Exactly. And similarly, Iraq only had 150k US soldiers, so it was actually much more dangerous than Chicago. Which is why Kanye West's comparison is nonsensical.
> Which is why Kanye West's comparison is nonsensical.
When you think about it from a media perspective, I think it's actually very insightful.
The American public was up in arms about the death of 314 soldiers on foreign soil, but seemingly oblivious to the >500 killed right at home in just one city in the good 'ol USA.
Surely all lives are equal, and it doesn't matter where a person is killed, but only that they are killed. For every minute of airtime given to the deaths Overseas, more than that should have been given to the deaths in Chicago alone. And NYC, and Baltimore, etc. etc.
It wasn't. The media is not giving an accurate representation of real life, and now people are making life decisions based on that false picture.
A lot of that airtime (discussing US soldiers killed in Iraq) should be charged to politics.
Liberal media and entertainers heavily criticized the war in Iraq, but said much less about the 1600 US soldiers killed in Afghanistan during Obama's term (496 in 2010).
If they could find a way to blame murders in Chicago or Detroit on Republicans, they'd spent a lot of airtime on that too.
> Surely all lives are equal, and it doesn't matter where a person is killed, but only that they are killed.
Why do you think this? There seems to be very little basis for this in fact, and surely certain deaths are more tragic than others (surely and elderly man's passing is less tragic than that of a heroic soldier defending his brothers).
Alright, I should have said "homicide" or "murder". Dying of old age doesn't really count.
Also, homicides on home soil should be MORE publicized, because it has the potential for real-world impact on regular peoples lives (i.e. the people consuming this "news").
i.e. if I hear tons of soldiers are being murdered in Iraq, that really can't hurt me, today, and I don't need to change my life because of it.
In contrast, if I hear more than one person per day is being murdered in the city I live in, then that's possibly real impact to my life and that of my loved ones! I need to know that so I can make decisions based on that data. (i.e. if it went up to 10 per day, I'm getting the hell out)
