![]() ![]() GREGORY KANE (The Baltimore Sun ): Some people saw something racial in that. He cites the controversy over use of the word `refugee.' KEYES: Gregory Kane, a self-described black conservative who writes for The Baltimore Sun and, says he believes some black leaders were playing the race card more than the media. CLARENCE PAGE (Chicago Tribune): We saw a story that already contained enough elements to be a big media story suddenly became this whole allegory about modern America and how we deal with our own divisions around race and class. He calls this coverage the first big racial eruption in the media since the O.J. Nationally syndicated columnist Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune says the invisible poor haven't taken center stage for years. KEYES: Boyd says coverage of this hurricane has exposed a class of people who live in this country under Third World conditions, and Americans don't want to accept that. Maybe you think, `Oh, this doesn't have anything to do with it,' but it does. If you're not, then, you know, maybe it seems strange. BOYD: If you're black, you know, race factors into everything that happens to you. KEYES: Boyd also says race affects everyone's perception of this coverage. And then when you start to show images of looting, that, of course, plays into some very old stereotypes in society and, I think, sort of confirms for a lot of people what they believe already. Professor TODD BOYD (USC): When you look at, you know, just the large number of displaced black people there were, that was a certain image. On one hand, USC critical studies Professor Todd Boyd says the media helped draw attention to the dire straits victims faced, but on the other, he says, some of the images were problematic. They saw Americans, mostly black, wading or swimming through neck-deep water, carrying food, water and clothes. KEYES: Many people spent the first five days after the storm watching the 24-hour cable channels. WEST: George Bush doesn't care about black people. KANYE WEST (Rapper): I hate the way they portray us in the media. KEYES: During a telethon to support Hurricane Katrina victims, rapper Kanye West voiced what seems, at least anecdotally, to be the opinion of many African-Americans. BARBARA BUSH (Former First Lady): So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway. ![]() Critics blasted former first lady Barbara Bush for this comment about the evacuees staying at Houston's Astrodome on the radio program "Marketplace." KEYES: On his first visit, President Bush told reporters that he looked forward to sitting on the porch of Mississippi Senator Trent Lott's new house after it was rebuilt. WOLF BLITZER (CNN): So many of these people, almost all of them that we see are so poor, and they are so black, and this is going to raise lots of questions for people who are watching this story unfold. Reporters and anchors, even veterans like CNN's Wolf Blitzer, were stunned by what they saw in the days after the storm hit. NPR's Allison Keyes begins our examination of the way race and social class may have influenced reporting and analysis of the catastrophe. Images of the evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black, have dominated news coverage in the weeks since the storm slammed into the Gulf Coast.
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