The Artificial Crisis

Those of us who could witness from the inside the United States, like a visitor, the omnipresent media coverage this week of the African-American who ended up dead in a confusing incident with a white policeman can see a contrast that commands our attention.

Despite the overpowering media coverage, among the discussions of ordinary people in the street, at least here in Baltimore, the incident does not even warrant the smallest of conversations.

The images show squalid masses of people protesting like everyone with the right to do so, but the apocalyptic narration of the broadcasters does not match the dynamic of the shots, which are at times laughable and carnival-like. Based on these broadcasts, even the most obtuse people could see who was blowing these so-called riots out of proportion: those whose agenda it is to sell, at any cost, an undefined incident and paint a picture akin to a civil war in Ferguson, a remote town in Missouri.

With the utmost respect and without passing judgment that I’m not qualified to render regarding race and connected issues, I simply posit a question: How much of this situation was created — and also encouraged — by the atmosphere of the media circus? It ended up looking more like the product of distortion engineering than that of a real racial conflict scenario. Even though it’s notably attractive to some sectors, the situation does not correspond to the logic of the events we witnessed.

How much do we know for certain? No other place in the United States has shown even the slightest demonstration of solidarity with this exact situation. Oddly enough, had the participants been of the same race the incident wouldn’t have made the news, as it has been already pointed out. In addition, surely there would not have been such a mobilization of ludicrously paid reporters, who gave an appalling performance considering their limited role among all the words and drama, judging by what the cameras showed.

The notorious inconsistency of these supposed crises makes one rethink the enormous power of communication, which might be more responsibly used as a tool to debate natural contradictions and common challenges in those societies that grant such a human right of debate. These apparent distortions — virtual reality games — are also a form of the shallowness and the degradation of the informative purpose, which in my opinion, should be linked with an edifying focus toward those that receive the news.

Vargas Llosa points out in his magnificent work “La Civilización del Espectáculo,” that the addictive need for recreational consumption of any kind — which includes the evolution of events — makes the ephemeral, the vacuity, the evasion and the distraction take the place of the logical and the verifiable, and so, created without any shame or responsibility, those virtual untruths always end up uncovering themselves.