Image via WikipediaThere's a story out of Columbia today where a plane crashed and of the 130 passengers, only 1 died. While this is generally a good story with a favorable outcome, it really bothers me that the media has to point out the nationalities of the people on the plane. "130 other people aboard, including at least five American citizens." I just don't see why that is important. Would it be a bigger story if they were all American citizens? Why are American lives more important than lives of the other 125 people on the plane?
This happens with a lot of disasters that are reported by the media. Maybe the problem isn't with the media, maybe we as a people actually DO value American lives more than other lives. Do other countries have this same kind of bias for their people?
The other time this comes up and annoys me is when War breaks out somewhere. One of the big things that's reported on is how the U.S. is sending war ships and military personnel to evacuate Americans. I can understand that if someone is working for the U.S. in that country that we may have some kind of obligation to ensure their safety, but if someone's there voluntarily outside of government business, why should we use our resources to save them? What about the people who live in that country, do they not deserve to be saved?
In the end, I believe this worlds problems with war, immigration, and racism all stem from the fact that we consider "our own people" to be more important than "them". Those people who were lucky enough to be born within an arbitrary political boundary, regardless of any merit they may have, are special, protected, and god forbid they get killed in an airplane crash. I wish the people of this world could open their eyes and see how exactly the same people in other countries are to you. The last part that amazes me is how proud our country is for the civil rights movement that occurred here. We're so just, and good, and we treat everyone like equals. The shame is that for some reason, an imaginary line at our border makes it okay for us to forget the lessons of the civil rights movement and hang on to a "we're better than them" mentality that does nobody any good.
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