Desensitization to the Pain of Non-Whites

Western news programmes tend to be very selective in their portrayal of current affairs. The death of one American soldier is news worthy, whereas the daily deaths of innocent civilians impacted by that same war is not. It is understandable that the news would show viewers what they are interested in. My issue lies within the selective censoring. 


In the past couple of years, I have paid special attention as to who is shown dead, badly injured, bloodied, or killed. I believe to have never encountered, on the news, a real life image of a dead 'white' person. However, images of dead Middle Easterners are often exhibited, and sometimes these images are very gruesome. I believe this, along with films and television shows, aid in desensitizing Westerners against images of badly hurt, dying, or dead non-whites. Furthermore, the repeated portrayal or numerous dead (non-White) war casualties (for example) in films also aid in this process of desensitization. This leads to some very real consequences for non-Whites, both in the 'Western' world, and outside of it. They are seen as sub-human, with less emotional capacity to feel pain than Whites. 


Images of hurt people should be equally shocking to viewers--no matter what the skin colour of the hurt person is. The assumption that viewers are less shocked by injured non-Whites is racist, and the effects of such are also racist. I am not saying that this is the mentality of news personnel--it is more likely to be the result of a subconscious, ideologically-driven belief system. The results are nonetheless the same.