Yesterday a fire broke out in the Borgerhout neighborhood of Antwerp. As Belgian news reports: "In a powerful fire in an an apartment.. three young children of a Belgian family were mortally wounded yesterday evening" (HLN, Dutch)
I find it extremely strange to find such a sentence about something that happened in Belgium itself. I also do not understand what they mean. This family is Belgian in the sense that all people who live in Belgium are "Belgians", so obviously they mean something else. Borgerhout is a neighborhood with a high immigrant population, but I suppose many of them have Belgian citizenship. Do they mean it's a family with Belgian citizenship or an "ethnic" Belgian family?
Why did the news feel the need to add that descriptive phrase? Media today like to be politically correct. They will try not to mention immigrants and minorities in a bad context but many times they do try to hint to their readers and viewers what they mean.
This is how I understand what the media are saying In this case. They are telling their readers "this is something you should care about. We know you know there are many immigrants there, and you might think that this is an immigrant family and flip to the next channel, but this is really one of ours. You should care."
I think it's understandable when you're talking about disaster halfway across the world. Every country emphasizes what happens to its own citizens for those worrying back home. But when you're talking about a disaster in your own backyard? I would call that pure racism.
See also: Belgium: Comments on political correctness
