Mere racism seems too simplistic

As with many people, I've been pretty excited about the goings-on in North Africa and the Middle East, and I started to think wonder why revolutions in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt are such big deals in comparison to the constant turmoil in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa.  Even the genocides in the Sudan and Rwanda were framed in terms of a humanitarian problem rather than as a struggle for democracy.  I think that my knee-jerk reaction to this is that it's racist, but perhaps it's more complicated.  Perhaps it stems from our ally in Israel and our specific military interests.  This is why I think I have the most problem with the neo-cons (though I did watch an interview with Wolfowitz the other day and agreed with a surprising number of things that came out of his mouth.  I do think that ultimately they are less concerned with democracy as a concept and more concerned with military interests.  I wonder what it would take for the US to send a navy ship past the Ivory Coast as it did near Libya.  Perhaps Egypt had such good visuals and symbolism that it was able to get an unbelievable level of television coverage.  Charlie Sheen is currently eclipsing what is going on in Libya because it's more messy, bloody, and will likely end in a country that looks more like the Sudan than what we hope Egypt will look like.  In any case, it's worth asking why the revolutions of certain countries get more press than others, and think that dismissing these discrepancies as racist is too simplistic.  Americans are just as racist if not more racist against Arabs and Persians as they are against sub-Saharan Africans.   Why are conflicts so different in those different parts of the world?