Skeptix_907 t1_isbdcm8 wrote on October 14, 2022 at 5:46 PM

Reply to comment by [deleted] in New study shows newspaper images from Hurricane Harvey in 2017 continued patterns of presenting people of color as victims and white people as rescuers bringing order back to the chaos, this may not have been conscious or ill-intentioned decisions, but reflect patterns in journalism and cultural by giuliomagnifico

Where? I didn't find that part at all.

What I saw in the study was a simple observation that the people helping tended to be white and male, while the people hurt tend to be people of color. Which likely means one of two things- 1) either journalists are subconsciously racist and support racial stereotypes, or 2) that first responders (who are mostly white and male) as well as good Samaritans were disproportionately white and male.

It's not unlikely that the latter is true. People of color more often live in distressed areas that are more susceptible to natural disasters, often because of lower property values. If they were more likely to be affected by Harvey, the disparate race coverage was simply reflecting reality.

Ok-disaster2022 t1_isbe76u wrote on October 14, 2022 at 5:52 PM

Yeah and the white volunteers also are the ones with the disposable incomes to take time off work, drive their truck pulling their private boat a few hours to help people.

Americans are generally pretty charitable regardless of race. But having resources to donate cna really impact the effectiveness of the donations.

So it's a tale as old as America: black people are forced to live is less attractive areas whereas their benefactors are a small minority of the total population who say or do something to help in a crisis.