America's racist reaction to Haiti crisis
Dan Dewald
Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: Opinion
The recent and persisting humanitarian crisis in Haiti has been an ongoing major news topic; it's a country with very little resources, and the earthquake (with all its consequences) has caused as great of a disaster as can be found in our hemisphere over any recent amount of time.
Legitimately horrifying things are happening in Haiti, and they're currently being faced by anyone on the ground in that country. I don't mean to downplay the serious situation that's going on in Haiti in any way, to make myself clear.
That being said, in the grand scheme of things, let's look back at our selections of horror, death and destruction to be found in the past decade in the news. Even over the last five or six years, it hasn't been a matter of lacking material; the material has just been clearly less gruesome in its portrayal. The tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004 comes to mind as a major natural disaster that incurred an even larger death toll than Haiti, with an estimated 230,000 deaths. I'm challenged to find examples of news coverage similar to the Haiti crisis with an event offering even more death for our cameras to witness.
Conflicts in the Middle East like the ongoing Iraq war carry their own long-known-about horrors from combat situations that have left many American soldiers both emotionally and physically scarred for the rest of their lives. Measures of censorship are in place with Iraq too, and only recently has the casket of an American soldier killed in Iraq been able to be printed in newspapers. On American soil, Hurricane Katrina inflicted massive amounts of damage when it struck New Orleans in 2005. People drowned in horrible ways and were left stranded in a disaster-stricken city, similar to the situation seen in Port-au-Prince, but not displayed so vulgarly.
In New Orleans, we saw tent cities in the Superdome-in Port-au-Prince, we see close ups of rigor mortised dead Haitians. All of these events have inflicted widespread death and horror on the people they affected, and all of them were being covered by all of our major news outlets-rightfully so, but differently pending race and socioeconomic status.
Legitimately horrifying things are happening in Haiti, and they're currently being faced by anyone on the ground in that country. I don't mean to downplay the serious situation that's going on in Haiti in any way, to make myself clear.
That being said, in the grand scheme of things, let's look back at our selections of horror, death and destruction to be found in the past decade in the news. Even over the last five or six years, it hasn't been a matter of lacking material; the material has just been clearly less gruesome in its portrayal. The tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004 comes to mind as a major natural disaster that incurred an even larger death toll than Haiti, with an estimated 230,000 deaths. I'm challenged to find examples of news coverage similar to the Haiti crisis with an event offering even more death for our cameras to witness.
Conflicts in the Middle East like the ongoing Iraq war carry their own long-known-about horrors from combat situations that have left many American soldiers both emotionally and physically scarred for the rest of their lives. Measures of censorship are in place with Iraq too, and only recently has the casket of an American soldier killed in Iraq been able to be printed in newspapers. On American soil, Hurricane Katrina inflicted massive amounts of damage when it struck New Orleans in 2005. People drowned in horrible ways and were left stranded in a disaster-stricken city, similar to the situation seen in Port-au-Prince, but not displayed so vulgarly.
In New Orleans, we saw tent cities in the Superdome-in Port-au-Prince, we see close ups of rigor mortised dead Haitians. All of these events have inflicted widespread death and horror on the people they affected, and all of them were being covered by all of our major news outlets-rightfully so, but differently pending race and socioeconomic status.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Mohan
posted 2/06/10 @ 7:07 AM CST
Dan
Sometimes a crisis is an opportunity to reflect. Perhaps a time for Americans to reflect on problems here?
MikeG
posted 2/06/10 @ 8:11 PM CST
What, so you're comparing the coverage of the deaths in Haiti to the deaths in American disasters? Your point is that the major news networks are covering the Haiti deaths more, due to race? Could it be, in fact, that there's much more death to go around, that the staggering amount of lives lost is the story here?
The total death counts for the event cited in your article: 9/11: 2,973 dead, Katrina: 1,836 dead, war in Iraq: 4,697 dead, Haiti earthquake: 212,000 confirmed dead, est. (Continued…)
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