Eight-year-old Imani Green was shot and killed over the weekend on the northern coast of the island. She was visiting family from Britain. Logically, the shooting made the pages of the (UK) Guardian. Check out the article here. It is a tragic story, needless to say. Green suffered from sickle cell anaemia, and as a result, was in Jamaica as the heat alleviated her symptoms and suffering. She was shot once in the head and once elsewhere. It is rumoured that the shooting was a result of a feud related to the lottery scam, an illegal practice of hustling money that originates in Montego Bay.

It struck me that Green’s killing made the UK papers. It makes sense, she was a British national. But babies die here with frightening regularity. This is an instance that illustrates the precedence of nationalism as the way in which most people organize how they see the world, which is especially true in the journalism world, at least when it comes to sorting news.

I wonder how this will play out in terms of Jamaica’s reputation as a particularly violent nation. Will this deter people from visiting? The north coast, where many of the resorts are located, is usually immune to such types of violence, or at least in comparison to Kingston. Will people be scared off?

It is also important to say that in addition to Imani Green, 18 Jamaicans were shot by police since the beginning of 2013. Many of these are young people. These shootings do not make international headlines.In addition, I’m not sure of the actual figures, but suffice to say that other Jamaicans were murdered by one another over the past few weeks. And countless others were victims of violence. I’m not sure of the overarching point of stating all of these facts. Perhaps it is just driven by a feeling of helplessness and despair at the utter senselessness of innocent people dying.