Breaking news on Mefi

August 31, 2005 2:23 PM

So, I think that MeFi was the first to break the bit about racist looting captions. So why then do Wonkette and Flickr users get to pretend they broke the story? There are others, it's now quite the little hot Internet topic. But where's the MeFi love?
posted by symphonik to etiquette/policy at 2:23 PM (58 comments total)

See also:

* Gawker

* Boing Boing

* Kos

* Gridskipper

Because the caption writers are from two different wire services, I personally don't agree with the premise that broad conclusions about racism in the press can be drawn, but kudos to bairey for starting this little internet meme.
posted by pardonyou? at 2:29 PM on August 31, 2005

Not something to be proud of. Two different agencies: it clearly wasn't racist.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 2:31 PM on August 31, 2005

That was a story?

More like tortured and forced attempt at playing "gotcha!"
posted by dios at 2:33 PM on August 31, 2005

As the original poster bairey said:

I need to point out that I didn't notice this on my own.. a friend at Livejournal pointed it out after having read this at Fark. Now that thread references this one. It's a meta world. I didn't find this (despite being white) but was just passing it on.

So Fark "wins".
posted by smackfu at 2:34 PM on August 31, 2005

Why are we rehashing the validity of the comparison here when it's been done to death in the thread? The post was about the sourcing issue; it would be nice if folks at least addressed that in their replies.

Anyway, I usually don't care about this kind of thing, but when I saw the BoingBoing post about it, I definitely had a "where's the MeFi love?" moment. But now it looks like Dustin3000 at Flickr may be the one who needs the refresher course on courtesy and citing sources. You can't really blame BB and Wonkette for seeing it there and not knowing it (apparently) came from here first.
posted by mediareport at 2:35 PM on August 31, 2005

Doesn't it always?
posted by crunchland at 2:35 PM on August 31, 2005

Damn live preview. smackfu's right, of course.
posted by mediareport at 2:35 PM on August 31, 2005

Psst, crunchland, sorry for messing up your Fark joke.
posted by mediareport at 2:37 PM on August 31, 2005

Nick Denton has been stealing from us for years. What else is new?
posted by Dreamghost at 2:41 PM on August 31, 2005

Well, the thing about writing a site like Gawker or Wonkette (and, although I've actually written both sites in the past, I'm not speaking for them or the company, only for myself) is that 400 people email you something and you have no idea where the hell it came from.

And in that tunnel that is a long day of blogging, it's hard to tell what's big news, what's not, what's timely, what's old, what's original. In the end, the way to deal with that best is just to smack stuff up on the site. (Both sites are, in my opinion, pretty good about credit and linking when they know the source.)

So anyway, it's not like the writers are scouring the web going FROM WHERE CAN I STEAL NOW, MUH HA HA??? It's more like, "Oh crap, I have 7 more posts in my quota today, oh hey, three people emailed me this, can I try to make a joke out of it? No, I can't? Ah, fuck it, I'll post it anyway."

The other lesson, of course, time and time again, is that Fark is very regularly the first. Never underestimate the P0wer of Teh Fark.

And yes -- Nick Denton has been stealing from all of us for years, but mostly just our human souls.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 2:58 PM on August 31, 2005

Wait -- ohmigosh -- it's an interconnected network of information? Let's call it....oh, I dunno...the World Wide Web?
posted by Vidiot at 3:03 PM on August 31, 2005

Its wierd that Gawker's coverage of the story lists these as the sources, yet Wonkette does not:

Black People Loot, White People Find [BoingBoing]
“Finding” Versus “Looting” [Wonkette]
A Fine Line Between “Loot” and “Find” [Gridskipper]
posted by fillsthepews at 3:06 PM on August 31, 2005

MeFi's content gets looted -- ah the irony
posted by matteo at 4:35 PM on August 31, 2005

not looted - found!
posted by milovoo at 4:45 PM on August 31, 2005

The real irony . . . how many of these crusading webmeisters are pointing out that when NO was evacuated, they decided to leave all the poor (and mostly black) folks without cars or money for hotels to fend for themselves or hole up in a stadium? It would have been possible to bus all these people somewhere safe over the weekend, epecially since they are now having to do it with awful conditions. The real racism here has nothing to do with photo captions. Of course people are looting. Social order has broken down, people are desperate to survive, and no one has money or resources to get out of this hell. Again: the racism was leaving the poor and black people to die. Outrageous. This is the real story here, and I have not heard it mentioned in the mainstream media or in "left blogostan." WTF?
posted by realcountrymusic at 4:58 PM on August 31, 2005

Well this certainly isn't the place to argue that.
posted by smackfu at 5:11 PM on August 31, 2005

Well put.
posted by loquacious at 5:12 PM on August 31, 2005

Err, "well put" to realcountrymusic, but this isn't the place, as well.
posted by loquacious at 5:12 PM on August 31, 2005

Our own Drudge.
posted by caddis at 5:13 PM on August 31, 2005

Sorry about that. I just don't think much congratulation is in order over a few photo captions being outed as racist. There is an elephant in the room.
posted by realcountrymusic at 5:14 PM on August 31, 2005

This is what's really annoying about the internet. It doesn't even matter what the news is, or whether it's relevant to anything, it just really really matters who said it first.

