1. As anthropologists, we should be interested in the social aspects unfolding in the midst of this immensely tragic situation: the circumstances in which established ("acceptable") forms of social integration become dysfunctional and are replaced; the forms of replacement structures, or the apparent lack thereof; the natures of human interactions between individuals, and between individuals and larger corporate groups, including governing authorities; perceptions within the affected sub-community and community groups and within the surrounding society -- including those members of the surrounding society responsible for distribution of information (i.e., "the media") -- regarding behaviors and apparent associations with ethnicity, "race", or other social divisions; ad nauseum. But . . .
2. Clearly (or I hope it's clear), we are humans first and anthropologists after that, so we cannot allow ourselves to minimize the human tragedy(ies) as/if we indulge our anthropological interests. We should hurt deeply that people are hungry and dehydrated and homeless and injured and ill and dead, and to the extent that we have nationalist leanings, that people in our nation are so suffering, and we should want to do something, as humans, to help relieve that suffering. Still . . .
3. I find it disturbingly interesting that so many folks (most of whom I presume, because of its venue, are anthropologically-minded) have responded to this blog by quickly and perjoratively jumping on what appears to be obvious -- that "the media" involved in disseminating the photographs equate black folks with looting and white folks with finding. As anthropologists and archaeologists, we all know that context is everything -- otherwise that pretty pot is just a pretty pot. It seems apparent that most of the responses on the blog assume that context has been established by presence of the photos and the captions. However, as some folks point out, the same photos appear with different captions in other media settings. Thus, context for the apparently racist captions is not well established, and, therefore, we should be darned careful about categorizing and interpreting those captions. Now, as anthropologists, we know that, in fact, "the media" involved in disseminating those photos may, indeed, have attached (advertently or otherwise) racial interpretations to the images. And that may be both interesting (anthropologically) and tragic (humanly). Still . . .
4. I also find it interesting -- and I suspect this situation is an example -- that anthropologists, who commonly see themselves as objective observers of human behavior, are, themselves, often so culture-bound that they cannot be objective about their own culture and society. That is, we frequently cannot seem to apply the same "standards" (if, indeed, there are such -- oops, now I sound like a post-modernist) to our observations of our own sociocultural milieu(s) as we can to those of the folks we purport to study. I know I am guilty of this, and most of my colleagues, those whom I know well, are, as well. For instance, I am, understandably, relieved beyond description that my aunt, who lives in Biloxi, still lives in Biloxi. In large measure, the fact that she survived this disaster is due to the fact that she has the financial means to have bought a house in one of the "high parts" of town (all 22 feet in elevation . . .) and to have installed hurricane shutters on the house. I realize that many -- probably most -- of her fellow Biloxians were not so fortunate, and that, this being the South, many -- probably most -- of those folks are not reasonably well-off WASPs. Still, I am VERY relieved and happy that her circumstances contributed to her survival, and I make no apologies for that. Nonetheless . . .
5. We portray our inability to be objective when we assume, without establishing context, that people are being racist, and that those racist interpretations extend to levels above individuals. Of course, we know that such situations have and continue to exist (and always will); but we betray our purported professional objectivity -- and reveal both our humanity and our inhumanity -- when we assume the worst without knowing what needs to be known before making determinations, much less passing judgements. Many members of our own larger sociocultural milieu(s) will be making those determinations and passing those judgements loud and often the coming days, weeks, months, and perhaps years -- one only has to turn on the news channels to see and hear them already. As citizen anthropologists, we have a responsibility to bring what objectivity we can to the social and cultural aspects of this awful situation as it exists and as it unfolds before us, with the goal that ALL people impacted by this disaster, regardless of their "races", ethnicities, economic circumstances, and other socio-categorical characteristics, are treated with appropriate dignity as humans.
At least that's how I see it . . .
Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
Office of Archaeological Studies
P.O. Box 2087
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504
tel: 505.827.6343
fax: 505.827.3904
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY on behalf of Edward W. Tennant
Sent: Fri 9/2/2005 6:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Hurricane damage [FW: "looting" and "finding" food in New Orleans]
This was forwarded from another list (see below).
I looked at these posts this morning (Friday) and the "find" picture was
removed by AFP.
