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AlanE · 02-09-12, 08:36 PM

<i>This was all around the time of hurricane Katrina, and in the aftermath of that disaster, there were shaded comments about the "lessons of Katrina".

It was racism wearing a very thin veil.</i>

I wish that people would stop with bandying about the racism card as part of a moral posturing game.

The people you observed were reacting to the reality that was seared into the nation's consciousness in the Katrina aftermath. Acknowledging reality doesn't make a person a racist and ignoring reality doesn't make a person an ant-racist saint.

Compare the community reaction to the Grand Forks flood in 97, the Kobe earthquake, the Christchurch earthquakes, the Boxing Day Tsunami, all catastrophes that equaled or exceeded the devastation of Katrina and the social decay wasn't present. Those victims pulled together. Even the Yakuza in Kobe were out in force handing out care packages and there was no violence, no queue jumping, no looting, etc.

<i>I think it springs from a sense of social isolation combined with a sense of helplessness.</i>

The Harvard scholar Robert Putnam has been at the forefront of research on community values and he's detailed what you're referring to - social isolation is growing in America and the primary culprit is increased diversity. As diversity increases people isolate themselves even more, not just from different ethnic groups but also from their own social circles. They cocoon. This is an interesting effect because one would expect that the pullback from unease with diversity would be to a point where one relies more on one's own community but Putnam was quite surprised by the correlation between social isolation/cocooning and community diversity.

Whatever is driving this rising survivalism phenomenon is an academic point - people can pass moral judgments on these people but that stigmatization effort doesn't really change what's going on, in that shows like this are actually mainstreaming the movement and granting it more legitimacy. There's no need to invoke the false boogeyman of racism and tar these people as racists. If it's not your bag, then just leave it at that.

02-09-12, 08:36 PM	#18
AlanE Helper EcoRenovator Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Canada Posts: 91 Thanks: 6 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	<i>This was all around the time of hurricane Katrina, and in the aftermath of that disaster, there were shaded comments about the "lessons of Katrina". It was racism wearing a very thin veil.</i> I wish that people would stop with bandying about the racism card as part of a moral posturing game. The people you observed were reacting to the reality that was seared into the nation's consciousness in the Katrina aftermath. Acknowledging reality doesn't make a person a racist and ignoring reality doesn't make a person an ant-racist saint. Compare the community reaction to the Grand Forks flood in 97, the Kobe earthquake, the Christchurch earthquakes, the Boxing Day Tsunami, all catastrophes that equaled or exceeded the devastation of Katrina and the social decay wasn't present. Those victims pulled together. Even the Yakuza in Kobe were out in force handing out care packages and there was no violence, no queue jumping, no looting, etc. <i>I think it springs from a sense of social isolation combined with a sense of helplessness.</i> The Harvard scholar Robert Putnam has been at the forefront of research on community values and he's detailed what you're referring to - social isolation is growing in America and the primary culprit is increased diversity. As diversity increases people isolate themselves even more, not just from different ethnic groups but also from their own social circles. They cocoon. This is an interesting effect because one would expect that the pullback from unease with diversity would be to a point where one relies more on one's own community but Putnam was quite surprised by the correlation between social isolation/cocooning and community diversity. Whatever is driving this rising survivalism phenomenon is an academic point - people can pass moral judgments on these people but that stigmatization effort doesn't really change what's going on, in that shows like this are actually mainstreaming the movement and granting it more legitimacy. There's no need to invoke the false boogeyman of racism and tar these people as racists. If it's not your bag, then just leave it at that.