So, in other words, who cares?
posted by xmutex at 5:15 PM on August 31, 2005

they decided to leave all the poor (and mostly black) folks without cars or money for hotels to fend for themselves or hole up in a stadium?

Who is 'they'? If you're going to scream racism (and take the opportunity to go off topic to preach), give more than a 'they'. Their mayor maybe?

Actually on topic, even if metafilter broke the story, and I doubt it did (I often see things on mefi several days after they've appeared elsewhere), I'm sure we've taken stories from elsewhere without credit given in many, many instances.
posted by justgary at 5:19 PM on August 31, 2005

Who is 'they'

The public officials responsible for disaster management. All of them. FEMA especially. And don't tell me it was impossible. It's possible now, with hundreds dead.
posted by realcountrymusic at 5:41 PM on August 31, 2005

justgary writes "I'm sure we've taken stories from elsewhere without credit given in many, many instances."

I just flat-out refuse to believe that.
posted by OmieWise at 5:43 PM on August 31, 2005

Um, the origional fark thread just linked to the dude with the funky hair 'salvaging' heinken. Fark later linked to the Wonkette article comparing the captions. So I think Mefi did first point this out.

Yay us.
posted by delmoi at 5:58 PM on August 31, 2005

I actually first saw the captions being compared on another site that I can not mention, you know the one that starts with F too. Here's the timestamp on that site "Tuesday August 30, 2005 at 04:23:25 PM ET"
posted by riffola at 6:03 PM on August 31, 2005

Something internet folks have failed to realize, over and over again (probably because of the "open source crowd") is that if you have a genuinely original or innovative or even mildly interesting idea, before you blab it to the world (which is the internet at this point, and will only become more the case as time passes), have a plan setup that will allow you to profit or earn original recognition or both.

All ideas concerning fairness, intellectual property, copyright, etc. have been flipped upside down since the advent of the internet and until a valid set of rules or structure is setup, any theft appears to be fair game.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 6:37 PM on August 31, 2005

It is this blogger's policy to accredit the original source whenever possible. MeFi comes first, Denton comes last -- such is the way of the world.
posted by ed at 7:36 PM on August 31, 2005

I saw it on Something Awful long before MeFi, but SA isn't full of self-congratulatory hipsters in clunky glasses, so that doesn't count, am i rite?
posted by keswick at 7:58 PM on August 31, 2005

Oh yeah, I also give you this moment of zen, brought to you by FYAD.
posted by keswick at 8:04 PM on August 31, 2005

justgary writes "I'm sure we've taken stories from elsewhere without credit given in many, many instances."

I just flat-out refuse to believe that.

cats in sinks appeared on monkeyfilter and metachat before here - it was around the internet a lot, so maybe didn't come from there, but no via to whereever it was from. (of course, the poster was probably very busy, what with a new baby and 20,000 old ones.O
posted by jb at 8:29 PM on August 31, 2005

The public officials responsible for disaster management. All of them. FEMA especially. And don't tell me it was impossible. It's possible now, with hundreds dead.

New Orleans is 67 percent black, 28 percent white. So while i'll leave you to your FEMA is evil thoughts and conspiracy theories, the fact that most of those left were black ("mostly black") can be summed up best as...duh.
posted by justgary at 8:58 PM on August 31, 2005

(in other words, if there is a problem, it's an economic one)
posted by justgary at 9:18 PM on August 31, 2005

New Orleans is 67 percent black, 28 percent white. So while i'll leave you to your FEMA is evil thoughts and conspiracy theories, the fact that most of those left were black ("mostly black") can be summed up best as...duh.

