The news has become a place to justify fear, ignorance, hatred, and prejudice. Kristen Diversi explains why we must change.
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I rarely watch the news. The bloated headlines. The manic anchors. The unwarranted and unwanted opinions of people on topics that they have book knowledge of, at best, a lifetime of beliefs curdled into an agenda, at worst.
The news is not a place where I go to be informed: the facts are few and far between, the speculation rampant. News agencies profit on creating discord in the public, tossing half-formed theories and hearsay carelessly out into the world, like a can of gas onto a bonfire.
Think about it: every day there is a new, emergent issue that is incredibly important and you must deal with it now.
What was it last month? Last year? It’s largely manifested to keep us entertained, to keep us watching.
It’s Info-tainment, a Buddhist teacher once explained. For our viewing, speculating pleasure.
Is it news? Is it happening to me, right now? Do I need to know about it?
The news as info-tainment gives us the option to speculate; to have opinions defined by what we are reading, seeing, hearing.
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There is news, and there are facts, which we all need to know about in varying degrees, as they affect our lives and the world we live in. But then there is what the news has largely become: having opinions on people’s lives, political situations, on scientific facts, such as climate change and evolution.
Most of us don’t know what’s going on in these very complex situations involving other people’s lives, bodies, cities. Most of us are not political analysts, climate change scientists, evolutionary biologists, geneticists.
But info-tainment gives us the chance to be: why do you think Baltimore is falling apart? Why do you think Bruce Jenner is transgender? Tell me, why do you think earth is warming at unprecedented rates?
The news as info-tainment gives us the option to speculate; to have opinions defined by what we are reading, seeing, hearing.
If we are really trying to form an educated opinion, we can learn more about the situation: we can even try to put ourselves in that situation, imagine what it would be like.
But we can’t really know.
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They say Baltimore is burning, and images of violence have filled my screen for weeks, commentary by endless spectators on why and how and who is at fault.
The cops, the blacks, the gangs, the looters, the unemployed, the oppressed, the repressed.
Barely veiled racism covers most of it, and divisiveness and blame rule the day.
Standing by, offering bets on the lives and livelihoods of a city, of thousands of people, the audience drink their coffee and click through sound-bytes, offering perspective that is informed by…?
Have they been to Baltimore? Have they lived there? Do they know the incredibly intricate structure that is poverty? That is inner city living? That is Baltimore?
That is living black in urban America?
I bet no.
How can we help each other through what we’ve learned? Does it make sense to the journey another is on? If so, we share. We learn from each other. If not, we are gracious, and we move on.
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Our perspectives are small. Colored by our own lives, our experiences, how we’ve grown up, in which city, which body, which socioeconomic situation. Parents that hugged us, too much or too little, dinner that was available, how it was eaten, who with, what it was. School that was attended, with bars on the windows or pictures on the walls. Bodies that were celebrated and explored, or that were doubted, and shamed. Jobs taken, opportunities lost. Love and family, loss and hardship.
We can only know ourselves.
We can help each other by trying to share our own small, unique perspectives, and offering what we’ve learned through them.
How can we help each other through what we’ve learned? Does it make sense to the journey another is on?
If so, we share. We learn from each other. If not, we are gracious, and we move on.
That’s it.
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Another story that has dominated the press lately: Bruce Jenner’s gender. Clips and quotes from Bruce Jenner’s interview, lauding him a hero or disparaging him for a freak. (Following GLAAD’s lead, I am using male pronouns until Bruce Jenner makes it clear he wishes otherwise).
Opinions on this person’s life, his body, his very soul.
Have they been a transgender person? Struggled with an identity crisis? Spoken in an interview about a personal issue in front of millions, affecting the lives (for the better, we hope) of more millions of their community?
Do they know the incredibly intricate structure of the brain? Of gender?
It would seem, no.
It’s purely as an example of what is happening in news that I share the above: others benefitting, finding enjoyment in, validation through, another person’s pain.
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I saw one article posted that I choose not to share here, because it doesn’t deserve any more attention. If you’d like to find it, I’m sure you can. It was by an incredibly conservative, popular “Christian” blogger, and basically said, “Bruce Jenner is not transgender: he is a sick, delusional man.”
The piece itself was full of hate speak toward the transgender community, which is terrible and upsetting, but the part that disturbed me was all of the junk science that it quoted as fact.
Religious beliefs that it relied on to assure the reader that their prejudice and intolerance was justified.
All of it, junk science and religion, confirming to the reader that yes, they are perfectly validated in their hatred and judgement.
It’s purely as an example of what is happening in news that I share the above: others benefitting, finding enjoyment in, validation through, another person’s pain.
Another person’s life.
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We don’t need to turn others’ hatred into entertainment.
But that’s part of what we’re doing. Part of what we’re all doing, when we engage in this medium of info-tainment.
It’s not fair or just to compare our journeys, our experiences. To cast stones and throw our opinions at each other like poison daggers because another’s experience was different, for better or worse.
That is a futile exercise: it’s not apples and oranges, it’s coffee cups and Jupiter moons.
It’s not right.
Might the solutions, the answers, to the violence, hatred, and intolerance we see be in listening instead of judging?
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Instead of looking at Baltimore or Bruce Jenner (and every other issue) and using our own experiences of cities, race, police, gender, sexuality, and the multitude of issues that are presenting themselves in these contexts, can we step back and ask ourselves how their experiences are different? What we can learn from these unique perspectives?
Might the solutions, the answers, to the violence, hatred, and intolerance we see be in listening instead of judging?
Peace can be found in deep consideration and a desire to make the world, and ourselves, better.
Not through another click and share, another comparison of our experience to something we cannot know.
Our perspectives are small. But we can be big.
I invite you to be an instrument to spread peace; not a weapon to further increase conflict.
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Photo: Al Ibrahim/Flickr