Posted on 09/14/2005 1:58:45 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
This is where the blame game gets ugly.
"So every American kid should be required to watch videotape of the poor in New Orleans and see how they suffered (after Hurricane Katrina), because they couldn't get out of town," said Fox News Channel pundit Bill O'Reilly last week on his show, The O'Reilly Factor .
"And then, every teacher should tell the students, "If you refuse to learn, if you refuse to work hard, if you become addicted, if you live a gangsta-life, you will be poor and powerless just like many of those in New Orleans."'
This was how O'Reilly chose to deflect criticism of the federal government after the horrific delays in hurricane relief. Government is fallible, he argued. So why expect it to save you?
The larger implications of his words also are obvious. These often poor, often black hurricane victims brought all this misery and death on themselves, because they weren't motivated enough to succeed in America.
In the same way that live coverage of the aftermath exposed the fissure between haves and have-nots when disaster strikes, the subsequent reaction of some pundits has unearthed the race-tinged rhetoric they often use to justify their arguments.
Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh was more explicit, saying New Orleans (which has a black mayor and many black officials) had a "welfare state mentality" that kept some residents from earning enough to handle the disaster.
"The nonblack population was just as devastated, but apparently they were able to get out," Limbaugh, who is white, said on his show Sept. 1. "Race, in this circumstance, is a poisonous weapon, and it's why the liberals are now gravitating to it."
A synopsis on the Web site for evangelist Pat Robertson's 700 Club show outlined a recent appearance by conservative black minister Wellington Boone, who talked about "the culture of those people stranded in New Orleans" and how it led to their fate.
"The looting of property, the trashing of property, etc. speaks to the basic character of the people," read the recap of Boone's appearance on CBN.com. "These people who have gone through slavery, segregation and the Voting Rights Act are doing this to themselves. They look like a developing nation."
Imagine the headlines nationally if Robertson, who is white, had made that "developing nation" crack instead of a black minister.
Gangsta lifestyle. Welfare mentality. Developing nation. All code words often used as unflattering, veiled references to people of color.
"My encouragement to journalists is to not use labels," said Aly Colon, an instructor on ethics and diversity issues at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which owns the St. Petersburg Times . "As you see picture after picture of people who you understand to be poor and you see to be black, if you know nothing else about New Orleans, that becomes New Orleans. You have no sense of context."
Indeed, the images of looting and violence were horrific, as a ruthless contingent of lawbreakers stole unneeded items, shot at police officers and worse.
But such actions also helped some commentators push their own punitive political perspective, lumping innocent victims together with aggressive criminals in their own backward "blame game."
Colon noted race and class stereotypes evoked in such media coverage are particularly important, if only because they can soothe the sensibilities of those already hoping to see most hurricane victims as somehow deserving of their desperate fate.
Another radio personality, former Tampa talker Glenn Beck, made a similar point Friday in detailing how he's beginning to hate the hurricane victims in New Orleans, because they wouldn't line up in an orderly fashion to get $2,000 ATM cards.
"Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags," said Beck, who now broadcasts from Philadelphia.
"It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention."
As America tackles public policy changes in the wake of Katrina, how will the stereotypes created by pundits such as Beck, O'Reilly and Limbaugh affect the debate? At a time when unity is so important, the words of those who profit by keeping us apart are the last we should heed.
--Eric Deggans can be reached at 727 893-8521 or deggans@sptimes.com
CW, the Rats remind me of the Soviets in the waning years of their power. It's like they have to keep repeating the same tired lies over and over even though fewer and fewer people believe it.
They've lost control of the media.
Now they have to try and discredit new voices.
But the truth is difficult to put back in the bottle.
Is this guy being critical of the truth? I couldn't disagree with one comment or observation he lists in the article by Robertson, Limbaugh, or O'R.
The truth is a hard thing to fight. He's got his work cut out for him.