This thread is not the place, but don't lecture me. I know a good deal more about the demography of the gulf coast than you think, and I'd guess than you do. I didn't say FEMA was "evil." I suggested that it (like the rest of the disaster response infrastructure) was incompetent and underresourced and that its priorities reflect structural racism in our public life. Billions in public charity for Halliburton. Pennies for poor Americans facing death and disease. If the public officials who urged evacuation were serious, if our various levels of government were serious, about the pre-storm warnings, then it boggles the mind that they did not run a massive effort to move the poor -- who had by and large no vehicles and no resources to evacuate with -- with public support before the storm hit. We all knew this was possible, and by Saturday we knew it was likely. Really, by Friday mid-day. And now, at MUCH greater expense, they have to move everyone, after thousands have died. Oh well, better luck next time.

Yes, the majority of the residents of the actual city of NO are black, though I suppose I should concede that poor whites weren't evacuated out of the surrounding rural areas either, and have suffered horribly as well. So our country's public infrastructure treats poor people like shit. And when those poor people are black, they get treated, and always have, like double shit. No wonder people are looting. The state has failed in its duty to protect the vulnerable and the vulnerable have no faith in the state any longer, and nor should they.

If the wealthier and more white residents who did evacuate NO were stranded in a disaster zone I think help would have been provided. The response before the storm was grossly inadequate, with the predictable effect of discriminating against the poor and non-white residents of the region. That's structural racism. Duh yourself.

I'm sorry to divert this thread, but that comment deserved a reply. Matt and Jess feel free to delete, of course. But I think we're on topic. It's silly and unseemly to debate who called the photo captions racist first (and whether that was correct).

xmutex had it right. Who cares. The whole thread is pointless. Thousands may be dead, many more are on the edge. An absurd percentage of them are black and poor. And what do you want to bet the dead are more than 67 percent black in the city of NO?
posted by realcountrymusic at 9:25 PM on August 31, 2005

realcountrymusic : "it boggles the mind that they did not run a massive effort to move the poor"

realcountrymusic, not to continue this derail, but there seems to be a whole lot of conflicting information regarding whether or not it is in fact true that they did not run a massive effort to move the poor. Some people state as fact that they did not provide busses, others state as fact that they spent two days before the storm driving around in busses trying to collect people. So before getting all angry (at either position), I think (preferably in another thread) we need to resolve what the reality of the situation is.
posted by Bugbread at 9:37 PM on August 31, 2005

realcountrymusic, it would have taken too long to bus everyone out. They wouldn't have made it out before the hurricane, the Superdome was the best solution given the timeframe. This comment gives some quick math on the logistical nightmare. The Superdome shelter had been planned and rehearsed well in advance, busing and shelter away from NO was not. The resources were simply not available to get everyone out. The National Guard mobilization was not instantaneous and they have quite a bit more time and good conditions (no threat of traffic snarls with impending hurricane).
posted by geoff. at 9:42 PM on August 31, 2005

In between snipes about who should get credit for what snark and win the internet, take a sec to read the full comment that photoslob excerpted in the thread. I think it's pretty relevant here...

Jeasus, I don't belive how much crap I'm getting from this. First of all, I hope you excuse me, but I'm completely at the end of my rope. You have no Idea how stressful this whole disaster is, espically since I have not seen my wife in 5 days, and my parents and grand parents HAVE LOST THIER HOMES. As of right now, we have almost NOTHING. Please stop emailing me on this one. I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow. I wouldn't have taken in, because I wouldn't eat anything that's been in that water. But I'm not homeless. (well, technically I am right now.) I'm not trying to be politically correct. I'm don't care if you are white or black. I spent 4 hours on a boat in my parent's neighborhood shooting, and rescuing people, both black and white, dog and cat. I am a journalist, and a human being - and I see all as such. If you don't belive me, you can look on Getty today and see the images I shot of real looting today, and you will see white and black people, and they were DEFINATELY looting. And I put that in the caption. Please, please don't argue symantics over this one. This is EXTREMELY serious, and I can't even begin to convey to those not here what it is like. Please, please, be more concerned on how this affects all of us (watch gas prices) and please, please help out if you can. This is my home, I will hopefully always be here. I know that my friends in this business across the gulf south are going through the exact same thing - and I am with them, and will do whatever I can to help. But please, please don't email me any more about this caption issue. And please, don't yell at me about spelling and grammar. Im eating my first real meal (a sandwich) right now in 3 days. When this calms down, I will be more than willing to answer any questions, just ask.

posted by soyjoy at 10:06 PM on August 31, 2005

"Again: the racism was leaving the poor and black people to die. Outrageous. This is the real story here."

I simply can't process enough information to know for sure whether it would have been possible to evacuate everybody who wanted to leave if they were all white Christian Republican patriots, but RCM is absolutely correct about American society being shot through with racism. We built this country on racism, after all.

