[Radix] Fwd: Please Don’t Superdome Haiti

[Marla Petal]

> From: "Christian Stalberg" <cstalber at mitigation.com>
> Date: January 19, 2010 5:03:00 PM GMT+01:00
> To: Disasters Grads <disaster_grads at lists.Colorado.EDU>
> Subject: Please Don’t Superdome Haiti
> Reply-To: cstalber at mitigation.com
>
> Published on Monday, January 18, 2010 by RaceWire.org
> Please Don’t Superdome Haiti
>
> by Michelle Chen
>
> For those who know how race and media intersect in times of crisis,  
> the earthquake in Haiti has probably sent a bump through your pop- 
> cultural seismograph. Now it's becoming a flashpoint.
>
> Following an initial wave of sympathy, the corporate media has  
> turned an alarmed eye to the increasingly desperate masses. We see  
> unruly mobs, bodies piled in the streets (we hear of corpses being  
> used as human "barricades"). The insinuations and direct reporting  
> of violence flirt with the popular imagination and evoke memories of  
> America's most spectacular prime-time tragedy-Katrina.
>
> The AP reports that the U.S. may consider stepping up its "security  
> role," while its humanitarian effort continues to hobble amid  
> transportation delays, logistical chaos and dubious political  
> machinations. Announcing plans to expand the U.S. ground deployment,  
> Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday, "The  
> initial intent is to strategically place some of our soldiers so  
> that they can help with that relief distribution. And then,  
> obviously, we're all focused on the security piece as well,"
>
> (That "security piece" has been a pretty huge chunk of America's  
> entanglement with Haiti throughout the 20th century, punctuated by  
> military interventions and occupation. Six years after the last U.S.- 
> backed coup, maybe the Pentagon has a hankering for another extended  
> stay.) In the eyes of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, delivering  
> help to people requires exerting control:
>
>
> Gates said the primary goal was to distribute aid as quickly as  
> possible "so that people don't, in their desperation, turn to  
> violence." He suggested the U.S. was aware of perceptions of its  
> profile in the ravaged country.
> "I think that if we, particularly given the role that we will have  
> in delivering food and water and medical help to people, my guess is  
> the reaction will be one of relief at seeing Americans providing  
> this kind of help," Gates told reporters.
>
> Military officials said they were trying to stave off banditry and  
> lawlessness by rushing relief supplies including desperately needed  
> water where it will be most effective, and also where it can be  
> distributed in ways least likely to cause rioting or looting.
>
> Gates said early airdrops of aid were ruled out because they might  
> have done more harm than good.
>
> "It seems to me that without having any structure on the ground in  
> terms of distribution, that an airdrop is simply going to lead to  
> riots as people try and go after that stuff," he said.
>
> "It seems to me that's a formula for contributing to chaos rather  
> than preventing it."
>
> As the White House wrings its hands over how to keep a tight grip on  
> its aid mission, AirAmerica's Jack Rice wonders about the role of  
> the media in shaping, and dehumanizing, public perceptions of the  
> tragedy:
>
>
> Why is it that we don't hesitate to show a photo of dead bodies if  
> it takes place in Africa, Asia or Latin America? Would we be willing  
> to do the same thing if this happened in Boston, Los Angeles,  
> Minneapolis? Would we be willing to do it if it were dead American  
> soldiers piled up in Afghanistan? My guess is no!
>
>
> Shades of Katrina emanate from the descriptions of "anarchy"  
> engulfing the streets. Remember the Superdome, the "looting," the  
> alleged explosion of mayhem? The media conjured images of death and  
> destruction with voyueristic zeal, while curating the stories to fit  
> a prevailing narrative of savagery and social breakdown.
>
> Sharp criticism eventually emerged, too late, to debunk the initial  
> portrayals of lawlessness as distortions, colored by latent  
> anxieties about how black people might act in the absence of white  
> domination. But for those initial days after the hurricane, a media  
> feeding frenzy projected white middle-class America's fears onto a  
> forsaken city, constructed as pathetic and threatening at once.
>
> Jaqueline Bacon wrote in the media criticism magazine Extra! in 2005:
>
>
> For some members of the media, the victims of the hurricane were  
> seemingly foreign-or perhaps not quite human. Allen Breed's New  
> Orleans report for the Cincinnati Post (9/3/05) described "naked  
> babies wail[ing] for food as men get drunk on stolen liquor" and a  
> crowd whose "almost feral intensity" prevented delivery of water to  
> victims by helicopter. (Breed did include a quote from a man who  
> indicated that the decision to airdrop food was "insulting,  
> demeaning.")
> The New York Daily News (9/2/05) proclaimed officials "must do  
