Once upon a time, a major natural disaster struck an area densely populated by a poverty-stricken, majority-dark-skinned population. A city was very nearly destroyed, in part because of the severity of the disaster, but also in part because of structural weaknesses and long-term neglect of dangerous conditions.
In the first moments after the magnitude of the disaster became apparent, there was a worldwide outpouring of empathy and charity toward the unfortunate victims. Bloggers, charities, news media and politicians used their megaphones to call for donations. U.S government agencies and military forces as well as the local government (what remained of it) mobilized to rescue survivors.
But then something very strange happened in the days and weeks that followed. The stories that came out of the disaster area, once dominated by heart-tugging photos of hungry, frightened children, began to turn to stories of armed, violent Black men. Looters, the story went, were running amok through the streets of the city. They were shooting innocent survivors, stealing from law-abiding businesses. Frightened residents were barricading their neighbourhoods to fend off the violent hordes.
NEW ORLEANS - With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could.
In some cases, looting on Tuesday took place in full view of police and National Guard troops.
At a Walgreen’s drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.
The goal of all this coverage was to turn the American population against the poor residents of New Orleans, Louisiana. Surely they were responsible for their own plight! Even in a ruined city with every business closed and aid workers' access limited, surely none of us gentle readers would have been so barbaric as to steal diapers for our children from an empty store! The narrative became so powerful that relief efforts were even slowed to divert resources to halt the looting.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Mayor Ray Nagin ordered 1,500 police officers to leave their search-and-rescue mission Wednesday night and return to the streets to stop looting that has turned increasingly hostile as the city plunges deeper into chaos.
"They are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas — hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," Nagin said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The number of officers called off the search-and-rescue mission amounts to virtually the entire police force in New Orleans.
Amid the turmoil Wednesday, thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break the glass of a pharmacy. The crowd stormed the store, carrying out so much ice, water and food that it dropped from their arms as they ran.
I think most everyone knows the endgame here. Even though it was soon exposed that the police themselves were among the worst of the thieves of nonessential items, that the whole "looting" storyline was itself questionable, and that the title of "looter" was bestowed by the media in an obviously racist way, the damage was done. Compassion for Katrina victims was diminished, and it wasn't at all hard for the disaster capitalists to get their way - to "revitalize" New Orleans neighbourhoods and displace their former population as refugees all over the nation.
We're in Phase 2 right now with this in Haiti. The "looting" stories are out. Please, just don't run with them. The media can push this narrative just fine to the majority of Americans without DKos diarists helping spread it to unsuspecting liberal blog readers.