You go, realcountrymusic. I will always reserve the right to disagree with anything you (or anyone) say(s), but anything I said in our arguments on these pages that sounded like I was impugning your humanity I now apologize for. I'm impressed by your comments in this thread, and I'll try to remember that.

(But that still doesn't mean I'm a Nice Person, so bite me!)
posted by davy at 10:18 PM on August 31, 2005

Soyjoy: Nice. Thanks for pointing that out.

realcountrymusic:

Despite this not being the right place, nicely put. I think for the most part you're preaching to the converted here, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for a passionate argument, considering everything that's been going on.

I've been impressed with some of your (unrelated) arguments elsewhere here on MetaFilter, and not simply because I agree with you, but there have been issues where I haven't agreed at all.

Not that it really matters, but if I remember correctly you're either self-proclaimed registered Republican or simply right-leaning independent or something. If so, we need more folks like you - people that know how to think regardless of political loyalty. Cheers, huzzah and all that.

*bites davy. pauses. makes a weird 'ick' face. spits out chunk of davy.*
posted by loquacious at 10:34 PM on August 31, 2005

SA isn't full of self-congratulatory hipsters in clunky glasses

Nah, it's full of corpulent, greasy, potato chip crumb-littered sophomore anime fans with too much time on their hands.

I kid. I am a proud (if lurking) goon as well as a MeFite, like many here. (PS -- the washers and dryers have returned, in case you weren't aware.)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:03 PM on August 31, 2005

So before getting all angry (at either position), I think (preferably in another thread) we need to resolve what the reality of the situation is.

I apologize for losing it. I am deeply upset at the situation, like everyone. davy, I'm sorry.

I'm impressed by your comments in this thread, and I'll try to remember that.

Thanks!

if I remember correctly you're either self-proclaimed registered Republican or simply right-leaning independent or something

I'm a registered independent, far left of liberal on some issues, but fiscally conservative, and libertarian on specific issues (guns, marijuana, etc.). Like most real people, I am not a creature of any party.

Again, sorry for shitting on this thread. I needed to vent.
posted by realcountrymusic at 11:56 PM on August 31, 2005

Spiegel says: "But the really interesting angle on all of this comes from those smart folks at Metafilter."
posted by tellurian at 12:09 AM on September 1, 2005

I'm impressed with realcountrymusic's comments generally as well, which makes it a bit disappointing that, now that he's indicated his political beliefs, we're so much alike (minus the guns). Now whenever I find myself supporting realcountrymusic's phrasing, the aspersion will be cast that I'm just agreeing because I agree with the actual argument, not the way it's made.
posted by Bugbread at 12:22 AM on September 1, 2005

But the really interesting angle on all of this comes from those smart folks at Metafilter.

Yes, that different people wrote the captions and comparing their choice of words then crying racism was bogus.
posted by Joeforking at 1:35 AM on September 1, 2005

jb writes "justgary writes 'I'm sure we've taken stories from elsewhere without credit given in many, many instances.'

"I just flat-out refuse to believe that.

"cats in sinks appeared on monkeyfilter and metachat before here - it was around the internet a lot, so maybe didn't come from there, but no via to whereever it was from. (of course, the poster was probably very busy, what with a new baby and 20,000 old ones.O"

um, jb, I'm pretty sure I was joking. I saw cats in sinks on MeCha.
posted by OmieWise at 5:31 AM on September 1, 2005

davy, I'm sorry.

Umm, I meant to apologize to justgary for snarking at him.

And bugbread, let's start a thread about guns sometime . . .
posted by realcountrymusic at 5:37 AM on September 1, 2005

Do I hear an echo in here?
posted by grateful at 7:23 AM on September 1, 2005

Group hug!!!
posted by mischief at 10:08 AM on September 1, 2005

realcountrymusic, see Making Light for consistent coverage of the "evacuation plan left poor to die" angle (some of it in the comments threads, not the front page.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 1:37 PM on September 1, 2005

This thread is not the place, but don't lecture me. I know a good deal more about the demography of the gulf coast than you think, and I'd guess than you do.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the one lecturing here. I was simply stating a fact. Most of new orleans is black. Most left behind were black. Most doing the looting were black. Makes sense. I simply meant that you may be right, but the fact that most left behind were black did nothing to prove your point.

I wasn't disagreeing with your point (though I'm sure your views are much more extreme than mine). It was simply regarding your "mostly black" comment.

