Racists don’t care about hurricanes in Puerto Rico or typhoons hitting Guam

American viewers saw no coverage of Hurricane Irma as it hit Cuba, even as Irma was the 24/7 headline story. Instead we watched live feeds from Florida as TV crews braved the wind and wet to report on preparations there. It was boring stuff compared to what we could surmise was being blacked out from Cuba. The understanding was clear: Americans only care about natural disasters as they impact Americans. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say, by America we mean the United States of America. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, our news networks ignored it like a disaster befalling any other third world republic of colored people. Puerto Rico is a US territory. We deny Puerto Rico statehood or representation in Congress –essentially the protections stateside citizens enjoy against unfettered free trade capitalism– but Puerto Ricans are Americans. Viewers apparently also don’t care about typhoons which hit Guam or American Samoa in the Pacific for the same reason. So while Puerto Ricans suffer, domestic news coverage is dominated by the NFL taking a knew, or football players linking arms to prevent spoilers taking a knee. And the media make that about the flag and the anthem instead of about the protest’s original focus, police brutality against dark skinned people. Point fingers at your insufficiently schooled allies or at southern rebels or at white pride weirdos, but whose racism surpasses them all is America’s corporate media.