Remember, white people “find” things; black people “loot”.

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I can understand the anger for this -- I had it at first as well -- but Snopes.com had an interesting angle on this. Essentially, the "looter" photographer saw the people go in, grab the stuff and carry it out while "found" photog didn't see anyone go in and steal anything.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/looters.asp

That being said, I also understand the overall debate going on. It was one in NYC many times the past year. A pretty white actress gets shot and killed and it's all over the front page while a pretty black actress could get shot and who knows what kind of coverage that would get.

Also, something one person made a passing reference to on the news today, which of course was never followed up, was the racial disparage between the refugees. How many white people were at the Superdome compared to black? Although a story like that would open up a whole list of issues about race in this country when, frankly, we have more pressing matters at hand.
 
Look, don't get me wrong here, people. I'm not meaning to say that the news media is completely free of bias, and yes, in many cases, overt racism/sexism. We all know it, and we know that journalists are human too.

What I'm trying to say is that when we have none of the facts or context behind something like this, we should not immediately jump to the conclusion that the photographer is intentionally being overtly racist. Let's just get the facts. In this case, the photographer has spoken for himself, and, I believe, explained the situation.

So, let's just chill out before we vilify the photographer who has been working in 20 feet of dirty water for 3 days with little food, under strict deadlines in near war-zone conditions. Especially after finding out that his parents and grandparents (and himself, according to his post) have lost all their homes. In those kinds of conditions, I doubt many of us would be meticulous to that point.

No hard feelings, folks, and I apologise if I upset anyone. But I'm looking towards journalism as a career, and possibly photojournalism, so this kinda hit close to home when everyone immediately shat all over the photographer. :)

EDIT: You know, while reading that article at Snopes, it made me wonder. I wonder if the three people in these two photographs have any idea of the stir their shots have caused? :hmm:
 
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All this discussion over 'looting'....

Now its rape and murder. We've taken it up a notch.

Does it matter their race when they caption the rape and murder photos?
 
The guy who covered the presidents address a few minutes ago, circa 9:03 AM, on NBC (chris someone??) said it very well


How the scab has been lifted off of the racial divide that is so evident. He said that the pres would probably fire some people, and yeah, maybe he should.



I wonder what the pres is really gonna do on his trip to NO........
 
[Q]The photographer who took the Getty/AFP picture, Chris Graythen, also posted the reasons behind his caption:
I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water — we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow. [/Q]

Thanks sharkey for linking to this.
 
MadelynIris said:
All this discussion over 'looting'....

Now its rape and murder. We've taken it up a notch.

Does it matter their race when they caption the rape and murder photos?



:|

astonishing.
 
This board is so politically correct.

The fact is (and I'm not talking about those pictures) that more black people loot than white people. More blacks are criminals that whites. I'm not gonna pretend to know the reason but it's true.
 
shart1780 said:
This board is so politically correct.

The fact is (and I'm not talking about those pictures) that more black people loot than white people. More blacks are criminals that whites. I'm not gonna pretend to know the reason but it's true.

No one is disagreeing with that fact. You can scientifically find data that proves this. What they're talking about is stereotyping. Taking information that could or couldn't suggest a behavior, and assuming that they are committing that behavior.
 
shart1780 said:


The fact is (and I'm not talking about those pictures) that more black people loot than white people. More blacks are criminals that whites. I'm not gonna pretend to know the reason but it's true.

Do you realize this is a racist statement?
 
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I think part of the stereotyping problem might be related to the low percentage of minorities in the newsrooms at both TV and newspapers.
 
RE: Looting in New Orleans, specifically.

At this point, I don't think taking food of any kind should be considered looting.

RE: Racial bias.

Probably exists, no matter how you slice it.

And thanks for the snopes.com link, sharky. Snopes is a great site.
 
While not exactly frames to lead to discussion (instead of the usual indignation), most people who do not live in the deep south fail to realize the level of racial divide that still exists. While many of us come from diverse areas, states like Mississippi have a racial mix that is nearly all black/white.

While the "motivations" of the press may not exisit as framed, there are certainly still perceptions from the south that match the captions.
 
shart1780 said:
This board is so politically correct.

The fact is (and I'm not talking about those pictures) that more black people loot than white people. More blacks are criminals that whites. I'm not gonna pretend to know the reason but it's true.

Have you seen all the people they are convicting from Enron and Worldcom, they look pretty white to me.:wink:
 
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