aid and the media

Let me start out by saying that I feel TERRIBLE for everyone who has been affected by Hurricane Katrina. Obviously this was a devastating natural disaster, the response to which has been overwhelming. In fact, the response reminds me of what happened after the tsumani last year. It didn't take very long at all for citizens of the United States to start sending money to help people in countries they had never heard of before.

All this is well and fine, and I'm all for supporting ANYONE who has been affected by any disaster. However, it is astounding to me how certain crises apparently are more important than others, and I would venture to argue that a lot of this has to do with the media.

Take, as an example of the power of the media, the case of a missing person. How many people do you think turn up missing every year in the U.S.? Do you suppose it's more than the 2 or 3 that you hear of in the national headlines? Not too long ago I watched a report about a family in Florida who tried desperately to grab the media's attention about their missing family member. There were dozens of clues that would have even made for a pretty gripping "was it HIM? or was it HER?" story. Unfortunately, this missing person didn't "fit the description" of most other nationally-known missing people - she wasn't well-off and white. She was black. Infuriating, even to this Dutch girl.

So, what's this got to do with Hurricane Katrina? Well, it didn't take much finagling to get people to open their pockets for these unfortuante American citizens, whose country takes pretty darn good care of them and whose relatives in other parts of the country have the resources to support them. However, we're still stuck with that situation in Niger, which made a blip on the t.v. screen a couple weeks ago and then went away - we're talking 2.7 MILLION people who would be delighted to have some FOOD to eat on the ground and who could care less about salvaging china plates from their homes! These people have been living like this FOR A YEAR. How long do you think it will take for people to respond?