I think we are looking at the same thing. Poverty aka property and racialization issues are tied through history up to the presence. But, I agree that stressing the race issue as a starting point for public discussion is counterproductive in regards of spotlighting present implications, because the reflection resulting from that point is very much prescribed, as we ve seen in the African Village Case. You won`t succeed in making people (outside your academic peer group) more sensible to the subtile structures and mechanism of racialization processes and their daily representations by focussing ´racism`, because everyone immediately starts to defend themselves as not being ´racist`.

No further reflection possible then–except among people who anyway already had been aware of ´racialization processes`, you know?

Poverty is a central issue especially to the ones having followed live news and media coverage on tv,

because the information that came out until fifth day after the storm was limited to the representation of the superdromepeople and actually you were shown almost only blacks in there.

When at the sixth and seventh day reports from New Orleans French Quarter appeared on tv, the frequency of coloured people being pictured and giving interviews changed towards zero.

Property is a central issue within the media coverage of Katrina desaster (and this is what I`m talking about, being aware its a representation of things and not things themselves). There were different stages. Until fourth day after the storm over here you were shown exclusively reports from the superdome: suffering, loothing, anarchy and violence. (I second almost all people shown here were afro americans) Lousiana`s governor`s decision to allow shooting at loothers was discussed largely.

Fifth day of report there more and more whites appeared, but such who had not left their houses in fear of loothers and in order to protect their property with their guns.

Then, sixth day, the reporters “discovered” French Quarter. Only whites on the screen here. So you get the impression there don`t live many blacks in that French Quarter, New Orleans. Of course you ask yourself for the reasons and if this is a misrepresentation made by media.

If it is not, in large context theres the property aka poverty issue again.

Sorry if I misunderstood your comments.

I don`t think it is a misperception at all concerning this entry`s topic and those people who stayed at the superdome in New Orleans, for these could not leave town but obviously had no reason to stay at their homes.

Anyway, thank you for the link.

This is a common misperception. While nonwhites are disproportionately poor in comparison with their numbers, and are more concentrated in urban areas, the fact is that the majority of American’s poor are, in fact, white. Moreover, white non-hispanics are the growing as a percentage of the poor.

The Census numbers are here [PDF].

BBC report.

I have argued before that on a whole host of issues, such as education, wealth (not income) is more important than race in determining social status. However, one must not discount the importance of institutionalized racism. For instance, studies have shown that blacks tend not to receive the same levels of medical care for the same illnesses and end up being sick longer. So I find it unlikely that the media is the only source of institutional racism here.

Again, I don’t want to make light of concerns about race prejudice in the evacuation of New Orleans, but I really believe poverty and not racism is the bigger issue.

Now if you talk about institutational racism in the media coverage, that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.

“The people that are suffering most are the poor, the old and the afro-americans.”