by Solomon Comissiong
The U.S. corporate media has a difficult time covering the Haiti catastrophe. “Haiti's poverty and economic desolation were largely made-in-America,” an inconvenient fact to transmit to American audiences. Corporate media's “job is to invoke pity, confusion, and ignorance, as well as to uphold the benevolence of white supremacy.”
On January 12 the people of Haiti were devastated by an uncontrollable force of nature, a massive earthquake. There is untold loss of life. The infrastructural destruction is enormous. People from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe are responding with aid relief as part of their humanitarian duty.
Countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and China were among the first to respond to the catastrophic scene in and around Port Au Prince, Haiti. An earthquake of that magnitude (7.0 on the Richter scale) would cause significant damage to any nation; however in a country as economically poor as Haiti the impact is drastically worse.
Despite being resource rich, Haiti is a nation that is home to many of the most impoverished people within the Western Hemisphere. The Western corporate media often discuss Haiti’s poverty without context, without background or explanation as to how they came to be so economically impoverished.
Viewers are prevented from connecting with Haitians beyond a misguided paternalistic sentiment. This type of half-assed “journalism” is beyond unprofessional; it is rooted in racism and white supremacy. Such “coverage” robs the people of Haiti of an identity as well as a history, while the US government’s nefarious foreign policies continue unchallenged by the corporate “news.”
Read the full story at the Pan-African News Wire
tags: haiti, earthquake, white supremacy, imperialism,
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