> whatever it takes to curb the hardcore, armed, violent felons who  
> are making it impossible to save the city," who are "a very  
> different breed from desperate citizens who are trying to get food  
> and water." Given that this "different breed" was largely a figment  
> of media imaginations-later investigations showed that there was no  
> more violence in New Orleans after Katrina than in any typical week  
> (Seattle Times, 9/26/05; see page 9)-this kind of editorializing  
> suggested that it is, in fact, the regular residents of the city who  
> are inherently "other"-foreign, primitive and dangerous. As the  
> Daily News put it: "Anarchy, Mogadishu-style, is just around the  
> corner if they're not stopped."
>
> Other pundits dehumanized the inner-city victims of the hurricane.  
> Writing in the National Review Online blog the Corner (8/29/05),  
> Jonah Goldberg advised those in the Superdome (which he described as  
> a "Mad Max/Thunderdome/Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show") on  
> how to survive: "Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate  
> with serpents," "find the biggest guy you can and when he's not  
> expecting it beat him senseless," and "protect any female who agrees  
> to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the  
> Earth with a race of gilled supermen."
>
> In the wake of the storm, author Tim Wise reflected on the barrage  
> of since-discredited tales of violence, rape and gunfire:
>
>
> the media, feeling no need to find witnesses or to verify claims of  
> black deviance (because, after all, what's not to believe?) simply  
> went along. The result? Rescue efforts were delayed because rescue  
> workers had been scared for their lives by a press that led them to  
> think New Orleans was a war zone; the Governor and Mayor actually  
> told law enforcement to stop saving lives and start arresting and  
> shooting lawbreakers on sight; and the public, which rarely needs  
> reasons to think the worst of poor black people, found its  
> stereotypes confirmed. Not only whites, it should be pointed out,  
> but black folks too, like Mayor Nagin and his crony police chief  
> Eddie Compass, both of whom apparently think so little of their own  
> people that they too assumed the stories were true, in spite of no  
> evidence, and repeated the charges on national TV.
>
>
> The recent rants of Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson (whose vile  
> bloviating featured prominently in the Katrina coverage as well) may  
> seem patently idiotic. But could such viewpoints seep into policy  
> decisions?
>
> Bill Quigley of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a longtime  
> advocate for Haiti and Katrina survivor, has some tips for the  
> Pentagon on how to "prevent chaos" as U.S. boots hit the streets of  
> Port-au-Prince:
>
>
> Do not allow US military in Haiti to point their guns at Haitians.  
> Hungry Haitians are not the enemy. Decisions have already been made  
> which will militarize the humanitarian relief--but do not allow the  
> victims to be cast as criminals. Do not demonize the people.
>
>
> The government's reluctance to airdrop supplies may be grounded in a  
> valid security concerns. But you've got to wonder: are the hints of  
> a potential sustained military presence a rebranded attempt to  
> "stabilize" Haiti once again through occupation? Could a too- 
> hesitant emergency response hurt the long-term recovery effort by  
> breeding anger and resentment against foreign forces (which could  
> possibly, as Jack Beatty suggested on NPR's "On Point" on Friday,  
> create a self-fulfilling prophecy of disorder, to be "fixed" by  
> outsiders)?
>
> As with Katrina, the 24-hour news cycle's response to the earthquake  
> seems a few steps ahead of the gridlocked aid effort, and it's yet  
> unclear whether Washington's tactical decisions will turn out to be  
> prudent and effective. And certainly, the press, despite its  
> capacity for rapid-fire news dispatches, is constrained in its  
> ability to assess the ongoing emergency response. But as long as the  
> world's eyes are all on Haiti right now--and as long as the memories  
> of Katrina's media exploitation still linger--it behooves us as  
> media consumers and members of the international community to take a  
> step back and separate the grim reality out there, from the  
> racialized spectacle lurking within our collective imagination.
>
> © 2010 ColorLines Magazine - The Applied Research Center
> Michelle Chen works and plays in New York City. Besides freelance  
> reporting, her various occupations have included ethnographic  
> research in Shanghai and coat-checking at a West Village jazz club.  
> Her writing has also appeared in In These Times, South China Morning  
> Post, Women’s International Perspective, and her old zine, cain.
>

Marla Petal
Email: mpetal at imagins.com

Turkey +90 539 747 7944     Switzerland +41 76 240 8474
USA +1 (408) 806 7888         Efax. +1 (408) 516-5841
Skype: shmarla

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