Berkeley Forum

To the Editor, Los Angeles Times:

Your Katrina stories and photos today are all
white In your front-page story today on the second anniversary of Katrina,  "An old
city revels in its new spirit of innovation," and the accompanying
eight stories and five photos which take up two full inside pages, everybody covered
in the stories and photos is white.

Isn't New Orleans a predominantly African American city?  Isn't it true that some
250,000 African Americans who had to leave New Orleans after
Katrina and want to return are still stuck in communities all over the U.S.?  Isn't
it also true that all the former residents of St. Bernard public housing
who have tried to return to their homes have been locked out by the authorities?
And isn't it true that many public schools are still closed?

African American New Orleaners are not only being locked out of New Orleans,
they're being locked out of the Los Angeles Times.

In today's story, even the Canal Street representative, Roger WIlson,star of
the film trilogy Porky's, is white.

We hear no African American voices in your story, no ideas from African Americans,
no dreams from African Americans.

It's as though what the critics had to say about Porky's has come true all
over again in your coverage of New Orleans:

"The cast is so white washed it's painfully obvious their world is
lacking any racial diversity."

Professor Clive Leeman

# posted by Berkeley Forum : 11:55 PM