Race and Disaster

Help me understand something.

We (and here I mean "the world community") largely stood by when 138,000 were killed in the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone, and did next to nothing as 800,000 were slaughtered in tribal warfare in Rwanda. There was also relatively little international concern or outcry of support when 30,000 died one year ago in the 12/26/03 Iranian earthquake that the world has largely forgotten.

As many as 300,000 have died in the on-going Darfur genocide as Arab "janjaweed" militias continue to rape and murder their way across the Sudan. An estimated 10,000 are dying there each month, and the world is largely indifferent as this preventable disaster continues unabated.

But you see, these disasters don't affect us.

All of the disasters I just mentioned involved dark-skinned people in developing countries, and therefore they've been largely ignored.

But when a natural disaster occurs in a favorite European tourist destination and a few thousand folks of the caucasian persuasion perish, the world is suddenly filled with empathy and compassion. Did anyone notice that in a disaster that killed 124,000+ in Southeast Asia, and thousands in Africa and India, that the most popular individual "face" put on the disaster by the MSM is that of a two year-old Swedish boy?

Nature happens, and we should of course help those affected by the Sumatran tsunami. That said, it is pathetic that we can't generate the same outpouring of support and empathy for the manmade disasters we can prevent, for reasons that largely appear to be tied to classism and bigotry.