Posted on 09/01/2005 5:17:32 AM PDT by AbeKrieger
I knew it would happen - just didn't know when.
I'm talking about television news footage of looters played over and over in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Looting occurs whenever law and order breaks down as a result of disasters natural or manmade. But since the advent of television, looting seems to be a black thing. From the Watts riots in the 1960s to today, you can count on pictures of black folk hightailing it away from some store with electronic appliances, jewelry and furniture.
So while reporters from 24-hour TV news channels poured into the area almost as fast as the rising waters, I didn't have long to wait for the looting story to flash on my television screen. And even though it was expected, I found myself a little sad. But mostly mad.
We journalists have a collective knee-jerk reaction in certain situations, disasters especially. We look for people, things, quotes that will convey what we want or need to convey. But overuse of this practice leads to cliche and stereotype.
In Iowa, where tornadoes are a summertime surety, reporters are always looking for someone to say that the barn-flattening winds sounded like a freight train. At my old newspaper, the first reporter to get that quote was treated to a beer after work.
For television reporters, shots of blacks looting are quick, easy and downright expected.
New Orleans is more than a party-time tourist destination. It's a city where two-thirds of the population is black, so I'm not surprised to see black people looting. Many are poor: The median income for whites is a low $31,971; for blacks it's a subterranean $11,332. Truth is, life in the Big Easy has never been that way for many.
My question is, are blacks really the only looters? Or are they the only ones deemed worthy of camera time? Does 30 seconds of tape, rewound and replayed, tell the whole story? If pictures of looters never made it onto the air, would viewers be deprived of crucial information? Do these images advance the story of the plight of people?
Or do they play to stereotype, prejudice and fear?
Yes, stealing for profit and personal gain is wrong. And I hope those who decided to take advantage of a disaster to haul off flat-screen televisions and DVD players find no way to profit from their theft.
But during a devastating disaster like this, good, law-abiding citizens may do things they would never do normally. On TV I saw people carrying what appeared to be groceries, water, and bags of ice. With no water, power, or way out of town, it looked to me that the "looters" were trying to survive rather than upgrade their stereo system.
Before you say "I would never," just remember that's pretty easy to say and believe as we sit in our comfortable, dry, air-conditioned homes with ice, water and food a few steps away. Hunger to us means we haven't eaten in a couple of hours.
Think about it: Water's at your knees, kids are hungry and thirsty. You'd call 911 if you had a phone and if someone would answer. How could I say that if this were my situation, I wouldn't be one of those people heading out of the Wal-Mart with things that could help my family survive?
So don't draw conclusions about the ways of black people from the few moments of "de rigueur" pictures of looters. Black citizens are also among the weary, the rescuers and the rescued, the resilient, the righteous... and the dead.
They just don't get much airtime.
Something about adult males being "hunters", and having more upper body strength than females, or children.
The Winn-Dixie you keep seeing on TV may well be the only dry Winn-Dixie in NO. That's why they are filming it.
If this doesn't say it all...nothing does.
Never mind reporting the facts with objectivity...just wait until you can cobble together enough bits and pieces to relate to all the gullible MSM fans "what you want to convey". True or not.
Is it any wonder at all that the MSM has completely lost any credibility.
And...perhaps the real reason you see film after film of blacks looting is because blacks are looting - at least the ones on film at least in that area.
Did she ever entertain the fact, in that thin noggin of hers, that Indonesian and Sri Lankan TSUNAMI victims have FAR LESS MATERAL POSSESSIONS than the so called 'oppressed classes', the 'victims of society' in the New Orleans (whom she gives a carte blanche to loot in a crisis), and when the TSUNAMI came, by and large, THEY DID NOT LOOT.
Think of destitute Vietnamese refugees who came to this country 25 years ago, each with a sack of clothing, in ICEM card around their neck, and that is about it. Now, in America, so many are useful citizens: they are PhDs, company presidents, real estate stars, military officials, venture capitalists.
It is all an issue of FREE WILL and INITIATIVE and WILL TO GET AHEAD, not blaming others.
That's not fair, dammit!
I'm getting a different version of this thread than you are!
Not fair!
