No Such Thing II

Our good friend Mr. ICHTUS has put up a comprehensive (and therefore incredibly disturbing) post. Among other points, he reflects on the notion that apparently black people "loot", while white people "find food". 

I listened to T.D. Jakes on CNN tonight. He's a man I respect immensely, and he spoke evenly about his sense of outrage, while not wanting to make assumptions. I don't think this issue is going away anytime soon. I think the conversation will ultimately be good for America. For all of us. Ultimately.

But it is going to be very, very painful.

Comments

[Rick]

Snopes, the web-site that deals in urban legends and myths, deals with the photo caption issue far too many liberals are using to make poitical hay and sadly, Mike apparently is joining the fray:

A Salon article on the photographs by Aaron Kinney suggests the captions were a result of a combination of contexual and stylistic differences:

Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that [photographer Dave] Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Regarding the AFP/Getty "finding" photo by [photographer Chris] Graythen, Getty spokeswoman Bridget Russel said, "This is obviously a big tragedy down there, so we're being careful with how we credit these photos." Russel said that Graythen had discussed the image in question with his editor and that if Graythen didn't witness the two people in the image in the act of looting, then he couldn't say they were looting.

The photographer who took the Getty/AFP picture, Chris Graythen, also posted the reasons behind his caption:

I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water — we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow.

I personally think Mike that you and your ideological cohorts ought to be spending more time trying to figure out how to help and less time trying to figure out how to score political points.

It's damned shameful.

[Mike]

We have, Rick. We've sent money down to the richest country in the world to help it's citizens. If you have any other ideas please let us know. (Of course, it's disconcerting to read about Americans who want to help being turned away for "security reasons".)

We also want to make sure that the lessons to be learned are not missed.

[wilsonian]

Let's not miss the larger point here. Racism is alive and well. In Canada as well as in the American south. If we don't take the opportunity to face this head on, well shame on us.

On a short term mission trip I was part of, we did some work with an amazing pastor (black, btw) in one of the poorest parts of NO... the Fischer Projects. Our gang from Canada was as white as the inside of a loaf of Wonder bread. You want to know the single most tragic part of that experience? It wasn't the fact that we had to pick up used needles, etc. before we could do a kid's program, it wasn't that you could hear gun shots while we were there and not a single kid flinched... it wasn't any of those tragic things. The most tragic part of the trip was that when word spread that a group of whites were helping out in Fischer, we made front page of the newspaper. Our nationality was inconsequential. Our race was monumental.

I can't imagine much has changed there in the intervening years.

Let's have the courage to take a good hard look at ourselves.

I'll start.

[Mr. ICTHUS]

Rick, it's interesting to me that one person's "objectivity" is another person's "ideology". I don't believe that Mike's post (or mine) is partisan inasmuch as people across the political divide have agreed about what issues are at stake. Questions still remain about how to address them. No one is trying to score "political points" here. Neither Mike nor I are politicians and neither of us have much at stake in said politics. But I call 'em as I see 'em.

[matt]

Something about all of these posts just isn't working for me. While I think there is a larger problem here, there is a responsibility as a blogger/writer to make sure that the facts are straight; everyone needs to do the homework before posting pictures/captions that actually back up their ideology and beliefs.

I agree with Wilsonian that we shouldn't miss the larger point, but I think that larger point is missed when someone like Icthus uses a faulty visual aid. If the picture tells the story, then make sure it is telling the right story. It is easy to get cynical about CNN et al. and how they are reporting and the language they use and how they refer to "looters" and people looking for food, but in a sense the same thing has happened here. Icthus may "call 'em as he sees 'em", but in a word and picture needs to do so responsibly.

One last thought, when we say "if we don't take this opportunity to face racism head on", I flinch a little, because the opportunity is there everyday in our walking around life. On a cynical note, I don't think we ever will face it head on, I don't even think we know what that cliche means

Sorry to sound frustrated, but I do feel like New Orleans has become a political football being tossed back and forth a lot, and there just seems a way different perspective then what happened last December 26th. Last year it just seemed like "we just need to help, no matter what", and now it seems like it has become political, whether people mean it to or not. Sorry, I guess I'm just calling it as I see it.

[Mike]

Good thoughts, Matt. Thanks.

A word on the racism issue. I think you're right - we all have the opportunity to face it head on everyday, as individuals. However, it's one of those topics that will never show up on a larger agenda - say national - unless it is forced, like in these circumstances. That's the level I'm referring when I talk about facing it.

And is it "political"? (You know how much I love that word!). In a sense, yes. When these events force an examination of how policies and ideologies isolate a group of people and treat them differently, then sure, it's political.

I've been thinking about the woman on the phone with the CNN anchor on Saturday. She was in dire straights, and he was trying to find a positive for her, to give her hope, to give her something that she could cling to as potential. He asked about her savings, and she said she had $8 in the bank. We can talk about trickle-down economic policies, about "starving the beast", and how tax cuts to the upper and middle class will ultimately help this woman all we want. They won't. The system, either purposely or by default, has abandoned her to her own devices. Until last week we could conveniently avoid thinking about that.

As individuals we can rant, rave and debate these issues all we want. But as a nation, or as a planet, if we don't grab the opportunity to discuss them openly then I'm afraid nothing changes.

[Rick]

Matt... you're a brave man for calling Mr. Icthus on his use of a "faulty visual aid". Will we see him retract his race-baiting post? I don't think so. Doing the right thing is usually trumped by doing that which promotes an agenda with these kinds of people.

Mike, your entire post is built on that which Snopes I think has handled more than adequately. Will you also make a statement moving away from it's race-baiting nature? I would hope so. But hope is also usually trumped by ideology. And Mike, will you, in your quest to discuss things openly, deal with the culpability of the New Orleans' mayor? And will you deal with who, in fact, encouraged local officials, who were dragging their feet, to evacuate?

Or do those dag-blasted Bush hating blinders keep getting in the way of that kind of "open discussion"?