As I watched the events on the coast unfold, I began to notice something odd around Wednesday. Suddenly newscasters everywhere were talking about looting. This perplexed me as it seemed self-evident that people trapped in New Orleans would have to find ways to feed, cloth, and medicate themselves. Moreover, I wasn't particularly bothered by the looting of things such as jewelry as 1) I understood that these people experienced themselves as both abandoned and having lost everything they owned, thus they perhaps thought they needed a backup plan to support their families in the future, and 2) all of these goods would be claimed by insurance. Yet still, the term "looting" had spread like a strange virus or musical refrain throughout the media. After watching
Hannity and Colmes this evening I now know why this viral refrain has spread with such speed.
More below the fold.
This evening, on
Hannity and Colmes, they interviewed a professor named Watkin who was giving a defense of looting. Admittedly Watkin's arguments weren't particularly clear or convincing, but then he was striving to make subtle points that never translate well on Fox news shows. As the discussion proceeded it sounded as if Watkin was placing the theft of things such as plasma televisions on par with foraging for goods such as diapers, food, and water. At this point Hannity exploded, saying, and I paraphrase,
"because of people stealing plasma televisions, the federal government had to divert important resources to security that could have been directed towards saving lives."
There you have it folks, the Republican get out of jail free card. The subtext of this of this statement is that if only people hadn't behaved in immoral and unlawful ways, the disaster following Katrina would have been averted. Folks, this talking point is dangerous and it will resonate with the American people. Why?
First, this talking point resonates with frames that already make up the unconscious assumptions of the social and political world we live in: Namely, the frame of personal responsibility. The strategy here is to portray those who did not evacuate as being immoral and lacking in personal responsibility, and therefore deserving of what they got. On the one hand they are responsible for their decision to stay there. On the other hand, they are responsible for diverting federal aid to security. And finally, in the most sinister sense, they are responsible for their poverty, as, to the conservative mind, the person who lives in poverty arrived in poverty out of laziness, drug, and alchohol use, out of not striving to better their condition. As such, focusing on looting is simply striving to highlight these unconscious assumptions.
However, second, and more fundamentally, the images of looters play right into racial stereotypes about blacks, and fears possessed by white, suburban citizens. The spectacle of black people foraging for food plays right into stereotypes of the lawless black man looking for any opportunity to take advantage of hard working people around him. Never mind that people were dying. Never mind that they were abandoned. Never mind that they were striving hard to survive. Never mind that many who took an excess of food and clothing passed it out to others. The stereotype trumps all in this situation.
I live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas and have lived in the suburbs elsewhere in Chicago, Toledo, and Philadelphia as well, and one of the most striking features of suburban living is the profound xenophobia and paranoia surrounding different ethnic groups. Here in Texas the phenomenon is particularly pronounced. Many of the housing communities are gated and have gates at the entrance drive. When discussions were held to determine whether or not to extend trained based public transit north of the city, many of the citizens were dead set against it, fearing that the gangs of the city would travel down here and rob their homes. However, while this xenophobia might be particularly pronounced here in the Dallas area, it's something I've encountered in every suburban environment. That is, there's already a narrative and set of fears in place for the reception of these stories of looting, and it's a narrative that threatens to cloud rightful criticism of federal involvement in producing this tragic situation.
It behooves democrats and people on the left to begin devising strategies to counter these talking points. The first step, I think, consists in pointing out that the situation would never have esculated to the point that it did had federal forces arrived earlier (I read this evening that Brown did not call up the national guard until the middle of the storm). However, we also need facts as to the extent of the looting, whether or not theft of leisure goods such as jewelry and electronics were isolated (how would these people have gotten electronics out of the city? wouldn't that be obvious to looters?), and to what degree looting was predominantly for necessities of life. If we don't develop a counter-narrative to these talking points, I fear that it will be very difficult to bring about justice and to ensure that we are better prepared in the future.