Haitian Earthquake & The Media.

As everyone by now knows, Haiti was rocked with a 7.0 earthquake Tuesday afternoon...with subsequent aftershocks thereafter. For me, this hits about as close to home as 9/11 did since Haiti is the country where my parents & grandmother are from...as well as many of my fellow Haitian-Americans; a couple of whom are my childhood friends. The outreach has been massive (as with any tragedy of this magnitude) and it's much appreciated. But beyond all of this...there is one thing that disturbs me the most & that's them showing off the dead bodies laying on the street.

Now granted, the news is trying to tell a story & the more disturbing of an image they show the more sympathy. And I know that it's almost unavoidable all things considered. However, I thought that the US media (at least) doesn't show these things? You didn't see it in 9/11, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Iran's earthquake, etc. Why is it now all of a sudden okay to show these kind of images like they did with Hurricane Katrina and now with this earthquake? Doesn't make sense to me. Yes I am riled up because those are my fellow Haitians so I do feel like it's a form of disrespect but either do that sensationalism shit with everything or don't do it at all. Since when was it okay to pick and choose?

Other random thoughts about it:
- I'm not even mad about the overflow of tragic stories, because people need to understand how this has affected the Haitian-American communities...especially in NYC, Boston and Miami where many of us reside.
- I can't complain about the response times for aid to come through. The disturbing things though to look for in the coming days & weeks are that an already desperate country that had little pre-disaster are gonna become 10x more so...and with little police/security this can get very ugly.
- For people on Twitter (per example) who complain about Haiti not being a trending topic at times; or not being at #1...sometimes it's okay to divert attention from a said disaster, even if it's for a few minutes. Plus, we get it. Donate, donate, donate.
- For people who have asked me about my family that lives out there, I don't know how they are but I do appreciate you asking me.
- Don't get me started on Rush Limbaugh & Pat Robertson because hey, they're just looking for attention and to push buttons. Remember, there's never a 100% wholly accepted opinion; regardless of how outlandish.

And so on.