Lost in the Flood : Why no mention of race or class in TV's Katrina coverage?

Ah, hopefully not along 4th or 5th. You should know that 8th is now Chinatown from 45th to 60th.

CNN did one story that had a racial subtext. I young white guy, with his wife or girlfriend I think, was effusively grateful to a black guy, also with companions, who had "saved his life" - meant quite literally. The white guy had a ticket for a hotel charter bus that was commandeered by the authorities, and was left stranded. The black guy had picked him up, apparently in a private vehicle.

The black guy commented, rather enigmatically, or maybe not, that he figured, "If I can move around, why shouldn't he be able to move around." The gist seemed to be that the white guy would have been at the mercy of a black mob, if not for this true "Good Samaritan."

So true,and so sad.

Wolf Blitzer said today the victims "are so black"

ABC Dateline went there. They went everywhere in order to lay blame on the Administration..

Out of all the thousands of faces I've seen in the TV Coverage of this, all but about SIX have been black.
THere are many factors which figure into this, and I am sure PLENTY of blacks made it out along with the great majority of whites. If it illustrates anything, and it must be news to some who've never been in NOLA, it is that there is a HUGE black population in New Orleans that is VERY poor, barely mobile, has minimal "wherewithal" to do much of anything beyond their usual daily routine, and that, indeed, justifiably feels abandoned by a power structure that could have EASILY foreseen their special circumstances and pre-empted SOME small part of this tragedy from taking place. It's politics as usual, and it manifested itself very nakedly this time. Perhaps this will be enough to raise the consciousness of this population, but what they need is direction, and a leader or leadership group OUTSIDE of the usual opportunist-network of Jackson and Sharpton. WHOEVER fumbled the ball politically in allowing this tsunami to happen IN THE FIRST PLACE, their heads should roll, from Local to Federal.

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.

Well, maybe the broadcasters realized what this whiny journalist didn't: that the film clips from their reporters in the field weren't necessarily giving a representative picture of who was affected by storm.

Reporters typically get to town, check into the luxury hotels, and start filming whoever is close by. In New Orleans that probably means the people around the Superdome. All the people who fled or live in farther out areas are harder to interview. Likewise, as intrusive as the press can be, they arent going to go into the hospitals and interview the sick people who dont have food and water. No one knows the racial composition of people stuck in attics, or unable to leave buildings because of thugs, or working round the clock to deliver services.

Shafer is quite the hypocrite not to mention that there are very hard hit areas that dont have the racial composition of New Orleans. Why is he mum on that subject? Biloxi and Gulfport are predominantly white, not black. Surely he should have something to say about this.

Race or class?
Heck, I've been wondering why half the people they show are about 5 feet wide.

It's been a bad few days for multiculturalism. Of course, the real reason no one is mentioning race is because the scenes from New Orleans look like they could have been filmed in Kinshasa on a bad day. It is political correctness and pro-black racism that drives media silence, just the opposite of what the professional liar who wrote this article is trying to push. This is in fact a standard propaganda line; its everyday version is the whiny "the news doesn't pay enough attention to black crime victims because they just don't care about blacks." No, the news doesn't pay attention to black crime victims because a constant parade of black crime on the TV screen might cause whites to rethink the value of multiculturalism, and that must be prevented at all costs. And I know you'll find this hard to believe, Jackie boy, but once upon a time New Orleans, like Detroit and Washington D.C., was a majority white city, but the policies and beliefs of white-hating left-wingers like yourself resulted in the de facto ethnic cleansing of whites from New Orleans (especially poor whites, I might remind you since you're so interested in class issues). In short, you drove the whites out, using the same sort of people who are now engaged in looting New Orleans as your stormtroopers, so they are no longer around to be pictured on TV to soothe your multiculti angst during this current disaster . Really, though, I admire you: it takes a lot of brass to chide the victims of your ethnic cleansing for not being around to suffer the effects of a later natural disaster.

You raise an intersting question, but I beleive that the MSM is NOT pushing this issue because 1 - the mayor is also black, and 2 - the Govenor is a woman, and ??3?? both are democrats.