I had no idea what you knew about the demography of the gulf coast, and now I bow to your expertise, but as someone who was born and raised on the gulf coast, lives on the gulf coast, and was married in new orleans, I seriously doubt you know more (just in case this is some kind of contest).
posted by justgary at 5:59 PM on September 1, 2005

(and my comment was not meant to be snarky. I feel numb from what's going on in my favorite city in the world)
posted by justgary at 6:00 PM on September 1, 2005

though I suppose I should concede that poor whites weren't evacuated out of the surrounding rural areas either, and have suffered horribly as well.

That's pretty much the end of the black v. white thing right there. It's poverty.
posted by mediareport at 7:43 PM on September 1, 2005

justgary, didn't know that. i commiserate with you, brother. i spent the best years of my life as a touring country musician based in austin, and worked extensively on the gulf coast. i knew a lot of people there (or from there), and i love the place so much. highway 90 was my idea of a vacation as well as how i often drove to work. i have also written scholarly work on the class and racial demography of south texas (so a different part of the gulf coast region), which is where i grounded my uncalled for snark. i can cite census statistics that would numb you with boredom. but i appreciate your born-and-raised knowledge quite as much.

That's pretty much the end of the black v. white thing right there. It's poverty.

fundamentally, my belief as well. but this is an old and heavy subject. not all blacks are poor, but there's no question that being black in america, especially in a southern city, raises the odds against you from the day you are conceived. cities like NO and Atlanta are demographically overdetermined by racial discrimination that structures their persistent black poverty (true of every american city, but it's worse in some places).

i still have seen almost no white people in the pictures of victims -- a few, but very few. and the city of NO was a concentrated population center, unlike the rural bayou country. leaving "the poor" to face Katrina was tantamount to leaving "the blacks" to die, and something could, and should, have been done before the storm, and immediately after it. i disagree with those saying it was a logistical impossibility. it just wasn't important enough. and now look what has happened.

we're all raging at the wind, i know. i'm so sick at heart i could puke. it's unseemly to fight over this story, and i regret doing so.
posted by realcountrymusic at 8:10 PM on September 1, 2005

rcm, have you seen Coldchef's comment in one of the early Katrina threads quoting an emergency worker who said there were buses going through poor neighborhoods for two days before the storm hit, and that some of the folks now being rescued actually waved off the buses and declined the offer? If that turns out to actually be the case, would it change your feelings at all?
posted by mediareport at 10:06 PM on September 1, 2005

Speaking of which (I've asked in one of the threads, but don't remember which, and I suspect it would be impossible to find now): do we have any corroborating evidence regarding whether there were or were not buses going through the neighborhoods? I have ColdChef (and others) saying there were, I have other folks saying there weren't, and neither is addressing eachother, so the reality isn't getting any clearer.
posted by Bugbread at 10:10 PM on September 1, 2005

Good question. I checked the Times-Picayune archive in the days before the storm hit. There are bits of evidence of some groups and parishes using buses, and the city system was being used to take folks to the Superdome, but not much of an indication of a large-scale plan to help poor folks evacuate the city. From Sunday:

The Regional Transit Authority will deploy 10 buses equipped with a special lift to help handicapped residents get to the Superdome this morning, RTA spokeswoman Rosalind Blanco Cook said. Once at the Dome, residents' needs will be assessed. Those who are critically ill will be taken by ambulance to a medical facility in Baton Rouge, she said. Others will be brought to Baton Rouge in the paratransit buses.

Monday:

Geraldine Johnson, 67, has no car. So she and her 41-year-old daughter and three grandchildren, ages 8, 10 and 12, caught the bus from Algiers early Sunday and landed at the Dome after 11 a.m.

Monday:

Even Jefferson Parish, considered a more affluent and mobile community than New Orleans, opened three shelters of last resort Sunday afternoon...Jefferson also used public transportation to pick up residents and take them to the shelters...

[and later, location unspecified:]
Even as the window for evacuation began to slam shut, some Orleanians were making the decision to get out. As an RTA bus prepared to take another load of residents to the Dome, a family of nine pulled up in a faded blue Ford pickup...

Not conclusive, but something.
posted by mediareport at 6:59 AM on September 2, 2005

Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not move the goalposts. I don't believe anyone was saying that every single current victim is trapped because they were too poor or infirm to get out. Obviously as in any situation like this there were some who elected to stay.

That should not distract from the point that there are a great many people who could not get out or were made to believe they had to stay, and these people have been failed by our government. For officials to point to whatever percentage actually wanted to stay and pretend that contingent excuses them, the government, from responsibility for all the others, is the outrage that we're addressing.
posted by soyjoy at 9:32 AM on September 2, 2005

Mediareport: Thank you!!
posted by Bugbread at 8:17 PM on September 2, 2005