What Determines What We Get Outraged By?
Oppression. Racism. Colonisation. War. Violence. Death. The world since the start of time has been riddled with conflict and death, every day people suffer unfair consequences to their lives for no reason other than the bad luck of where they are born. So how is it decided what people should get most outraged by and is it based on rational logic?
Selective outrage is the concept that people focus on certain issues whilst ignoring others that are just as important if not more. We can see this in abundance across so many aspects of life including politics and media coverage. It is evident to me that selective outrage is a problem that has engulfed the west.
Violence and death is where we regularly see selective outrage. When an incident occurs centred on violence, the outrage will often go to whoever is seen as the most disadvantaged. Cultural nuisances, historical understanding, rational judgement, weighing up all the angles, deep understanding of the conflict and many other factors are not considered when deciding the levels of outrage. Instead, the ability to heighten tensions by creating a narrative of systemic and historic oppression becomes the prerogative. This is then supported by a mass following of people of similar race or religion and other people who feel their race or religion has contributed to the historic years of oppression. Black Lives Matter(BLM) is an example of this. BLM was most prominent in the U.S.A but they ended up spilling over here in the UK with protests occurring despite the country being in national lockdowns. Whilst two people would get fined for meeting up due to the fears of COVID-19 spreading, widespread protests in the name of BLM were met with no such punishment. The narrative pushed by BLM in the U.S. started with police brutality on black people following the death of George Floyd. It then grew across the U.S. and UK into how black people were victims of systemic racism. People connected the fact that a significant portion of black British people were worse off than the average Brit. Specifically picking out the historical unfair treatments to black people, this group of people then decided that their shortcomings were solely down to racism.
However, when we dig deeper this is far from the case. There are many minorities in the UK that on average actually outperform White British people and in fact there is a massive difference in the standards of living between people of African heritage and Caribbean heritage. One reason for this is the difference is the amount of households with one parent. Every single stat shows that children regardless of race are more likely to suffer behaviourally and academically in adult life — if they grow up in a one parent household. The most successful group in the UK, is British Indians where only 6% on average grow up in a one parent household compared to 63% of British Carribbeans. (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-false-narrative-of-bame-vs-white/)
Facts like this are completely ignored when people talk about outrage and systemic racism. Instead historical examples of what suits the victim-hood agenda is used.
The media plays a massive role in selective outrage as they ultimately have the power to decide what stories deserve attention and what stories should be ignored. There are many reasons behind deciding which stories to tackle and unfortunately it has now become about which ones are likely to get the most clicks, likes and views. Another problem with the media coverage is often the people who decide the stories are from a very similar background. As journalism isn’t the best paying job initially, many tend to be supported by affluent parents and based in metropolitan urban areas e.g. London, New York. This means the only stories we receive are the ones that are important to this group of people rather than the whole country or people belonging to different backgrounds. They are able to determine what stories get more attention thus creating the impression that some issues are more important than others. This is an incredibly distorted view of reality.
Currently the news is dominated by Israel-Palestine but let’s look at what else is going on in the world. Millions of Uighurs Muslims are being held captive in China subject to some of the most inhumane treatment. Modi’s India is often talked about the problems it has with minorities through western media outlets, despite the fact that there are more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan. 97% of Pakistan belongs to Islam with Hindus and Sikhs every day being forced to convert Islam. Congo has been facing modern-day slavery issues for decades. Congo produces an estimated 70% of the world’s cobalt. Freelance workers do extremely dangerous labour for the equivalent of just a few pounds a day. Cobalt is toxic when touched or breathed in yet there are hundreds of thousands Congolese people touching and breathing it every day to help produce many of the electric cars driven around the world. There is a war in Sudan. It began in April 2023 and some of the figures are alarming. As of October 2023, over 4.8million civilians have been displaced with more than 1.3million having to flee the country as refugees. Thousands of civilians in the Darfur region have reported dead as part of the genocide that is happening there. Russia and Ukraine haven’t decided to take a tea-break either, that war is still very much in place with innocent people dying everyday.
These are just some of the conflicts going on right now and tomorrow there will be new conflicts. That is the sad reality of mankind and it has been since the birth of this world. Of course, we should express sympathies to those in pain and danger but we should also remember the world is an extremely complex place and that everything isn’t black or white.