[url]http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/10/west-africans-abused-new-york-over-ebola-2014103064925857800.html[/url]
[IMG]http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2014/10/17/201410170413313734_20.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]Members of the West African community in New York say their children were being bullied at school and their businesses were losing money because of hysteria over Ebola, a disease that has has killed about 5,000 people in West Africa.
On Wednesday, the African Advisory Council (AAC), a community group in New York, said in a news conference in the Bronx, home to one of the largest African communities in the US, that ignorance was driving the hysteria over Ebola.
"What happened to your children is unacceptable, as New Yorkers, as Americans, as human beings," said the congressman for the Bronx, Jose Serrano.
"I need my community to be safe but also to be protected," he said, likening the fear of Ebola to the ignorance and panic that once confronted the emergence of AIDS.
Panic has gripped many Americans since a Liberian citizen brought the killer virus into the country and died on October 8 of the disease in a Texas hospital.
Two nurses who treated him became infected, though have since recovered, and a US doctor who returned to New York from treating Ebola patients in Guinea was diagnosed with the virus last week.
In the face of public panic, some US states and the Pentagon have imposed quarantine rules for people returning from Ebola-afflicted countries: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
"We rebuke any stigmatisation that goes with Ebola, any stigmatisation that's before our business community, any stigmatisation that's against our kids in the school." - Charles Cooper, Bronx president of the AAC
[U]Stemmed from ignorance[/U]
Last week, two Senegalese boys were called Ebola and assaulted at a school in the Bronx so badly they had to go to hospital, community leaders said.
The boys had moved to New York three weeks ago to join their father, a cab driver who has lived in the US for nearly 20 years.
Their father Ousmane Drame blamed the assault on "kids who know nothing", and said the incident stemmed from ignorance.
US President Barack Obama and officials in New York have repeatedly sought to urge calm, hailing medical workers battling Ebola as heroic and stressing that Ebola cannot be contracted through casual contact.
But community members say pervasive ignorance and scare mongering in sections of the media are putting their children at risk and jeopardising their livelihoods.
"We rebuke any stigmatisation that goes with Ebola, any stigmatisation that's before our business community, any stigmatisation that's against our kids in the school," said Charles Cooper, Bronx president of the AAC.
Stephanie Arthur, chair of the civil engagement committee of the AAC, told AFP that she had no precise number of incidents but said Ebola exacerbated the bullying many African children already face because of their origin. [/QUOTE]
Maybe if the media wasn't dead set on scaring the shit out of idiots we wouldn't have this problem
You know why wealthy American people care about African ebola and not the widespread African starvation and hunger that's going on, instead?
Because wealthy people can actually die of ebola.
[QUOTE=cheetahben;46407931]
Because wealthy people can actually die of ebola.[/QUOTE]
just like they can die of the flu. Pretty unlikely if you have good healthcare.
[QUOTE=Perfumly;46407955]just like they can die of the flu. Pretty unlikely if you have good healthcare.[/QUOTE]
Right but the flu is pretty common and the public views it as 'tame' where as ebola is exotic and the stories of people hemorrhaging are a lot scarier.
It's all fucking bullshit. My dad freaked out over this shit for a while and was all for quarantines and such until I talked to him about transmission and about my old roommate. His parents moved back to Libera this summer before this shit started hitting the news. They had been planning the move for years and wanted to try to rebuild some of their infrastructure. Reading about this shit happening is personal for me, and I can't even begin to imagine what it would be for my friend and his family or the people directly involved.
I still like how a man from the US caused a bit of Ebola panic in Helsinki a few weeks ago.
a woman from a local news agency came to interview members of a program im part of
we were talking about issues in a local hospital where laundry workers were getting pricked by used syringes in the linens and our plan to fix that
in the news report, after my friend explained what we were trying to do, the woman said "it might also prevent the spread of ebola"
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