![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unusualmusic_lj_archiveAmerica's greatness for helping Haiti.
America's victims of the earthquake individualized, Haiti's undifferentiated mass of hurt and dying made into disaster porn.
Isn't America great for helping Haiti?
America's journalists anticipating violence, some of the coverage almost seeming to call it down, quite frankly; to the point of excitedly and irresponsibly confirming rumors as fact, and having to back away from it.
Aren't we the most generous people in the world?
Slight mention that any other country might be there helping out the Haitians.
But Americans are helping Haiti, we are SO great!!!! (And I exasperatedly begin to think of Jesus' admonition to the Pharisees.)
And then there is the fucking sensationalizing of the Haitians rescuing themselves with their BARE HANDS. I just cannot see what the hell is so strange about this. Wouldn't Americans do the same thing if they were in that situation? Don't all people who don't have access to expensive equipment use whatever they have on hand to rescue people in peril? Isn't the situation dramatic enough that hyperbolic, grating expressions of shock and horror can be dispensed with? To say nothing of the almost slavering eagerness to see riots and violence among the BLACK AND POOR survivors? I suppose you can't expect better from the country that allowed the complete and ongoing clusterfuck that was and is the aftereffects of Katrina. To say nothing of the biased reporting that took place.
America's victims of the earthquake individualized, Haiti's undifferentiated mass of hurt and dying made into disaster porn.
Isn't America great for helping Haiti?
America's journalists anticipating violence, some of the coverage almost seeming to call it down, quite frankly; to the point of excitedly and irresponsibly confirming rumors as fact, and having to back away from it.
Aren't we the most generous people in the world?
Slight mention that any other country might be there helping out the Haitians.
But Americans are helping Haiti, we are SO great!!!! (And I exasperatedly begin to think of Jesus' admonition to the Pharisees.)
And then there is the fucking sensationalizing of the Haitians rescuing themselves with their BARE HANDS. I just cannot see what the hell is so strange about this. Wouldn't Americans do the same thing if they were in that situation? Don't all people who don't have access to expensive equipment use whatever they have on hand to rescue people in peril? Isn't the situation dramatic enough that hyperbolic, grating expressions of shock and horror can be dispensed with? To say nothing of the almost slavering eagerness to see riots and violence among the BLACK AND POOR survivors? I suppose you can't expect better from the country that allowed the complete and ongoing clusterfuck that was and is the aftereffects of Katrina. To say nothing of the biased reporting that took place.
