While I won't discount the horrific nature of yesterday's incidents at Virginia Tech, I'm fairly annoyed by the media coverage surrounding it, considering the level of violence that continues to rage in the Middle East, claiming exactly the same amount of civilian lives a day in Iraq. While I don't think Americans would on a conscious level weigh a white Westerners life as more important than a brown Middle Easterners, the media has made some serious subconscious decisions for us. The majority of news pages appear as the CNN does, asking how, why, and the amount of terrible violence inflicted by 'crazy Asian loner guy':

CNN's Main Page:

Yet on the same day, 20 Iraqi policemen & recruits were reported executed and a bomb in Baghdad killed 13 (that's 33 total deaths -- the same as the VT shooting -- if you're keeping track). Yet you have to get to the 'World' and 'Middle East' page of CNN and BBC News respectively if you care to update your Iraq body counts (the CNN's World page even has it's front page article as a feature piece on the 'World Reacts' to the Virginia Tech Shootings):

BBC's Middle East Page:

CNN's World Page:

"One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic," spoken by Joseph Stalin is an apt statement for the 1940's; it's modern day equivalent may be "One Western death is a tragedy; a million Third World deaths is a statistic". Originally published on PBH.