A CNN "journalist" named John D. Sutter wants to scream "racism" and the station is eager to help. Apparently, as MSNBC has shown, that's how failing networks think they'll turn their fortunes around
CNN Columnist: Americans don't care about Ebola in Africa, because they're racists
Ah, CNN. At one time, Ted Turner's news network was the only one of its kind. These days, it's near the bottom of a rather large pack, and has become the most banal example of an entire genre. When your claim to fame is "doing slightly better than MSNBC" you know things are bad. Perhaps, like their closest rival, CNN's years of painfully obvious bias have something to do with the decline.
On the other hand, maybe they just stink at their jobs. After all, they just ran an opinion piece claiming America isn't doing enough to fight Ebola in Africa because, well, Americans are a bunch of white racists.
CNN's John D. Sutter explains that were an Ebola outbreak happening anywhere else in the world, we'd be doing more to help. And he claims "science" can explain why:
Science tells part of the story.
There's evidence lighter skinned people have trouble "feeling" the pain of those with darker skin. Researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca, in Italy, tested this in by showing a group of Caucasian people video clips of people of various races being pricked with a needle. They monitored the viewers to see how their bodies responded to the sight of another person being hurt. The white viewers reacted more strongly -- or showed more physical empathy -- when white people were hurt than Africans.
In another study, "researchers found that white participants, black participants, and nurses and nursing students assumed that blacks felt less pain than whites," Slate writes.
Except for a handful of health workers, nearly all of Ebola's 4,400 casualties have been black Africans -- and these simmering biases are deeply troubling.
"Ebola is now a stand-in for any combination of 'African-ness', 'blackness', 'foreign-ness' and 'infestation' -- poised to ruin the perceived purity of Western borders and bodies," Hannah Giorgis wrote for The Guardian.
Not to impugn the clearly not-at-all-subjective work done at the University of Milano-Bicocca (a fine institution which has been proving its worth since way back in 1998) but this is ridiculous.
Who says there's no empathy? I don't know anyone, anywhere, who looks at the devastation spreading thorough Africa and views it callously. Of course we feel - and understand - the immense horror of what's going on. Unfortunately, Sutter relies on an age-old left-wing tactic to make a false point. He ignores reality in order to ascribe racial motive.
First of all, how much aid are we sending to the countries in question? Even before the outbreak, we were offering immense financial support - all over the world - to the "darker skinned people" we supposedly disdain. Our nation is the most generous in the history of the world. In fact, that generosity is - at least in part - contributing to the fact that we're bankrupting ourselves. If anything we're giving too much to prop up unreliable foreign countries - many in the Ebola hot zone - which the CNN brain trust claims we hate.
Second, virtually every disaster relief effort in the world sees some kind of U.S involvement. Whether it's an Earthquake, a hurricane, a mudslide, a tsumnami, a famine, a fire, or a collapsed mine, the United States is there with personnel, equipment, and/or a check. Most of the time, we're among the first responders. ...And contrary to what Mr. Sutter would like you to believe, there's no "whites only" caveat to receieving that support.
Finally, did Mr. Sutter miss the fact that we're sending our troops - and possibly our reserves - to Africa to provide relief? Certainly there are those - myself included - who think this is a huge mistake, but it's not because we don't care. If you oppose sending the military in, it's probably because you don't want our troops to end up being counted among the infected. They're poorly trained for this type of situation and, frankly, it's not a mission for which they are supposed to be prepared in the first place. Obviously, Americans are reluctant to send their sons and daughters to wage a war of dubious "winnability" against a virus, but their motives have nothing to do with the predominant race of the countries involved.
Still, "this is CNN." They'd prefer you ignore the foreign aid, the troops, and everything else we do to help countries regardless of the "darker skin" of their citizens. A CNN "journalist" named John D. Sutter wants to scream "racism" and the station is eager to help. Apparently, as MSNBC has shown, that's how failing networks think they'll turn their fortunes around.
Good luck with that.