If the mayor were a white male republican (and the govenor as well!) - I am quite sure the racial aspect of this would have been pointed out about 30 seconds after Katrina made landfall (if not earlier!!)

As it is, it seems the MSM is restricting it's primary focus for blame to the federal government.

I watched an interview yesterday between Miles ?? of CNN (onyl english news I get!) and the Govenor of Mississippi (or maybe a mayor...). Miles REALLY wanted the interviewee to blame the feds and was extremely reluctant to let the issue go, even when the interviewee clearly stated he would NOT criticize the feds as he thought the were performing well. Miles even went so far as to ponder why the NAvy had not pre-positioned its ships in the gulf (presumably directly on the coast) so that they could react quickly).

Predictable, but very sick.

I grew up between 3rd and 4th. Now you know what I am talking about

Ps I am long gone from there but I know of some that could have moved long ago but chose to stay in that chaos. Why I don't know.

The "New Orleans Poor" didn't Vacate, before the Storm. Those, that had preyed upon the "Poor of New Orleans, stayed, TOO. The Ratio of "Good Folks to Predators changed. The Result: Chaos in the Big Easy.

Well said. We cannot forsake those innocents who simply could not evactuate. Sadly, I think after four days, unless help came from within the disaster area, it may be near the end for such innocents.

We can hope and pray that they were able, with the help of family, friends and neighbors, make it to an area of safety for evacuation.

I saw one photo of a group of men in the flooded area helping an elderly woman. I can't tell you in words, but the men assisting her truly appeared angelic in the photo.

You never know.

< This clown obviously missed Wolf Blitzer on CNN who said:"They're all so poor and so black" >

Oh, I would love to have a video or audio of that.

Americanwolf -- great points! I was quite upset (to say the least) at the race-baiting issue when I read the Slate article and saw the coverage on the cable networks. Of course, we knew it had to come. Shafer does have a valid point when he refers to media timidity. Below is my own diatribe on the whole subject: Elephant in the Room.

With regard to the human tragedy now unfolding in New Orleans, the elephant in the room is not the fact of the victims being largely black and poor. I would assert that it is not about race or class, as some on CNN have surmised, but rather about culture and ideology.

Culture is defined as the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. (Bates, D. and Plog, F. (1990.) Cultural Anthropology, 3rd Edition. New York: McGraw Hill. p.7). The glaring fact that everyone tries to ignore as politically incorrect, the unwanted message that individuals such as Bill Cosby have tried to communicate, is that the central issue is not the oppression of one race by another, but rather the existence and perpetuation of a subculture that encourages those who share it to oppress themselves. I am talking about a subculture of self-enforced mediocrity that says no one can be successful if it makes others feel bad about themselves. This is a subculture that leads angry hurricane survivors to ask on CNN: What have they done to help me and others? instead of asking themselves What can I do to help myself and others? This is a subculture that allows the survivors at the Superdome to avoid organizing tasks such as collecting and transporting the deceased to a centralized location inside the Superdome, rather than leaving them where they died. This is the subculture that allows these survivors to live among their own excrement, rather than organizing a sanitation detail and designating latrine areas. Instead, these survivors sit passively and complain that others are not doing enough, fast enough, for them. This is in sharp contrast to the stories of other survivors who gathered their families and walked out of New Orleans to a highway, where they were able to flag down a ride. The elephant in the room is the national, tacit acceptance of a culture that promotes passive dependency and victimhood, rather than active self-reliance and heroism; the tacit encouragement of a subculture that permits those who share it to blame others when they fail in the face of adversity, a subculture that encourages those who share it to expect to be given whatever they want, rather than encouraging real achievement, genuine merit, and the attitudes, beliefs, values, customs, and behaviors that promote them.

