The Problem We All Live With

Hello world! It’s been a little while, but I’m finally back again — there is something particularly painful about working in lockdown and my creativity was honestly non-existent. Fortunately, it’s the summer break now which means that I will have much more time for writing. And what better way to kick things off than with a good old opinion piece? I recently had a debate with one of my sisters over this (when I say debate, I mean that I talked at her for 10 minutes before she got fed up and changed the subject) and thought that it was pretty thought-provoking so hopefully it will be interesting to read about!

I chose the name of a Norman Rockwell painting as the title of this blog [post], so let me explain my thought process. ‘The Problem We All Live With’ was published in 1964 and depicts Ruby Bridges, an African-American girl who was among the first black kids to be sent to white schools during the New Orleans desegregation crisis. I researched it as part of a coursework assignment for Art History, so I’m constantly thinking about it. It feels like a particularly relevant artwork at the moment as it was originally painted in the 60s, when the Civil Rights movement was at the forefront of current affairs in the US. Today’s movement bears strong similarities to that of the 60s as Black Lives Matter is finally being paid proper attention to — however, it has also revealed once again ‘the problem(s) we all live with’. My take on a ‘Problem’ may not align with everyone’s beliefs, but I think it is something that needs to be discussed.

Let’s start with this photo. I originally came across it in a post by the Instagram account @feminist (I learnt today that the account is run by men which makes me somewhat uncomfortable, but that’s another debate), with the caption: ‘That look on Trump’s face when he arrived back at the White House, after Gen Z’ers on TikTok and K-Pop fans pranked him into thinking 1 million people were going to attend his hate fest in Tulsa, but only 6,200 showed up.’ First of all, let me just say that not only was this hilarious, but a completely brilliant political strategy that makes me proud to be a part of Gen Z. Additionally, I think that Trump entirely deserves what happened to him and any other misfortunes; the fact that he held a campaign rally during the ongoing pandemic is shocking and I believe that the detrimental effect he has had on human rights and the general state of affairs internationally is immeasurable. In a nutshell, I can’t properly express how much I dislike this man and the climate of hatred he has created in a country that I don’t feel safe about going to.

However — when I saw this photo, I felt sad. I won’t go as far to say that I felt sympathy for Trump, but I was saddened by the dejected expression on his face. I immediately questioned myself and my response as I could not fathom why I would ever experience any emotion other than disgust towards Trump. At the most basic level, I put it down to fundamental human empathy — that no matter who it is, I find it sad to witness human suffering. And to an extent, this is true — regardless of how deserving an individual is of it, I have always been affected by the suffering of others.

Nevertheless, I began to think about other examples of when I have come across images of human suffering. An obvious example was the photos of Yemeni children dying of starvation that are currently circulating on social media. I came to the conclusion that while they were appalling to me as these children are in the most distressing situation anyone could imagine, I did not have an emotional reaction to them in the same way as I had had to the photo of Trump. Don’t get me wrong — this was a pretty disturbing realisation. At first, I could not think of a single reason as to why this could be the case and I was horrified at myself for seeming to be apathetic towards the suffering and anguish of people from the country of my ancestors.

After further reflection, I reached a sort of explanation — and while it is not necessarily perfect, I think it does point towards the ‘Problem’ I have mentioned earlier. Typically, the photos we see of Trump in the media show him smiling vindictively, yelling or just looking plain stupid. On the other hand, I have personally never seen a photo of a Yemeni child that is not suffering. Therefore, while I have been (sickeningly) desensitised to the sight of starving children, seeing Trump looking unhappy for once is surprising. And I think this can apply to a wide range of cases of the portrayal of human suffering — take the fetishisation of black trauma, for example. After the death of George Floyd, my feed was overflowing with videos of police brutality towards African-Americans. As someone who is black, I found it to be damaging to my mental health in the first place, as it hurts to see someone who could have been an aunt or uncle or cousin killed at the hands of racists. However, on top of this, the same people who were posting these videos or images were actually doing relatively little to share useful resources which made me begin to question why we circulate photos of human suffering at all.

I won’t deny the importance of visuals to ‘shock’ people into action. If the video of George Floyd’s death did not go viral, I doubt that it would have had the response that it has. But there is a limited extent to which posting photos and videos of people dying, whether they are Black Americans or Yemenis or refugees from war-torn states, is actually useful. And while families often give permission for such images to be shared, it sometimes just feels disrespectful to these individuals’ memories.

Therefore, this is what I think one of the ‘Problem(s)’ with the 21st century BLM movement is. Although it has been heartwarming to see so many non-black friends jump earnestly into allyship, I believe that in the long term, the way in which support is shown for black people has to be rethought. While victims of police brutality have to be commemorated, if someone shares a five minute video of somebody dying and then takes no action to work towards dismantling the racist system that lead to their death, this exercise is completely worthless and we will not see change.

So, I’m back to my old opinionated self. I really do understand how controversial these issues can be and fully welcome other viewpoints — it’s so important to me to hear what other people have to say about this. In the meantime, please sign this Amnesty petition https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/reform-us-policing/) because believe it or not, they’re still protesting in the US and racism hasn’t quite been eradicated yet!