2 posts tagged “literacy”

As I watch this disaster unfold, I keep comparing how the news frames the San Diego 2007 Firestorm in contrast to how they framed New Orlean's Hurrican Katrina. Race and class are at the heart of the comparisons. So much of this sounds different when you are talking about SD's primarily Caucasian middle-upper class communities being affected by the fire - whereas in new Orleans it was primarily poor black people stranded in the hurricane.

we can see many differences just by comparing how the media and government talks about the evacuees who stayed behind despite a mandatory evacuation.  In New Orleans, helicopters didn't rescue all the black people on their roofs, supposedly because they were hearing "gun shots." I remember the reaction from the news and online community was that those who didn't listen to the mandatory evacuation were complete "idiots" or people trying to defy the law- essentially those stupid poor blacks folks. In San Diego - firefighters can't focus their resources on fighting the fires because of the winds and because  they are also busy doing emergency rescues on people who didnt' listen to the mandatory evacuation.  HOWEVER - the news frames these people in a more sympathetic light - by saying well you can understand why these people are so attached to their beautiful homes they own because of all the hard work they've put into it and even though they should have listened we understand the pain they are - essentially we are sympathetic to middle-upper class folks for staying behind in the face of a fire if they are protecting their houses. White people again are reinforced as HARD-WORKING and PERSISTENT even when they FAIL to evacuate while blacks are framed as LAZY and UNOBEDIENT for not evacuating.

Remember how the media said black folks were raping, murdering and eating each other in the New Orleans Superdome? Now the media in San Diego frames the 10,000 primarily white middle-upper class folks from North County in the Qualcom Stadium as peacefully sharing oral stories about their homes and eating home-baked brownies dropped off by sympathetic volunteers, and getting massages by compassionate massage therapist volunteers!!!!  And please notice the headline of the article by ABC about those who are giving massages, "CIVILITY REIGNS IN SAN DIEGO," as if the opposite - UNCIVILITY - reigns in other places.   CIVILITY refers so much to those who are CIVILIZED and separates the civilized from the uncivilized.  This implies that the situation in Qualcomm stadium is totally different from the situation in other uncivilized evacuee areas - like the Superdome, where the black evacuees were supposedly unpolite, violent, sweaty, dirty and smelly - and where the Black Evacuees were called REFUGEES.  So at least San Diego has learned so much from Katrina - they are taking the names of people who enter the stadium, and they are not referring to them non-US citizens.   We have no white refugees in San Diego- truly they are first-class civilized citizens!

I have to admit that I am so upset right now that I am having a hard time  finishing a deconstruction of this headline and the images - so if anyone wants to write more about this please do - and I will link to you. 

I know the situations (Katrina and Southern California Wildfires) are completely different and do not stand for a sound comparison, but a comparison in media representation is worthwhile and reveals how the class and race of community matter.  . For a reminder at how much race and class does matter in media discourse- here's a photo where I examined from the Hurrican Katrina and how the news framed a black man wading in water as "looting" while they framed a white man wading in water as "finding" floating goods.  Btw- Many New Orleans evacuees are STILL homeless and not doing ok 2 years after the disaster.  For those in Malibu and San Diego who had their mansions burn down - I wonder what will happen?

I am so mad that the city I live in is filled with so much sweet words of prejudice.  Not that this doesn't happen everyday everywhere - but it's just really intense when your city is burning down and there is so much racial and class politics in the media.  As Raquel has written - the whole South side of San Diego county is burning down, but it the press coverage is scant compared to North County of San Diego - where all the super-rich super-luxury mansions are loacted.  It's where people, like this person, go to escape their  2nd home or to their friend's hotel  or book a room at the Aviara for $350 a night with sculpted flamingos and golf courses.
(South County is more middle-low income, racially and ethnically mixed and 10-5 miles from Mexico.)

You can read my other thoughts about the National news coverage of SD fires here,  distortion of wildfires here, emphasis of LA over SD here, and what a Sociologist would do during a fire here.

UPDATE: NPR just did a piece on how bloggers are either comparing or arguing against a comparison of Katrina vs.Southern Ca. Wildfires.  They link to many other excellent blog posts that do some great comparisons.

this photo was taken by ABC News and was part of this story and part of The Stencil.

Natural wildfires regenerate the soil with nutrients and burn away potentially super-dangerous brush.  Some tress, like pines, depend on fires to spread their seeds in their cones! Stephen J. Pyne, an ex-firefighter and Prof. of Ecological History - is a specialist on the social mis-management of fires in the US.  He has written extensively about different societies over time have used actively used controlled fires to develop the land or to practice cultural rituals.   From national geographic: 

"Today's fires can grow unusually fierce because Smokey Bear went overboard. For decades, the well-meaning policy of suppressing all forest fires allowed too much fuel—dead wood, underbrush, small trees—to build up on public lands, especially in the fire-prone West. What might have once been a minor grass fire now turns cataclysmic, like last year's Hayman Fire in Colorado." 

 This is also a chance for us to think about how much control we have over nature - people build homes right in the middle of forests and lands that are prone to fires. Is there anything logical to that? When we don't let natural fire happen, suburban homes on the edges become the unnatural barrier.  I hope these San Diego fires get people  to think more about ongoing fire management than fire suppression.  


I took this picture this morning of the fire at UCSD  - 8am and it's fire sky already.  In the meantime - I am safe from the fires.  The air is just horrific though - my eyes, nasal passages and throat burns.  I worry about those who have asthma. 

You can read my other thoughts about the racial class politics of San Diego fires here, National news coverage of SD fires here,  distortion of wildfires here, emphasis of LA over SD here, and what a Sociologist would do during a fire here.    this was photo overlay was created by tim