It wasn’t surprising that Western journalists would react with doom-and-gloom when the Ebola outbreak began in West Africa. Or that the crisis would not be treated as a problem confronting all humanity — a force majeure — but as one of “those diseases” that afflict “those people” over there in Africa. Most Western media immediately fell into fear-mongering. Rarely did they tell the stories of Africans who survived Ebola, or meaningfully explore what it means to see your child or parent or other family member or friend be stricken with the disease. Where are the stories of the wrenching decisions of families forced to abandon loved ones or the bravery required to simply live as a human in conditions where everyone walks on the edge of suspicion? Instead, we have been given news from “the frontlines of Ebola” and “the war on Ebola,” video clips with somber narrators and eerie soundtracks and photographs that capture only sadness and hopelessness, all without the necessary human context. We have seen endless images of Westerners, covered head to toe, amid crowds of healthy-seeming onlookers; given such presentations, it is no surprise that people would begin to think that Ebola is an airborne contagion that might get on a plane and travel around the world, infecting people on its own. Or that all Africans are potential carriers. washingtonpost/opinions/the-west-ignores-the-stories-of-africans-in-the-middle-of-the-ebola-outbreak/2014/09/19/8e151c90-3f49-11e4-9587-5dafd96295f0_story.html
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 03:28:09 +0000
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