Africans have become such annoying crybabies, someone should put a stop to this madness.
In the wake of Ethiopian Airlines crash, Africans on Twitter have been lecturing the Western media about its biased reporting where they mentioned the nationalities of those who perished, but conveniently didn’t list Africans.
1. In Journalism, there is something we call proximity. It is one of the six key criteria of determining what is newsworthy, or not. When the Malaysia Airlines disappears from the sky, and you are certain, there were no Kenyans on board, it becomes a faraway tragic event, of which you have no interest. When a gunman unleashes his fury on school kids in Florida in the US, it is a mere statistic about the American gun law to you who is in Nairobi.
The rule of proximity, works like this, we only care what is geographically proximate to us. Floods in Malawi will not bother you as much as floods in Nairobi South C, more so if you live in South C. When I teach, I also mention that proximity is also psychological. When Kenya is playing rugby in Fiji Island which a million miles away, we stay up into the silly hours of the night, because,it is relevant to. If an earthquake,God forbid hit Minnesota, Most Kisiis will be worried because there are more Kisiis in Minnesota than anywhere in the US.
This is the criteria the Western media uses when picking news, such as the plane crash. By racial connection, it makes sense for a white reporter to first focus on the nationalities that are closer to him, geographically, and psychologically.
2. Of course, our lives are not as important to them and we should not live as if they were, or have ever been. Someone who enslaves you for 400 years, still exploits your mineral resources and pays you a portion of profits as aid, is not someone who values your humanity.
That is why, these troubled kids on Twitter must learn to channel their anger to something more relevant: African government. Always picking on Western media for misrepresenting us, or not reprsenting us at all, is the height of folly.
We need to show ourselves some love before we can expect to be loved out there.
Leave a Reply