As a society we really don't care about things unless it happens to us personally. We're quite selfish as a world. Race by race, group by group. Just look at the responses on here from black people in threads when something bad happens to another minority race. They taunt them. We as a human race taunt each other or show little empathy in the face of concern. Some on the other hand may show concern or acknowledge the potential for concern, but the real concern hits when it effects them.
No lies, Ive come to believe that most people are generally empathic,an good natured... But our empathy is limited in scope. Thats just how it is. They did a study indicating that humans have at most a few hundred people we genuinely care about. Beyond that, we evaluate the experiences of other human beings through a synthesize of crude stereotypes, projections of our moral beliefs, and personal experience.
When I see a picture of someone suffering who Ive never met, I can empathize with them if I recognize the sadness in their eyes. But if I don't see an image, Ill just evaluate their situation based on experience and moral beliefs. If Ive never experienced what they're, then Ill just evaluate the situation by crudely applying moral beliefs. At that point, Im attempting to understand their experience purely on my own judgements... And in this instance, we often relegate them to the realm of stereotypes. They are peripheral to our field of vision. The danger here is that, in certain circumstances, our field of vision will become narrower and narrower - especially when we live in fear.