That’s right. I’m going to say something about it…

So I have been extremely, yet quietly disturbed with a lot of the news coverage that I’m seeing. I guess part of the quietness is that I’m in Hong Kong and very few here would understand what I was thinking. But I have been very disturbed at the coverage. The analysis is horrendously shallow, full of euphemism and coded language to avoid the full truth that it is not just the “poor” who are stranded without food and water; not just the “underclass;” but a community defined by their race: black-Americans. Papers that have used the word “black” to describe the victims have done so gingerly, almost reluctantly.. Yet race (and the unequal system that long ago defined your available escape routes from Katrina) is the unmistakable faultline dividing those who had access to leave New Orleans and those who didn’t. Still, most papers, out of fear and/or ignorance, have resorted to speaking of the victims in more neutral, and frankly, more “acceptable” terms, such as class. Such language skirts what is perhaps the city’s deepest wound of injustice: individual and structural racism. To blacks in New Orleans it is no secret that a long history of racist laws and attitudes has been defining their “access”—where they can go, with whom, and when—for generations. Yet only in Katrina has the terrible truth of their “inaccess” been so literally and outrageously played out. The lingering injustice has been well hidden for decades by the government and even the media; yet in Katrina’s aftermath the racial faultlines now lie fully exposed, the covers pulled right off of them.

Except…no newspapers seem to see it! Rather than being openly exposed as a travesty that must finally meet its end, existing racial stereotypes are being staunchly upheld and chillingly re-inforced as truth. News coverage selectively portrays images showing angry blacks against the backdrop of looting, shooting, rape, and gang stories–and this is repeated daily with sickening predictability. The pictures of black people are mostly those that provoke in us fear; they are used to convey the terror, the anarchy, the animalism in the air. Whites, on the other hand, seem to feature in pictures and stories of loss, patience, and hope–their stories are the kind that move us to tear up at our common humanity, indomitable even in the greatest of catastrophes. So while blacks are used to provoke a taste of fear and animalism, whites are photographed to evoke compassion and the human spirit. Blacks angrily press the gates that separate them from gun-toting National Guardsmen. Whites stand, hands over their faces, quietly surveying the remains of their home. Blacks rummage through stores without a twinge of conscience–”looting, lawlessness, anarchy!”—and after this they swarm menacingly with snarling faces to get their hands on some free aid. Whites wait with patience and determination. Blacks kill. Blacks defecate in boxes. Blacks rape. Whites cry, whites look for their family members, whites protect the last vestiges of their lives from heartless looters…

This is what we have been seeing. This is what the media is showing.
But the gospel of truth, reconciliation, and the kingdom of God calls us to see past this. It calls us to name the lie, no matter how offensive it is, to expose it, and to speak the truth without fear. Truth is the only way to love our neighbour. And right now the truth is, in New Orleans, the deep injustice of racism is being obscured with stereotypes, half-truths, and the further dehumanization of blacks! In this disaster God is exposing the principality of Racism in its raw truth…yet to the real issues that have long laid under the disaster’s surface our eyes remain shut. And happily so.

Oh God, give us eyes to see! Have mercy on those oppressed and deliver them with your justice. Have mercy on us who are blind .

For a refreshingly insightful look at Katrina’s impact on New Orleans, PLEASE read the following article, “Notes from Inside New Orleans.” It’s analysis is a notch above. If you have been reading ANYTHING about New Orleans…PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t miss this. The author’s insights on the history of the city and their relation to this disaster are excellent.