina
> didn't hit all folks equally. By failing to acknowledge upfront that black
> New Orleanians—and perhaps black Mississippians—suffered more from Katrina
> than whites, the TV talkers may escape potential accusations that they're
> racist. But by ignoring race and class, they boot the journalistic
> opportunity to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of a whole
> definable segment of the population. What I wouldn't pay to hear a Fox
> anchor ask, "Say, Bob, why are these African-Americans so poor to begin
> with?"
>
> sidebar
> Return to article
>
>
>
> Jack Shafer is Slate's editor at large.
>
> Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2124688/
>

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