America's racist reaction to Haiti crisis

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.

But I'm going to argue that death and horror can be found across the world without exception, if you go looking for it, and footage exists that's more gruesome than we can stomach-it's simply a matter of picking and choosing what you can get away with.

It's long been common practice that some material is too gruesome to show on printed news and television because it goes beyond what's necessary for getting the story across to the audience.

Even when September 11th took place, we weren't shown close-up images of office workers who had no choice but to splatter themselves on the pavement or burn to death. There was the "falling man" footage, but it was shot from a far distance, and carried plenty of controversy just on its own. No, we weren't flashing our dead New Yorker's- we were seeing George W. Bush with an American flag and a bunch of fire fighters at "Ground Zero," because it's what we wanted to see at the time.

The images of the tidal waves hitting Sumatra were shown on our news, but the aftermath of the short event wasn't as coldly portrayed nearly as much as the disaster in Haiti. Instead, we saw stories of the international community helping them rebuild, and interviews with survivors telling their stories of how the wave impacted their lives; the pictures and video of the dead bodies that must have existed didn't make it to our television screens in the United States, because it would have crossed a barrier of decency. It's not what we wanted to hear about.

Apparently it's a completely different mindset in Haiti now with our news. With a lot of dead black people to uncover from the rubble, it's been a great place to make an easy story, and we haven't been bothered by what we've seen. If ABC News can pull it off, then CNN can also pull it off, not to be scooped by the other network. The FCC won't take any action against the networks unless an official complaint is filed, but it's just not bothering people in the same way it would if they were seeing people of their own predominate race.

We're shown stacks of dead bodies, bloodied people on the streets dying, and "looting" on the streets of Port-au-Prince. Population proportions dictate that chances are you're not a black person, and especially not a Haitian. So you may feel compelled to text 90999 to the Red Cross for ten dollars deducted off yuour next phone bill because you feel bad, but not bad enough to care much further. I don't even think it's a conscious decision that's being made, but it's pretty obvious there's a difference in the way it's being portrayed, and that's shaped by our reactions.

In fact, I would dare anyone to find a disaster since WWII covered like Haiti without the same level of decency standards being violated. I don't even blame the networks as much as I do as the people watching the news, not caring. In fact, I think that's the most offensive thing of all with this issue: poor, dead black people just aren't bothering many people.

Now, I would be one of the last people to be offended by graphic images on the news if that's how news was unilaterally portrayed. But that just isn't the case. We need to be more conscious of how we react to all other human beings, and do so with equality and care in mind.