Racism is a problem. Let’s get that out-of-the-way right away. But as with any real problem, injecting it as a narrative into every known facet of society or life rarely produces any working solution.
Moreover it seems, that due to the political sensitivity of racism as a topic, scientific method no longer applies as a ground rule of discussion. As a primary example, let us look at the opening quotation of an article published by The Eastern Sociological Society: Priming Implicit Racism in Television News: Visual and Verbal Limitations on Diversity.
See Sonnett, J., Johnson, K. A., & Dolan, M. K. (2015). Priming Implicit Racism in Television News: Visual and Verbal Limitations on Diversity. Sociological Forum, 30(2), 328-347
We highlight an understudied aspect of racism in television news, implicit racial cues found in the contradic-tions between visual and verbal messages. We compare three television news broadcasts from the first weekafter Hurricane Katrina to reexamine race and representation during the disaster. Drawing together insightsfrom interdisciplinary studies of cognition and sociological theories of race and racism, we examine howdifferent combinations of the race of reporters and news sources relate to the priming of implicit racism. Wefind racial cues that are consistent with stereotypes and myths about African Americans—even in broadcastsfeaturing black reporters—but which appear only in the context of color-blind verbal narration. We concludeby drawing attention to the unexpected and seemingly unintended reproduction of racial ideology.
In fairness, the article does not present itself as research topic, but still is written from a standpoint of unequivocal truth to reference. The conclusion is simply accepted, and then supported with the author’s findings. That is a scary precedent to set.
In further fairness, I’ve just described the lion’s share of writings – certainly most of my own. Throwing rocks from a glass house isn’t the point of this writing. I would simply ask a question about the directed efforts: Is our quest for harmony a hindrance to handling disasters?
In ~twenty pages, not once did Sonnett, Johnson or Dolan mention any of the staggering logistic issues Hurricane Katrina presented and how this alone might have affected a view of racial bias. Hurricanes are not people. They don’t care about race. They DO care about class however, as it just so happens the poorest members of society are also the least mobile, the most vulnerable, and in the aftermath, justifiably the most desperate. Naturally class disparity is a topic all its own, but one that goes far beyond this writing.
Efforts to politicize Katrina aren’t hard to find: Teme’ (2009-2014), If Good Is Willing and The Creeks Don’t Rise (2009), Trouble The Water (2008), and When The Leeve’s Broke – A Requiem In Four Acts (2006) are all a cursory Google search away. Analysis of the logistical efforts, finances, water tables, meteorological phenomenon (that don’t also lapse into politicized climate change discourse) are a bit harder to come by.
The later is where I found need to question our directed efforts. Racial equality is a worthy discussion and has its place. But should it really be the primary focus of disaster aftermath? Perhaps we should make a little room for discussion about real preparation, mitigation, and response.