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It's September 2005. Hurricane Katrina just happened. Rumors are floating around. Babies throats being slit in the superdome. 200 dead bodies in just a few days. The media portrays the superdome as the animal kingdom with some extremely problematic racial language.
"Those people" are tearing themselves apart, they're animals according to the press and chaos reigns supreme. It is the masque of the red death in real time, just debauchery and murder rampant. Every cable station runs with it.
FEMA showed up with a tractor trailer to the super-dome because they were told there were 200 dead bodies waiting for them and the news was running with it.
Almost none of it was real. There was a suicide and medical issues. The animal-violence allegations were pure fantasy
Almost none of it was real. There was a suicide and medical issues. The animal-violence allegations were pure fantasy
Meanwhile, the real story was buried. While the news was super pumped about having the ability to shit on poor black people for 'being animals', white supremacists were roving the streets killing all the black people they could find.
If this seems fake to you, I don't blame you, the entire post-Katrina dialog on both sides was dominated by claims of violent hordes of poor black people as well as meta-commentary on the media focusing on 'looters'.
Meanwhile here's what white people did. Here's white people bragging about shooting 'looters' like they were pheasants.
Bourgeois warned one of his neighbors: 'Anything coming up this street darker than a brown paper bag is getting shot.'
5 police arrived to greet 6 black residents with a hail of bullets. Every single resident was unarmed. https://www.npr.org/2015/08/18/432570962/shots-on-the-bridge-unpacks-a-tangled-story-of-deceit-and-tragedy
The officers later tried to cover up their shooting: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/11/nopd.shooting/index.html
Here's pro-publicas write up of the Algier's Point militia gunning down black residents. https://www.propublica.org/article/post-katrina-white-vigilantes-shot-african-americans-with-impunity
The police themselves were claiming they had full departmental support to shoot anyone they deemed as 'looters' https://www.nola.com/crime/2010/08/new_orleans_cops_say_they_got.html
Most of these stories were ignored even when sources came out. The media had it's narrative about an animalistic underclass and they went with it, because a narrative about white people ready to murder POC the moment they think they won't be held accountable is 'icky'
These memories matter. Ask people you know what happened in Katrina.
I just surveyed 5 co-workers, 2 said dozens murdered in superdome, 1 said hundreds, 1 said "Lots of rape and babies throats slit" in "wherever that big arena was", and one said "I don't remember it"
I just surveyed 5 co-workers, 2 said dozens murdered in superdome, 1 said hundreds, 1 said "Lots of rape and babies throats slit" in "wherever that big arena was", and one said "I don't remember it"
These are all people with bachelor's degree who consider themselves "Newsies" and they're absolutely read the news every day.
The media narrative of unwashed masses raping and murdering took hold, but the actual far more lethal issue of white supremacy has never been addressed.
The media narrative of unwashed masses raping and murdering took hold, but the actual far more lethal issue of white supremacy has never been addressed.
Part of it is because in a two party system we have one party that is explicitly endorsing white supremacy, and news desires to be neutral.
Playing on Americans ubderlying racism is a bipartisan past time, but addressing white supremacy is immediately seen as biased against R's
Playing on Americans ubderlying racism is a bipartisan past time, but addressing white supremacy is immediately seen as biased against R's
If you're wondering "Okay, what do I do with all this?" Here's my suggestions:
1) Talk to people about this, share these articles. Bring some awareness to this completely ignored issue.
2) Donate to and read propublica who did much of the research in their Katrina coverage.
1) Talk to people about this, share these articles. Bring some awareness to this completely ignored issue.
2) Donate to and read propublica who did much of the research in their Katrina coverage.
Thanks!
Last note: If you're seriously confused by how people who have rarely ever been violent can jump straight into violent minority killing so quickly, I just made a thread on Right Wing Authoritarians that discusses it a bit. https://twitter.com/unabanned/status/1134095772406996992
