Katrina coverage in Canada.(Letter to the editor)

I have recently discovered your magazine on Canadian news racks. For the most part, I am impressed by the critical inquiry of the journalists' articles. In the Spring 2006 issue, with its many articles on Katrina, I felt there could have been more interrogation of the invisible white institutional privilege that often escapes critical scrutiny.

While there was much discussion devoted to racism, bear in mind that the dominant white mainstream is so distanced and removed, spatially and ideologically, that they refuse to see themselves as part of New Orleans' past problems and potential solutions. I would like to hear what the white mainstream thinks and feels about their social responsibility and commitment to New Orleans' rebuilding.

Overall, the media's reporting of Katrina was not much better in Canada with the familiar "racialization of crime" and "blame the victim" discourses spinning overtime. One is constantly bombarded with images of "pitiful" and "whining" Black folk and "oh, so resourceful" white folks, who are usually represented taking dignified control over their lives, not waiting for government "hand-outs."

However, the hyperbolic coverage of New Orleans' jazz legacy and Mardi Gras madness has persistently annoyed me. Essentially, the media are deploying this Afro-American culture in distracting and deflecting viewers from any critical examination of the issues on the ground-worldwide. The television news media bombard Canadian viewers with special features about jazz, constructing the Big Easy as a pleasure-loving Mecca. That may be true, ...