Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Presumably you don’t follow events in Africa.
It’s understandable that most North Americans feel more outrage at slaughters inflicted on people who look like them captured on social media than the slaughters of Africans who have minimal presence on TikTok. But it’s remarkable how much more.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been slaughtered every year of our lives. Mass rapes by rampaging armies have been carried out every year of our lives. Horrors carried out in war zones with impunity every year of our lives. But years on end have gone by without any of these atrocities showing as much as a blip on the collective consciousness of Canadians.
In the last 10 years alone:
Yemeni Crisis
377,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 1/10
Tigray War
300,000 - 500,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 0/10
Ethnic cleansing in South Sudan
386,000 - 400,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 1/10 (mostly religious groups)
Syrian Civil War
500,000 to 600,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 2/10
Boko Haram insurgency
358,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 1/10
Ukraine War
20,000 - 30,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 10/10
Drawing attention to this disparity doesn’t mean excusing what’s happening in Ukraine. But it does raise troubling questions about how selective our attention is and what sorts of victims elicit our compassion and outrage which we more or less ignore.
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Yeah, it is weird and hard to ignore that we do that. I mean, I guess we just relate to Ukrainians because they're kind of like us living lives kind of like ours. We see us in them and want to protect them.
Is it racist of us? Probably.