This is from a few days before the war "started," so to speak (considering it never really ended). The New York Times ran this story: "Realizing Dreams of Flight, Inspired by Historic Crew".
If the New York Times has already archived the story by the time you read this, let me give you the highlights:
Photo: an African-American pilot gazes off into Destiny. It's straight out of Barthes' essay "Myth Today."
The story is a profile of a Lt Barnes, a young African-American, who serves on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and went to school at the Tuskegee Institute. Are they serious??? If this "Barnes" didn't exist, Operation _____'s office of public relations/ office of securing African-American consensus would have to invent him.
Another oddity to this story:
"Lieutenant Barnes... became animated..."
"Animated again, Lieutenant Barnes said ...."
" 'I'd like to go,' Lieutenant Barnes said, animated once again..."
Apparently, he either lapses into a stupor when he's not raring to go kill, or the reporter's slip betrays the fact that "Lt Barnes" is animated only in the space of nytimes.com.
It's eerily close to what Charles Mudede noticed about the use of African-American faces in coverage of 9/11:
"Then there were the images of weeping and praying blacks on the covers of USA Today, The New York Times, and The Seattle Times. These images of suffering were not false; many black people were deeply affected by the monstrous magnitude of the September 11 attacks. But these newspaper photos served another purpose. Beyond showing that the tragedy was an American tragedy, the photos also said, 'Look, even black people are upset about this attack. They have been humiliated and oppressed by America from day one, and yet here they are crying.'
"Now, dear reader, if blacks are crying, can you imagine what white America is feeling at this moment? Yes, that is how bad things are."
The NY Times promises we can follow its "Tours of Duty" profiles throughout the war.
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