Black People Loot?

By now, everyone must have been caught up in the uproar that was fueled by this photo capture of Yahoo News, showing people in New Orleans scrounging for food through the floods. The caption of the black man characterizes his actions as “looting,” while the caption for the white people charactizes their actions as “finding.” Needless to say, people have got their panties in a bunch over the apparently racist characterization.

However, the first thing to notice is that the captions are from two different news agencies. Though there may be still an underlying unconscious racial bias, unless there is proof that both the AFP and the AP both consistently portray black people as ‘looters’ and white people as ‘finders’, it is hard to compare the reports by both agencies and logically deduce that there is systematic racism going on.

I think the bigger issue here is one of socio-economic advantage, rather than race (though I will admit that race is intrinsically tied to socio-economic status). It is important to note that the evacuation of New Orleans was dependant on those who had the means: you needed to have a car, have the money to purchase gas and supplies, and also needed to have adequate arrangements outside the city. Of course, this would mean that those left in the city would be the marginalized segment of society. Why wasn’t anything done to prevent such a situation? (The New York Times has a great infographic of the devastation broken down by median household income.)

Katya brought up a good point: is it looting if the products will never be sold and are essential for survival? It reminds me a little of the scene of the mob in Saramago’s Blindness, where people in desperation clamored for food in grocery stores they could not see: in New Orleans, with grocery stores submerged, it only makes sense for people to take what they can in order to get through the next few days.

If you’re going to leave people behind in your city as a natural disaster hits it, then don’t be surprised if they have to take extreme measures to ensure their survival. Katya’s right, both the AP and the AFP got it wrong: they are not looters or finders — they are survivors.

Update: Excellent article at Slate by Jack Shafer about Katrina, Race, Class, and the Media. Much better than reading the above post.