How are we supposed to apply these here mindless liberal bromides if the opportunity to do so isn't plainly there?
*sulk*
There are a good number of patriotic conservatives who happen to be minorities, who believe in law and order, and who believe able bodied people should not be allowed to be on welfare, at FR. I personally believe looters should be dealt with by "martial law" justice.
Nothing I have said implies that I would do that.
I am not in a position to judge what others do.
I hold myself to a higher standard than Louisana law does.
Under similar circumstances I would steal to survive but by my standards for myself, I would still be a thief.
Amazing how this imbeciles try to give us all a lesson in racial politics everytime human scum has a color other than their PC versions in the movies and television shows. Shoot all the looters on sight. When the bodies are counted and blacks figure disproportionately (whatever the hell that means), then the racebaiting b@st@rds like Jackson and Sharpton will come to town and with the full fellating friendship of the media the next hurricane of leftist lies will wreak its havoc.
When the curtain is pulled aside, the folks behind the curtain gets pretty upset. My sincerest hope is that good folks of all colors have the weaponry to send every one of these animals (whatever color they are) to hell.
It was the walmart and the parking lot as well as the inside of the store were completely dry.
It was shown on TV... so no I don't have a URL.
...just like when OJ was acquitted...
Now, say this, "David and his men"..... the lesson was they broke the Sabbath when they went into the field of grain to eat. However, they needed the food to survive. So, which is more important, the law, or survival?
In this case Louisiana Law is consistent with the moral demands of survival and self-defense. Sorry it does not meet your standards, but maybe you don't care about that business of "Thou shalt not murder" either.
Maybe we ought to get your name and address ~ you are a person to be watched in the future.
Hmmm...no mention in this 1,000-word excuse for the armed gangs shooting at anything and anybody, INCLUDING people searching for survivors!
"For television reporters, shots of blacks looting are quick, easy and downright expected. "
um well yeah - the city is mostly black so the looters by shear stats will be mostly black. DUH. what does she want affirmative action to insert whites and asians to loot to balance it out or something?
The difference, you idjit, is that our looters have more less class.
Have you heard of any antiquities or art museums being looted?
Hmmmmmmmmm?
Need to have some fully armed Apache helicopters in the rotation of rescue choppers.
Somebody pointed out that whites riot too, as evidenced by the Seattle anti-WTO protests, but that's something altogether different. And I don't remember any massive looting in that one.
I DO remember reports of looting in nearly every "black uprising", no matter what the excuse, going back to the Watts riots.
To the PC People, I'm sorry how it looks.
""Envision" the most hostile victims of this disaster who made it to the TV cameras, the ones who blame everyone around them but who won't even lift a finger to help their sorry selves, let alone their fellow victims! And they are in very good health to have such loud mouths!"
OMG, you can't help notice the major ATTITUDES on some of those dregs?
Fox was lucky to catch a few people who actually were HELPING others, and some who were just "resigned" if you will to this horror.
But there were the ANGRY - at what? - people again DEMANDING (I NEED-I NEED-I NEED-AND YOU BETTER) somebody do something. And I could just see the "blame Bush", "blame whitey (even if she's a Dem friend)" thinly veiled w/some of their in-your-face "sentiments".
Allow me to vouch for that from personal experience.
looters=insurgents
Since when do Freepers automatically accept every claim made by those people, particularly AP which has a really, really bad track record concerning the truth.
Ever wonder what's in that guy's backpack?
The only point worth making about either, or both, of these pictures, is that here are three people up to their chests in the NO flood waters. They are attempting to survive.
Matthew Henry comments: [1.] As for the sin of stealing, if a man were brought to it by extreme necessity, if he stole meat for the satisfying of his soul when he was hungry, though that will not excuse him from guilt, yet it is such an extenuation of his crime that men do not despise him, do not expose him to ignominy, but pity him. Hunger will break through stone-walls, and blame will be laid upon those that brought him to poverty, or that did not relieve him....
As for fat people needing to eat. I've seen more than fat people in the looting pictures although some are.
In any case, taking bread wrongly because of hunger was a crime committed by King David when he fled from Saul and wrongly took the showbread. Jesus himself affirmed that David did nothing wrong.
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