Looting or Finding

This is a case I think, of a sign taken for a wonder. An article on Salon pretty much dismantles the assumption that an unconscious bias on the part of the media led to this juxtaposition. Rather, two photos taken by two different agencies in two different contexts were labeled differently, because, the respective photographers claim, they saw the first person enter a store and take food, and didn't see the others enter the store, and thus felt they had to use a euphemism.

The traction this story has gotten is more likely a guilt projection on the part of media viewers, whose internalized racism is reflected back upon them by images of black people looting, and who are grasping for an easy scapegoat to blame for the production and circulation of racism. Its easy to blame the unconscious biases of the media, but this short circuits what needs to be a much broader critical discussion of representation. If it does not, then it devolves into a sterile debate about journalistic standards and professionalism, which journalists love to talk about ad nauseum, but ought not occupy the rest of us unduly.

The larger truth that this particular urban legend attempts to show is that poor black people have been abandoned by their government. There are better ways of making this point. Targeting biased media representations, I think, is pointing the finger in the wrong direction. It is the saturation of heartbreakingly awful images we are getting now that may well shock Americans out of their 'compassion fatigue' long enough to see the tragic consequences of the decisions this administration has made. In other words, it is those people wading through water to get food, not what the images were or were not labeled as, that is heartbreaking and outrageous to me.