bo_sox48: I've known about Boko Haram massares for a long while and was bewildered to see media attention directed at nothing more than the dozens of kidnapped girls. These monsters go into schools guns blazing (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/06/nigeria-school_n_3554393.html) and all people know about are the kidnapped girls. This Baga massacre took over a week to get picked up at all by most media outlets, including RT, it seems. I mean, there were breif news reports at the time, but the Multinational Joint Task Force was destroyed! That's huge news.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-30728158


I know it's not had the same scale of reporting as Paris, but it's hardly been under the radar. The BBC has had daily articles, I've read about it in several papers... It's been extensively covered.

So, what are you doing about it bo?

Hmm, interesting. This might explain the silence:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30794829

@fiedler ... clearly, I'm flying out to Nigeria tomorrow with an AK over my shoulder and shooting up the whole of Boko Haram and I'll return by nightfall without a scratch.

bo's true name is SGM Waugh btw.

I agree with your sentiment bo. I can't stress enough that I don't care what nationality casualties are, more casualties is just worse than less.
I think we need much more regular coverage on loads of people dying on regular based due to poverty etc., but if people insist that isn't news so shouldn't be covered, be sure to prioritize news with loads of casualties I'd say.

That said, practicality is a different thing. People would probably line up to go to Paris, not in the least because it's pretty safe and all, but Nigeria not so much.
With a few lacking methods of communications, there's not much left.

But yeah, it will always bother me that people can sleep if ~22,000 children die of poverty in Africa each day, but have trouble sleeping for a week because ~100 people of their nationality died because a plane was shot out of the sky.

The apparent notion that the kids in Africa are not 'ours' to care about and some westerners are, seems to me as a big part of today's problems.

And while fiedler is an obvious troll, he does remind me of something I forgot to mention: why do we need to know about it if we (the West in general) won't do anything about it even if we do?

Who says we won't?

I don't agree
at all

This upper middle class white kid on facebook approach to world awareness, ie. "I had to click on the third hyperlink on CNN to get this news, so therefor I must be the only one who cares." Is just absurd. Sure this deserves media coverage and It has received worldwide media coverage. There are whole-scale ethnic cleansings occurring in the world today that don't even get the little banner at the bottom of the screen.

^ and so, what? This is okay? Just because it is common to see such disregard for human life doesn't mean we should accept it.

To the rest of you:

enough with the "what are you doing about it?" bullshit. That's such a cowardly, unproductive, unimaginative response to very real, very urgent problems. Lots of people are "doing something about it". But more should. Media coverage is a very real, very practical place to start. Many people are genuinely and personally affected by things they hear about in the news. This whole narrative of "they are thousands of miles away - it's hard to care" is patently absurd. Clearly many of us do care.

Poverty, and the misery that accompanies it, such as unchecked massacres, are both fairly common phenomena - but they are our collective fault, our collective responsibility, and those whose only response is defensive cynicism are part of the problem.

People my age ("millennials") often complain, mostly rightly, that the previous generation left us with a degraded world, a world on the way down, not on the way up. That's all well and good. But if we ourselves cannot hold ourselves to a high enough standard of personal responsibility to reverse this, or at least mitigate as much as we can, then we are no better. A shitty predecessor is no excuse for following in his footsteps. Any '08 Obama voters will know what I'm talking about.

"that the previous generation left us with a degraded world, a world on the way down, not on the way up. That's all well and good. But if we ourselves cannot hold ourselves to a high enough standard of personal responsibility to reverse this, or at least mitigate as much as we can, then we are no better." This is literally why I have such magnificent ambitions.

Absolutely its not ok
Its fucking human
You know what is not ok
Your fake ass telling me what I should care about and not care about

I mean the complete irony of this situation is the same fucks who ridicule Israeli supporters for pointing over the border in Syria and saying "Why don't you worry about a conflict that kills 100x more people" Are now sitting here and brow beating people for caring about France more than Nigeria on virtue that 100X more people died in Nigeria. What is it? Should we rank our concern based on the number of dead or not?

I apologize for the tone, I stopped reading when I assumed that it was going to be another Thucy whine fest, but it actually turned out quite reasonable, my point is still the same though.

"Funny how some lives are less important than others. "

Well you're hardly immune from this, bo. Look at how you post outraged political screeds whenever white kids are shot in their high schools, yet rarely (never?) say a word about the much more common event of black kids being shot in their neighborhoods.

Which isn't, of course, to disagree with your OP that we should know more about what's going on in the world. I suspect the press's coverage is both highly reflective of, and partly to blame for a very complex set of factors that causes us to find some events of more interest than others that have identical moral weight.

"Funny how some lives are less important than others."

That's not true,

What is true however, is that an American would feel more empathy towards a fellow American dying than some Nigerian stranger, and vice versa.

It's the difference between your neighbours house burning down, and some other house 3 blocks down. Both houses are the same in size, both people lost their homes, but you feel much more for your neighbour.

France is barely closer than Nigeria. It's not about American or not its about WHITE or not.

Bo, whose government is more closely aligned and similar to that of America, France or Nigeria? If you don't answer France to that, you have a lot to learn about Nigeria.

The white one

Semck, I post about kids in Chicago dying all the time. Literally I am the only one

a) I have been following the Boko Haram attacks
b) Yes, I would expect to read more about attacks in a Western nation for several reasons. Social media. How many Nigerians have twitter, Facebook, etc.? A lot less than French citizens. Also, we are more closely aligned with Western nations than Nigeria. Their news stations are covering it, and we can watch that fairly easily in the US. When was the last time you watched Nigerian Nightly News, as compared to BBC?

Now, I think we should be caring about this, and have brought this up with friends of mine. Is it right that millions align with "Je suis Charlie" but not the thousands killed by Boko Haram or ISIS, or any other terrorist group operating in less known locale? No. Is it understandable? Absolutely.

I'm not even going to try to get into this. Bo is hopeless.

Lol I am high that makes me very hopeful

"Absolutely its not ok
Its fucking human
You know what is not ok
Your fake ass telling me what I should care about and not care about"

is this.... poetry?

Realize that 'caring' by talking about it helps exactly no-one.

Realize that bo posts this shit for selfish psychological pay-offs.

Right, because words and thoughts have no effect on action ever. Fucking imbecile

The delicious irony. College freshman bo_sox48 uses a group whose vicious religious warfare has been consistently reported in the mainstream media for months to lecture us about how some lives are "less important than others."

If you're going to beat people with liberal guilt over ignoring horrible crimes in Africa maybe don't pick the one that people actually know about? Michelle Obama's never posed with a hashtag over the hell on Earth that's been going on in the CAR, for example. Or South Sudan's civil war? And remember Darfur? That's not over, even though Hollywood moved on.

By trying for a "gotcha" like this you simply expose yourself as being just as shallow as anyone else.