My Response to "Who's A Looter?"

While first looking at the New York Times article “Who’s A Looter”, by Tania Ralli, my immediate response was that the newspaper publishing these photos were being sort of racist. Like many other people, I only looked at the pictures and captions concerning victims of hurricane Katrina and assumed there was racist motive behind it. However, after reading the whole article, it seemed to make more sense. First of all, the pictures were published in two separate newspapers. Each newspaper has a different way of wording things and a different attitude towards its stories. I agree that these pictures could not reflect the prejudice of a single media outlet.

Another good point in the article states that the photographers have guidelines in determining whether they use the words “looting” or “carrying” in their captions. Mr. Martin, the photographer of the picture with the black man, actually saw the man enter a grocery store and come out with these goods. Mr. Graythen, the photographer of the white couple, claimed the couple did not go in the store so had to “draw his own conclusions” in how they got the food. According to the A.P. guidelines that were set in place before Hurricane Katrina struck to determine whether “looting” or “carrying” should be used in captions, both of these photographers did what they were supposed to do.

Even though there can be a huge debate on whether these captions were malicious or not, I think that Mr. Graythen put in best in an email message when he wrote: “Now is no time to pass judgment on those trying to stay alive. Now is no time to argue semantics about finding versus looting. Now is no time to argue if this is a white versus black issue.”