Hurricane Katrina: Is Looting a Question of Skin Color?

by SPIEGEL ONLINE

If the pain and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina wasn’t enough, now the looting has started on the streets of New Orleans. But many people simply need to feed their families and are consequently forced to "borrow" food from waterlogged grocery stores. So what makes somebody a looter? And does it have anything to do with the color of their skin?

It didn’t take long for reports of looting to filter through. No sooner had Hurricane Katrina’s winds died down, than people emerged onto the streets and began helping themselves to whatever New Orleans’ shopping paradise had to offer.

Now, dear reader, you might say their actions are understandable, if not condonable. If your home had just been washed away, and you hadn’t eaten a proper meal for 48 hours, the urge to help yourself to a few candy bars or cartons of milk from the local convenience store might be a strong one. But a number of amazing reports have described how local residents also loaded up their vehicles with DVD players and televisions, with the National Guard and police almost powerless to stop them. New Orleans is rapidly turning into a lawless city, with those unable to leave resorting to plunder and mayhem.

But the really interesting angle on all of this comes from those smart folks at Metafilter. They cleverly link to three pictures of apparent "looters" featured on Yahoo news. Two men are pictured wading through flood waters with bags of groceries and beer in their arms. They are described as "looters." And, coincidentally they are African-American.

Next comes a picture of a white couple carrying food supplies through the flood waters. According to AFP/Ghetty Images, these fine young people are on their way home after "finding bread and soda from a local grocery store." So the white people don’t "loot", they "find". A curious insight into prevalent racism in the US media; just as one man’s "terrorist" is another man’s "freedom fighter," it seems one man’s "looter", is another man’s "finder". You decide.

English in the Spotlight

People love reading language columns. How else to explain the New York Times’s not entirely bargain basement price for a package of columns by language maven William Safire? But no worries. The Internet is a great place to go for all of your (free) language-analysis needs. Specifically, the Web site "Making Daylight" is a great place not only for biting analysis of language slip-ups in the media, but also for highlighting factual errors that creep into newspapers and Web zines. The site also has a great list of "essentialist" explanations of various languages. All of which means, if you’re not a fan of Safire, or don’t have a Times subscription, all you need is a good Internet connection. And if you can understand German, we, of course, recommend our own colleague Bastian Sick’s column. Sick’s wit leaves Safire in a trail of dust.

Solidarnosc Hits 25

Never ones to let important historical milestones pass by without a mention, we here at Spiegel Online International figure it’s time to brush up on your Solidarity knowledge. It was, after all, 25 years ago in late August that Lech Walesa’s movement — born in a Gdansk shipyard — began gathering steam. By the end of the month, Walesa’s fledgling union already had membership rolls boasting 400,000. A PBS special takes you through everything you need to know about the movement that eventually came to be seen as the first chink in the Iron Curtain separating the communist East from the democratic West. The special can also be watched in video form. Walesa, who started his career as an electrician, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and served as Poland’s president from 1990 to 1995.

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