Friday, September 02, 2005
Perspective
If you haven't donated yet to the hurricane relief, the
American Red Cross is a good place to start. The minimum donation is $5 US. Can anyone afford not to? The Romance writing community is so far-flung that I don't think there's a RWA member out there who doesn't recognize many of the names of the found and still missing. At the same time Katrina has made us feel how large the world is, technology makes it small.
I find it puzzling and disheartening that a picture of someone walking away from a store carrying a load of clothes is labeled a looter. Really? A photo like that doesn't tell us where that person was heading or for what purpose. Maybe he/she was going to family or others in need. You know what? If it were me, and all my family and I had left was the clothes on our backs, I think I'd take those clothes, too.
Think hard about the visual and verbal rhetoric you've been hearing and seeing. Think race and class and gender and then think stereotype. Your logic and your emotions are being engaged with words and images that claim to explain what was happening, but in fact do not provide the motivation prior to the moment the shutter snapped. I do not have much of an issue concluding that someone wading through the streets carrying a TV is probably not engaged in survival or self-preservation. But someone carrying clothing or food? Think before you agree with the label you're being told to accept.
Think.