The subculture described above is supported and encouraged with a prevailing ideology. Ideology may be defined as a relatively coherent system of values, beliefs, biases, opinions, preferences, stereotypes and ideas shared by some social group and often taken for granted as natural, inherently true or self-evident. Andre Malraux once said that Marxism is not a doctrine per se, but rather a will, a will to feel proletariat; i.e., an ideology. Likewise, in the 21st century American subculture described above, there is less actual racial oppression, and more of a will to feel racially oppressed. Genetic anthropologists insist that there is no biological basis for race. Indeed, many social scientist assert that race is a socially constructed concept without biological implications, (like ones gender, as opposed to ones sex.) In short, the concept of race is one that supports an ideology of domination, a set of beliefs that are held to justify one groups desire to dominate another; or conversely, to justify another groups feeling of victimhood and injustice that offers, in Eric Frommes terms, an escape from freedom; that is, an escape from responsibility for ones own fate.

Certainly racist groups exist, within each race, but they are merely the loudest, most odious elements, not the most numerous or prevalent. As real equality has advanced, groups such as the Black Caucus, the NAACP, NOW, and the Nation of Islam have become increasingly radicalized in order to justify their own existence. It is these new radicals, operating within established and venerated civil rights organizations, who perpetuate and condone an ideology of race, and the subculture of victimhood that traps millions of Americans in self-imposed poverty, and who bear ultimate responsibility for the unnecessary deaths and violence in post-Katrina New Orleans. Despite the ultimate culpability of such radicals, there is also blame for a timid media and a politically correct, but factually fallacious sense of racial guilt that prohibits a hard-nosed assessment of the facts in favor of a softhearted attempt to validate everyones viewpoint, even in the face of serious error.

You bring up some excellent points too!

I have always looked at a situation that if my life was in imminent danger. I would everything that I could to ensure that I and those with me were safe. I would then expect that to get out of the situation everyone that was able bodied would have to contribute to do what need to be done to maintain order and work on recitfying the situation.

What we saw in the superdome and in other parts of new orleans was the breakdown of our society into three parts.....

1st... those that had no regard for their own safety or the safety of others. These were the looters and predators that rode the storm out figuring they would have an easy picking of what was left behind. This is think is the lowest of low. Their actions were not out of frustration from the storm or not getting supplies. It was pure predatory activity. There were those that this was their lifestyle before hand and they saw an oppertunity to act upon it on a larger scale.

2nd..Survivors.... Those that were truely victims of the storm. Either by fate or misfortune that got caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. they did what they had to to survive and waited to be evacuated.

3rd...Victims....those that were also able to get to evactatuion points prior to the storm or right after, but immedatly upon getting to locations broke down pysically or mentally. They esentally become that responbility of whoever would care for them. (hopefully there were man good samaratins to take care of them.)

4th...Faux-victims..... those that made it to the evac points or were rescued in tially and brought to evac points either refused to help or expect to be told what to do with out contributing to the effort or complaining instead of sucking it up and doing what need to be done.

5th... The defenders.....The police NG etc that did not break, did not run, held their ground and tried to accoplish a miracle in the process..

That is what i have seen come out of NO this week in regard to the humanside of the event. Those groups are not defined by color, creed, religion, sex, or any other factor other then actions that were taken by the individual before or after the storm. There are no other factors that should weigh in on who is responsible for the atrocities that occured.

at least that is they way I see it.

Americanwolf,

I agree. If we are all free people with free wills, then we are, each of us, responsible for our own actions or inaction. I do think, however, that our views and attitudes are shaped by the social context in which we mature. Don't get me wrong, though. This is NOT an excuse. We all have the ability and the responsibility to try to see beyond that social context and make choices, rather than simply reacting according to the ingrained pathways of our upbringing.

Missed Wolfe's comments on Thursday did he.

Rush told us on Thursday at 12:30 central that this was coming. The libs love the race card.

The way I see it is they are people not black white or yellow but people. But I aint a lib or the press.

Poor, Black, and Left Behind

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/09/09_414.html

September 24, 2004

Very informative. Seems as though Ivan was a dry run for the incompetent leaders of Lousiana, so they could botch it big time for Katrina.

I tried to post this as a separate thread but the mods pulled it.