The young black kid who hotwired a bus and drove evacuees out of LA should be promoted to Mayor. He seemed to be one of the few residents who showed any initiative.
Naturally, the local government wants to prosecute him. Go figure.
David is one of my favorite people. He's humble and approachable, and has learned his lessons well! He can come over for dinner any time.
Exactly.
He can't, or won't see the real enemies in this drama.
He shills for the Democratic Party, instead of being interested in improving lives.
This America-as-lethally-racist theme is as factually dishonest as it is morally grotesque. No one denies that most of those stranded in New Orleans were black, but that is because two-thirds of the city's residents -- 326,000 out of a population of 485,000 -- were black. By the same token, most of those who got out before the disaster struck were also black.
Katrina devastated more than black-majority Orleans Parish. Four other Louisiana parishes and three coastal Mississippi counties, all with substantial white majorities, suffered heavily too. Government relief reached them no faster than it did New Orleans. If this were truly a racist country, it would have.
But those with an interest in perpetuating the idea that the chief cause of black misfortune is an American culture that ''doesn't care about black people" decry racism whether it exists or not. ''The ugly truth," declared Democratic chairman Howard Dean, ''is that skin color, age, and economics played a significant role in who survived and who did not." Likewise US Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat: ''If anyone ever doubted that there are two Americas, this disaster and our government's shameful response to it have made the division clear for all to see."
Well, there are two Americas. One is the America of Lee, Dean, and Jackson, in which color is paramount and no time is the wrong time to play the race card. The other is the America that has opened its hearts and wallets in a torrent of generosity and compassion for Katrina's victims. As of Monday, reports the Chronicle of Philanthropy, more than $760 million had been donated, a pace of giving without precedent in American history. And that includes only monetary contributions. There are also the immense offerings of in-kind goods of every description -- clothing, food, medicine, dishes, telephones, toys. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have enlisted in the relief effort. Americans across the country have opened their homes to evacuees from New Orleans. In the words of a Red Cross spokeswoman, ''People are just pouring their hearts out."
And all without the slightest regard to race.
Americans of every color are helping Americans of every color, loving their neighbors as themselves, and proving by their selflessness yet again that racism is dead as a force in mainstream American life.***
In America, poverty has more to do with Bad Habits than race.
Yes. And after bad habits are entrenched, they're learned by example.
"At a time when unity is so important, the words of those who profit by keeping us apart are the last we should heed.
I think the idiot that wrote this cited the wrong people, these are some of the names he should have mentioned; Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, John Dean, Hellary Clinton.
There are a lot of parked cars under water in the ghettos of NO. These "victims" could have gone somewhere else but chose not to. They paid the price. White Americans should not take any of the blame for their lack of judgement in not driving to safety as so many thousands of their fellow citizens did.
Indeed, the images of looting and violence were horrific, as a ruthless contingent of lawbreakers stole unneeded items, shot at police officers and worse.
15. Ruthless contingent of lawbreakers ;)
I heard that many didn't leave because they were waiting for their welfare check to arrive. End of the month = no money to leave.
I don't think their welfare check arrived.
Code words? I would think anyone, black or white, would recognize what those words mean.
No need for a "code" dictionary here. I mean one would have to be able to read to use it.
Music companies, hollywierd promote the bad ass Gangsta lifestyle for profit. Media does it's part and laps it up and spreads the glorification of evil.
Such role models we have.
Of course it is all Bush's FAULT that they do this.
"Music companies, hollywierd promote the bad ass Gangsta lifestyle for profit."
Hence the stat that 80% are now born out of wedlock.
I still don't believe that stat. Someone please tell me its not correct.
First of all, there were and still are non-blacks in NO, who not only may have lived that lifestyle but, also choose to stay for what ever reason.
Secondly, as always seem to happen, the damn truth hurts!
So, who do you think he references here? It couldn't possibly mean that liberals were pushing any "punitive political perspective". Nah, never happens.
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