There’s the saying that whoever wins the war, writes the history. From the novels we’ve read this semester as well as my observations of disasters in general, it seems that those who control the media, frame the narrative of the given disaster. When considering media coverage of Hurricane Katrina, images of people waving their arms on top of their roofs immediately come to mind. Media, and increasingly social media, has the potential advocate relief and change but also has the potential to severely skew the public perception, for better and for worse. The media portrayals of Hurricane Katrina contributed to a view of the victims of the hurricane as being lazy idiots who didn’t heed the warnings to evacuate. This was clearly not the case—for many, leaving was not an option. Jesmyn Ward illustrates this in Salvage the Bones by bringing the reader into the world of a family that is representative of the situation of many families that were living in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Because she immerses the reader in the situation of Esch and her impoverished family that—who are clearly doing their best and are by no means lazy—there is never a moment of “Well why didn’t they just leave?” If there is, that is definitely not the fault of Ward. As visible in the novel, people living in the Ninth Ward were at a disadvantage from the outset—their infrastructures, especially the protective levees around the city, were more susceptible to potential storms. Beyond the infrastructure, society sets some people up to be more vulnerable than others based on other factors such as class and race. The Ninth Ward was predominately black and predominately of a lower socioeconomic status.
Similar to the residents of the Ninth Ward in the face of Hurricane Katrina, Puerto Ricans were extremely vulnerable against Hurricane Maria, which made landfall on September 20, 2017. The island was still trying to recover from Hurricane Irma which had hit two weeks earlier, and many people were still without electricity and drinking water. As a Category 4 hurricane, it was the strongest storm surge to make landfall in Puerto Rico in more than 80 years. In the days after Hurricane Maria, there was limited coverage about it in American media. The Sunday after Hurricane Maria, the front page of the New York Times had nothing about Puerto Rico and instead reported about Florida, Alabama, and Trump’s revitalized fight against NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. Approximately half as many news outlets ran stories on Maria compared to stories about Harvey and Irma. What ultimately brought more national news coverage to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the Category 4 hurricane was in response to Trump’s silence about the matter. However, at that point, it seems as if this was partly because it was a good story—something to cover for the sake of ratings. (What insensitive thing is the president today?) The focus was on Trump’s apathy and negligence as opposed to focusing on Puerto Rico. Salvage the Bones provides a helpful lens through which to view the situation in Puerto Rico—when it comes to disasters, there is always the question of who we consider worthy of aid. In many cases, distance makes it easier to stay uninvolved. We have a tendency to care more about problems that we perceive to be more immediate. However, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens—a fact which about half of Americans are unaware of. When we don’t perceive people to be part of our group, the pull to help is considerably weaker. However, that clearly does not only apply to people that we view as being foreigners (even when they’re also citizens) because we put Americans in vulnerable positions as well. We overlook faulty infrastructure and facilitate gentrification. We form our opinions and perceptions based on what we see on the media. Salvage the Bones asks us to reconcile with that and to be more vigilant consumers of media. In general, as well as in cases of disasters, we must remember what our information and perception is being filtered through and whether it represents the truth of merely the best or most convenient story. Works Cited Meyer, Robinson. “What's Happening With the Relief Effort in Puerto Rico?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Oct. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/what-happened-in-puerto-rico-a-timeline-of-hurricane-maria/541956/. Shah, Anushka, et al. “Analysis: The Mainstream Media Didn't Care about Puerto Rico until It Became a Trump Story.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 27 Nov. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/27/the-mainstream-media-didnt-care-about-puerto-rico-until-it-became-a-trump-story/?utm_term=.c9279731d27d.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Dr. PolakWrangler of the attendant ne'er-do-wells. Archives
May 2018
Categories |