Media narratives of Black criminality during Katrina justified delayed federal rescue.

Evidence

But even this was not the full story of Hurricane Katrina. The extreme disaster story of racism became an extremely racist disaster story. The Associated Press dispatched a photograph of White people carrying “bread and soda from a local grocery store,” and another photograph of a Black man who “loot[ed] a grocery store.” As babies died of infections and hurt people waited for ambulances, reporters broadcasted sensational stories of “babies in the Convention Center who got their throats cut” in a crime-saturated city of “armed hordes” hijacking ambulances and “refugees” seeking shelter. Libertarian journalist Matt Welch did not mince words or the truth when he declared that the “deadly bigotry” of the media probably helped “kill Katrina victims.” Federal officials and nearby emergency personnel used these media reports to justify their delays—citing the dangers of sending aid and personnel with so many people looting “gun stores” and shooting “at police, rescue officials and helicopters.” Racist Americans actually reported, circulated, and believed the outrageous lies of those who were saying that Black people in a disaster zone would shoot at the very people coming to help them. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1201

Categorization

• XREF: Instantiation of Kendi’s core inversion: racist policy (FEMA delay) preceded and was justified by racist ideas — media lies served the policy, not the other way around.
• SEED: An essay angle: how disaster-reporting tropes about Black looting (vs. White ‘finding’ supplies) function as myth-production serving official inaction — the AP photo pairing is a crisp analytical case.