Saturday, November 3, 2012

Sandy and 'US': the obvious ethnocentrism

Taken from a facebook post

While Kaleidoscope was tracking Sandy news in BBC and CNN he felt a cold stream flowing through his backbone. If US is suffering from power cut, long queue outside the drinking water, oil and food sources that too moments before the presidential election, what could be the situation if it ever happens to his world?? These news channels including Al Jazeera continued to show the same video clippings from US. Within minutes Kaleidoscope started imagining US like an isolated island on which Sandy has attacked to satisfy personal wrath!

As Kaleidoscope like others learns from his experiences of bias and ethnocentric attitude attached to the mainstream news channels, it has been ages that he stopped taking news media on face value. Hence a quick search reveals that the storm kills more than 70 people in Cuba and Haiti. The storm also hit the Puerto Rico, Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic. In Haiti the devastation is comparable to 2010 earthquake (see Washington Post). Flooding at Haiti has triggered Cholera with 300 suspect cases (click here).

Kaleidoscope does not want to present himself as insensitive (though he is, sometimes)... there is no point in comparing death tolls and he knows comparative disaster analysis is meaningless here. However, yet the ethnocentric news reports make kaleidoscope to successfully bomb-out from his false consciousness regarding the end of ethnocentrism in so called global world.