However, if you look at this link you can see the "another black man
'looting'" and the "find" picture side-by-side (with some interesting
comments):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/triciawang/38922728/
-Ed Tennant
-----Original Message-----
From: H-NET Discussion List for African American Studies
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alkalimat, Abdul
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 12:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "looting" and "finding" food in New Orleans
From: doreen hopkins [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Black male "looting":
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10908301723
text: "A looter carries a bucket of beer out of a grocery store in New
Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, as floodwaters continue to rise in New
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave
Martin)"
Another Black male "looting":
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530
text: "A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a
grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Flood waters
continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did extensive damage
when it...."
Other people "find":
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo
1
text: "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.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen)"
'Looting' Vs. 'Finding': Hurricane Katrina Exposes Racial Bias
By Carmen Cusido
---------------------------------
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September 01, 2005
Hurricane Katrina washed away more than homes and buildings; it also exposed
race and class inequities and media bias toward blacks. After the hurricane,
news reports showed many New Orleans residents going into closed stores and
running away with food, clothes, appliances and guns.
Here's the million-dollar question: Are white people "finding" something to
eat while black people are "looting" for lunch in New Orleans and other
flooded areas? Yes, if you look at the mainstream media. Then again, the
majority of low-income people in New Orleans are black and many are
starving.
For the world to see, there were too many images, but two stand out-one shot
by an AFP/Getty Images photographer and another by The Associated Press
(AP)-and each had a different caption when published on Yahoo.com. In the AP
photograph, the photo shows a black person with some food. The caption below
the picture says he's just finished "looting" a grocery store. The other
photo showed two white people with the caption describing how they were
"finding" bread and soda from a grocery store, BoingBoing.Net reports. In
both pictures, the subjects are swimming, holding food, with no stores in
sight.
The difference in words may be indicative of racial bias in the mainstream
media. Christina Pazzanese wrote in a Poynter.org forum for the
media-studies organization that in the national "crisis-mode" coverage of
the aftermath of Katrina, there have been a number of professional
challenges for everyone in the media around racial and economic sensitivity.
"I am curious how one photographer knew the food was looted by one but not
the other ... Should editors in a rush to publish poignant or startling
images relax their standards or allow personal or regional biases to creep
into captions and stories?" Pazzanese asks. We all should be asking that
question too.
Yes, most of those left behind in that flooded city are poor, black people.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that New Orleans is 67.3 percent black and
28.1 percent white. Columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson on BlackNews.com said
the looting, though deplorable, put an ugly face on the millions of
Americans who grow poorer and more desperate. While criminal gangs, who
always take advantage of chaos and misery to snatch and grab whatever they
can, did much of the looting, many desperately poor, mostly black residents,
saw a chance to take items and food they can't afford. New Orleans, Ofari
Hutchinson writes, has one of the highest poverty rates of any of America's
big cities, and many people live in the most dilapidated, deteriorated
housing in the nation.
Many are criticizing the decision to have troops focus on capturing looters
instead of helping to rescue thousands of refugees who soon will die of
hunger and thirst. The looters may as well take advantage of the food that
would rot anyway, they say, as people who are starving and left with no
other option but to take the food.
Dante Lee of BlackNews.com comments, "As for the stealing of TVs and DVD
players, I would agree that this is inexcusable. However, food and drinks
are critical to their survival. But these aren't the only necessities in
life - What about baby diapers, toilet tissue, shoes, dry clothes? People
have to do what they can to survive."
After the rainstorm comes, the "human storm" hurricanes leave behind, writes
columnist David Brooks in The New York Times. Books referred to the human
storm as the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over
compensation.
The floods wash away the surface of society (registration required) and
expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of
corruption and the inequalities.
In 1900, another great storm hit the United States, killing more than 6,000
people in Galveston, Texas. The storm exposed racial animosities, and there
were (false) stories of blacks of cutting off the fingers of corpses to
steal wedding rings. The devastation ended Galveston's chance to beat out
Houston as Texas's leading port.
Then in 1927, the Mississippi flood rumbled down on New Orleans. During that
time. blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. The
racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move
north, Brooks writes.
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