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Racism on Yahoo News

Posted by Matthew Wheeland at 10:47 AM on August 31, 2005.


Photos from New Orleans reveal the simple difference between "looting" and "finding."
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Flickr user dustin3000 has some shocking screen-grabs from Yahoo's news service. The captions on two photos from flood victims show very clearly the sinister and subtle ways that racism thrives in this country.

The caption next to a photo of a young black man reads, "A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005."

Whereas, the caption aside a photo of two young white people reads, "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana."

What's the difference between "looting" and "finding?" Apparently it's as simple as the color of your skin.

(Tip o' the hat to LiP Mag's Media Picks.)

Digg!

Matthew Wheeland is an Associate Editor at AlterNet.


Return to The Mix  » Post Tools: email EMAIL print PRINT 6 COMMENTS PERMALINK
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Unusually blatant!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: bluegull on Aug 31, 2005 1:04 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
But wait! Maybe the photographer(s) went over to the persons in the photograph and (politely) asked if they had purchased their possessions. And the captions reflect that journalistic research!

You guys are making me so cynical, I almost didn't realize that there must be a logical explanation for this apparent racist judgement!

I really have trouble with the word 'find', though...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Unusually blatant! Posted by: yally04
give me a break
[Report this comment]
Posted by: HighCarbDiet on Aug 31, 2005 4:43 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
maybe it's because one person is taking FOOD while the other is taking a TV, which, unless it's very buoyant, isn't about to save his life.

(but i agree, how do we know the guy wasn't saving the TV from his flooded home?)

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: give me a break Posted by: yally04
» RE: give me a break Posted by: Starcatcher
"Looting": symptom of poverty engendered by racism
[Report this comment]
Posted by: ardilla on Sep 1, 2005 6:36 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In addition to asking aloud why all the "looters" are black in the media, I ask myself why nearly everyone in the SuperDome is black. Or why most of the people who stayed in New Orleans instead of evacuating are black. He who wants to ignore the fact that deep social problems are at play here might simply reply, "because most of New Orleans is black." So then why is most of New Orleans black?

The massive media coverage on this hurricane has not yet tapped into another human story that is a grander problem than that of how to rescue the underwater city: that of the ghettoization of people of color in the United States. If we examine this issue, which I see as one of the true crises of this disaster, we cannot comfortably excuse ourselves from the fact that the ghettos weren't evacuated from the city--they were just displaced into the SuperDome.

In addition to the environmental wake-up calls that this storm seems to be giving us, I think that it is also giving us a social wake-up call. In a land where we have so much, it is not acceptable that there exist ghettos, that opportunity be afforded only to those who can afford it.

Could it be that the images of black people looting are serving to blindside society once again? In other words, if we are made to focus on the criminal elements of colored populations, will we be able to see that at the heart of this matter lies the material inequality caused by institutionalized racism?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]