Refuse to look away

 So, there's a saying that goes "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." 

Very occasionally, I get called out for sharing too much "doom and gloom" on my own Facebook page. I suppose I find myself feeling outrage more frequently than is comfortable for others.

The United States media has finally started to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe, and the most prominent example has been a photo of a little boy, drowned and washed up on a beach. CNN posted the photo on their social media outlets, and there was immediately a backlash against them for doing so.

The backlash against the news media for sharing the photo infuriates me. Why? Because if our news organizations were doing their real job, we would probably all be feeling a little more squeamish and a little more outraged quite a bit more often. Instead, our news organizations are reduced to feature factories, and they only give us what we want to see. 

And if you believe what you see news organizations posting on social media most of the time, the only things we really are interested in seeing are stories about celebrities, bad boy politicians and whatever the sensationalist reality star of the week has to offer. I know that I am not the only one who sees all this garbage and asks "where is the news?".

Do you wonder why it's so easy for Americans to say that we should just go after extremist groups like ISIS? It's because we rarely have to see what the outcome of "going after" people is. We don't have to see thousands of our citizens under siege on a daily basis. We don't have to fear for our lives to go to the grocery store, where the shelves are often empty. We don't have to consider fleeing our homes for foreign lands because our own country has become too dangerous to hope for a future.

If our journalists were allowed and encouraged to do their jobs as intended, we would have a much better grasp on how to be grateful for the relative comfort and safety we enjoy compared to so many other corners of the world. 

A lot of people are also asking why Europe should be expected to take in so many of these refugees, and not neighboring countries. On some levels, that is a valid protest. After all, Europe has become the "go to" for much of the world's "tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free." While on vacation in Ireland a couple of times, we have witnessed the resentment against foreign immigrants who are welcomed and who often receive government assistance. 

On the other hand the West, including and especially the United States, bears at least some responsibility for foreign policies that have taken an unstable area of the world and destabilized it even further. Somehow, many of us still believe that our interests outweigh the lives of innocent men, women and children. And yes, there are plenty of innocents, including Alyn Kurdi--that little boy on the beach. They are just like you and me and our own children--trying to live their lives and get through day-to-day. Only they are under the constant threat of gunfire, violence, food shortages and inconceivable fear. 

But up until this week, we didn't have to face any of it. We didn't have to see the bodies of drowned toddlers washed up on a beach. We didn't have to think about the pain and suffering of others, thousands of miles away. Out of sight, out of mind. 

Very recently I ran across a quote by a college professor that seemed very comforting and reassuring: 

"You all have a little bit of 'I want to save the world' in you, that's why you're here, in college. I want to tell you that it's okay if you only save one person, and it's okay if that person is you."

I took comfort in the quote because it gave me permission to continue working on restoring what has been broken about myself, without worrying so much about the rest of the world. It was comforting to be given permission not to be strong enough, at this time, to take action on behalf of my fellow man or woman. And though the statement doesn't say it, one might even feel permitted to look away from that which is too much to deal with right now.

Sadly, I think we all give ourselves permission to look away, even when we do possess the wherewithal to make a difference for others. We live in a climate that makes it okay to be more concerned about what someone in need might take from us, even if we have nothing for them to take, than what we can offer to give to them freely. In a world where one percent of our nation's population possesses the majority of the wealth, how does it make sense that so many among the remaining ninety-nine percent of us feel so threatened by a single mom who needs food stamps? Calls for drug testing are raised by people who are, themselves, living paycheck to paycheck. We automatically assume that a person who needs help could not possibly have a legitimate claim, even though we might very well be in their shoes if the right set of circumstances befell us.

We had guests from out of town over the Fourth of July this year. In the course of conversation, my husband mentioned having seen real poverty in our neck of the woods. One of our friends posed the question: "what are you doing about it?" The answer, though honest, was embarrassing. Nothing. I know that I talked about intentions--most to be fulfilled when we were done "saving ourselves." 

I think we get so caught up in "saving ourselves" and protecting what's mine that we forget we are part of a bigger picture. Even if we don't all share the same god, or share a god at all, we should at least be able to share our humanity.

A friend reminded me today that a very wise man once said "We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies. But will we be that generation?"

That statement applies to more than the children of Sub-Saharan Africa that Bono was talking about. We have the power to do the very simplest thing: Refuse to look away. Even when the image angers you--especially when it angers you--refuse to look away. Even when the image brings tears to your eyes, and makes you hug your own children tighter--refuse to look away. Refuse to look away.

So, yes, I am still working on "saving myself" a little. But, I was wrong about something. I was wrong to agree that I am doing nothing. I do refuse to look away, and sometimes, I hope I am not the only one who sees and tries to give those visions a voice.

 

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