The worst comment I have heard coming from the media in various places is, of course...a play on the race card.  “How could you believe these things?  Why did you believe these things, white America?  If it was white people in the Superdome, you never would have believed it.  You wanted to believe the worse about poor black America.”

In a word?  Bullshit.  You know why people believed it?  I’ll tell you why.  There are a number of reasons.

People believed it because they know that if all hell broke loose and the law was not to be found, they would run wild themselves.  They know that most of them would not think twice about going nuts.  And if they were locked up in a dank, enclosed place for too long with thousands of other people just as desperate to survive, they’d kill or be killed.  Most of us would.  I’m not dying because someone else wants my Snickers bar...fuck that.  If that’s the last Snickers I know of, and there’s a damn good chance that we’re all gonna die...I’ll kill you before I let you take it from me.  And likely you’ll decide that you’ll kill me before you starve to death for not having taken it.  Hell, I’d loot too, if the zombies came.  When the robots rise up to strike us down, you can bet you sweet ass I’m going to the nearest gun store before the first body hits the pavement and looting myself all the assault rifles, shotguns, 1911’s and ammo I can carry.  Of course people believed the worst.  We’re all capable of it.  The most strident pacifist you know has homicide somewhere in his or her heart.  We’re humans and we’re designed to survive.  Deep down we all know this.  Civilization is what keeps us from tearing each other apart.  We’ve collectively decided that in order to further and better ourselves, we’re going to band together and do things for the common good according to a social contract.

Remove the rules that enforce the contract, and it’s survival time.  Not that pussified TV show.  Real survival.  We are all survivors when pushed to it.

Another reason people believed it is because you media people told us we have to.  You ran stories from poor black people, these eyewitness accounts.  Any cop or trial lawyer will tell you that eyewitness testimony is the worst thing in the world for accuracy.  Why do we rely on it?  Why do we believe it?  Because everyone on earth thinks they would be the one who would be accurate.  I’ll bet the thought is crossing your mind right now.  Anyone who might be reading this...You think you’re so observant, don’t you?  If a guy came in to where you work and stuck a gun in your face, you think you’d remember every little detail, down to the double- mole on the left side of his nose, where one is slightly larger than the other and set a little higher.

Truth is you’d see the hole in the end of the barrel of the gun and like to piss yourself from fear, and you’d be lucky if you knew it was a white, black or purple guy.

People tend to simply lie during an emergency.  They want to feel less a victim and more a part of something, so they make up stories about what they saw.  Some people are simply hysterical.  They see two bullies pick on a little girl.  An hour later they see that little girl lying down sleeping, but they assume she’s dead, and lo and behold they are standing next to Geraldo 24 hours later telling him how they saw a gang of eight young thugs rape and kill a little girl.

They might even believe that’s how it went down...the human mind has remarkable capacity for self-delusion.

BUT.  You knew it was coming...that is prelude to this’ we believed it because you told us, media men and women.  You told us for 40 years that we as white people could never understand the black experience.  We had to simply take it on faith that what black people told us was true was in fact true.  With news and television and film, media people spent the last 40 years browbeating America with the message that the rest of “you people” couldn’t possibly know what it was like to be black in America, so media had to be the one to show everyone what it was like.  In my lifetime, men like Sharpton and Jackson and Farrakhan have beaten and bullied countless numbers of companies and reporters to tell the black story the way certain black people tell it (i.e. they way they want it told), and not in any impartial way, the way a NEWSMAN should be telling a story.

You reporters remember what a newsman is, right?  I use the term gender-neutrally, by the way, because the heart and soul of it is the same regardless of gender.  A newsman hears a hot tip.  A newsman digs into the story.  A newsman finds the hook, the angle, the human interest or the hero or the scandal, and the newsman finds a second or a third source so they can face the camera and say “This is the truth, these are the facts, you may decide motive and guilt for yourself, Mr. and Mrs. America.”

We don’t have any newsmen left in America.  The last real newsman we have is in Iraq.  Not working for any agency.  Not working for any news corporation.  He’s blogging his journalism independently.  If I were in the news business, I’m be ashamed.  I’d be humiliated by a man like Michael Yon.  I’d be tempted to put out a hit on the guy he makes me look so lousy.  Good thing I’m not in the news business.

Back to the black thing.

We’ve been told so many times that we don’t know, we can’t know, that we simply nod and say “Yes, you must explain it to me, oh magic box of wires and light.” We’ve literally been brainwashed into thinking that when the strong-jawed reporter interviews the poor black woman holding a baby, why, that lady is poor and a minority, and it would be racist to question her!  How dare you sir!  How dare you!  See how Mr. Sharpton hugs that poor young girl, raped and defiled and written on?  So what if he faked it?  You don’t understand what it’s like to be black, you have no right to be pissed off about a blatant lie!  The truth is, it doesn’t matter that the woman holding the baby is black.  What matters is that she’s a human being.

Human beings get things wrong.  Human beings exaggerate, Human beings outright lie.  They’ll lie to feel important, lie to get on TV, lie just to see if you’ll believe it.  Black, white, red, yellow, brown, green or indigo, one of the things you’ll find in every culture are liars in all shapes and sizes.  In a strange way, it;s one of the points of commonality we all share, one of the things that should unite cultures.  But unity doesn’t sell newspapers.  Unity doesn’t fill campaign coffers.  Unity doesn’t get you on Hannity & Colmes.  Unity doesn’t sell, period.  Strife.  Division.  Conflict.

Recently I heard author Michael Stackpole say that people often say there are only a few stories to tell, but that isn’t true.  There are only a few kinds of conflict, but every story requires a conflict in order to work.  Lately, it seems as though if there is no conflict...you media people will simply invent one.

So...you, Mr. Media Man...you told us that little girls were being raped and murdered,. that bodies were stacked like cord wood in the Superdome freezer, that roving gangs were raping at will.  You told us that a gang member took a gun away from one of the few cops that made it in to the Superdome and shot her in the head in front of a crowd and the crowd cheered.  You told us that every surface inside was smeared with feces.  You even tried to tell us that people were eating each other.

Yeah, we knew that one was bullshit right away.  But the others?  We had to believe it.  You were there and we were here.  The mayor was on TV crying and swearing and telling everyone about lawlessness and tens of thousands of bodies.  Again...he was there and we are here.  You supported every wild claim that anyone made.  You showed us each and every dead body you could find.  You SUED TO DO IT.  You made it into the most gruesome spectacle imaginable.

Why didn’t you tell the story of the old man that made dozens of trips rescuing people off rooftops in a rowboat, with no motor, that he paddled with a 2x4?

Why didn’t you tell the story of the gang bangers who, when the water hit their block, rounded everyone up including their sworn enemies, organized a food collection, and led the whole neighborhood to high ground?

Why didn’t you tell us about the Coast Guard, in the city from the beginning, rescuing people from the floodwaters the day the levee broke?

Why didn’t you tell us a single story of someone in the Superdome sharing the last food they had with someone who had nothing?

Why didn’t you tell us about the amazing people from Methodist and how they believed they would die, but never stopped caring for patients?

All of these stories and many many more could have been told.  All you had to do was move.  Get away from your command areas and get in there not to drive up ratings, not to sensationalize or show off your mustache, but to find the truth.  To tell stories.  To report.

Reporters used to do that.  They used to report.  Why did I not see a single reporter try to get inside a hospital in the 48 hours after the floods?  Was there no story there?  Better to stay on tech few dry streets you could find and take another picture of a looter?

And then you blame us for what we believed?  We believed what you told us to believe.

We should know better by now.

Don’t ask me why we don’t.

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