Race Has Nothing To Do With It...Right?

By Najad Abdul-Aziz

Undoubtedly, an array of articles will be published politicising the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, using it against the Bush administration.

Bring it on. That is because this disaster should be politicised, analysed, stripped bare exposing the depths of hypocrisy and deceit, stemming far deeper than the water levels submerging New Orleans. It seems however, the media has begun an agenda, an all-out campaign of narrative driven sensationalism that has eroded journalistic responsibility. Once again, the mission of the networks is not to inform, but to compete, on a story-by-story basis, where truth is discarded along the way.

What was also obliterated was a news gathering system that is no longer designed to signal important issues or keep track of significant events. There are culprits to be found – profit minded executives with little sense of responsibility, budget obsessed editors who allow operational obstacles to cloud their news judgment, correspondents who miss the point – or the plane.

An example is the coverage of looting. In a city where supplies are scarce, people are hungry and dying, survivalist means are employed, desperate measures in desperate circumstances. Crime and anarchy was witnessed, but the acts of a few should not be lumped together with those trying to live another day.

The LA Times reported a man walking down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife, who refused to give her name, insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby Winn-Dixie supermarket. "It's about survival right now," she said as she held a plastic bag full of purloined items. "We got to feed our children. I've got eight grandchildren to feed."

Switch to the television networks and all that is covered is the how- dare- they ‘expert’ commentary from those quick to judge. No context, just judgement. People do wonder why they did not evacuate sooner. What the multinational conglomerates of media do not want to report is another reminder of America’s racial divide. Graphic images of the Superdome, housing predominantly African-Americans, is a slap on the face, as clear as a cloudless sky that race and class is absolutely a factor in the manner local and federal governments deal with the rich and poor. As CNN’s Wolf Blitzer put it: “Almost all of them that we see are so poor, and they are so black.”

Sixty-seven percent of New Orleans' residents are African-American, and nearly 30 percent of people live below the poverty line. Many of Louisiana’s poor do not have insurance, and rely on government checks to survive. Over 100,000 couldn’t leave because they could not afford transportation.

Those that stayed mistakenly assumed aid would come soon. Budget cuts and the spending priorities of the Bush Administration resulted in thousands of citizens fending for themselves. A Reuters story revealed the former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation's waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years.

"Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in," said Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who headed the engineering agency from 2001 to 2002. "I'm not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now."

Tensions over funding for the New Orleans levees emerged more than a year ago when a local official asserted money had been diverted to pay for the Iraq war. In early 2002, Parker told the U.S. Congress that the war on terrorism required spending cuts elsewhere in government.

If ever there was a need to politicise this catastrophe, the time is now. Funding to protect America’s south from natural disasters has gone to construction projects to rebuild disaster areas now resembling downtown New Orleans.

Yes, news “shows” a lot of things. Unfortunately, it is the selective nature of the media that has failed to highlight these issues.

As benefit concerts promote solidarity among Americans, another incident has reflected media selectivity. Rapper Kanye West criticised media portrayal of blacks. "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food,” he said live at an NBC concert.

Predictably, NBC said in a statement: "Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks". Well duh. What better way to gag an angry black man then by giving him a script? The very mention of class and race make people uncomfortable and the networks don’t want go there. An easier route is taken, where judgments are made without proper context and ultimately come across as the condemnation of an entire race. This disaster has pointed out the lawlessness that exists within a community is often related to how the community is treated. Looting is prime example of the alienation that leads desperate people to act against moral codes.

Does illegal occupation ring a bell?

Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina has shown America’s conservative history of denying racial and class divides. However, Katrina exposed hundreds of years of oppression and injustice, where race has always mattered.

Najad Abdul-Aziz is an African born Journalism student from Australia