We're not going to focus on words & images for a few weeks, but this has been bouncing around the blogs and is really interesting.

Two captions to photos of people chest-deep in water in New Orleans:

1)[X walk/walks] through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Flood waters continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did extensive damage when it made landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) (emphasis added)

2) [X wade/wades] through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen) (emphasis added)

Continue reading to compare these captions with the 2 photos they "describe."

Now, here are the two pictures. Your job is to match the captions with their images.

Image A:

Image B:

As you may have feared, the "looter" is the person of color, who walks. The white folks are described as "residents" who "find" provisions at a store, and "wade" home.

"young man" vs. "residents"
"looting" vs. "finding"
"walking" vs. "wading"

Either caption, obviously, could refer to either photo. Both sets of people are looting grocery stores for necessary provisions in the flooded-out city. And yet, that's not what happens. Instead we get something utterly predictable in its assumptions about race.