I found it interesting (from a position of social analysis) and disheartening that the death of a celebrity secondary to mental illness temporarily overshadowed news coverage of the murder of an unarmed teenage boy by a representative of the local government.
Many systems of oppression and power are at play on each situation: on the one, celebrity, addiction, and the stigmatization of mental illness. On the other, privilege, racism, profiling, the inherent discrimination of stop-and-frisk, and the undeniable escalation of violence in areas of lower socioeconomic status. These two tragedies--for this is what they rightly are--display different levels of oppression and ostracization within the same nation.
They should not be compared, or one used to edge the other out of headlines, but both considered and given their time. People are hurting, and to diminish the hurt of a fellow human being because it is not the hurt you are feeling is disrespectful and inappropriate. I find it intolerable to insult the memory of the community around the victim of one tragedy simply because awareness is being raised about a community surrounding the victim of another.
I find it troubling that the murder of an unknown unarmed black male teenager was ignored in the news media to cover, in a sensationalist fashion, the death due to mental illness of a white male celebrity. I find it equally troubling that the memory of the white male celebrity is disrespected as a result of the news media's failure to follow up on the story of the black male teenager.
Overt action is not required to impugn the memory of the black male teenager. It has already been disrespected by being covered up by sensationalist celebrity news coverage. This is unacceptable in a society founded on the belief that all are created equal, and daily it is more apparent to me that that is not true in this nation. This is not a new realization; however, it has been demonstrated to me in the last week in a blatant fashion across social media outlets and selected news coverage sources.
I am committed to work for the system to change. But it takes all of us to change a system that unfairly impugns a tragedy to highlight another. This is why I am in graduate school, this is why I participate and activist work, and this is why I believe it in a radical love for all people. I ask you to recognize the spark of the divine, God, or whatever beliefs system you subscribe to, that is inherent in each human being by virtue of their very being.
We are equal (if not in the eyes of the government, at least in the eyes of the Divine).
We are worthy of notice.
We are deserving of love: we have been loved it since before we understood what love was.
For me, all of these things begin and end it at the principle of radical love. I have love for you, my neighbor; I have love for you, person who does not agree with me; I have love for those I have not ever met; for these are all my neighbor.
It is as important to combat the stigma against mental illness in this country as it is to combat police discrimination and racial profiling that is the direct cause of the death of unarmed and innocent black men. Both of these systems perpetuate death.
The farcical great American melting pot is threatening to boil over. Instead of making us all one, the melting pot erases what makes us different in favor of a narrative that eliminates diversity from being a value, and it stigmatizes anything that does not look white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexual, and middle-class.
Deep wounds have been reopened, scabs picked until they seep, new gashes ripped over fresh scars.
I ask you to treat one another gently, with compassion and grace. Please do not forget that we each carry our own burdens, emotional and physical; as well as the emotional and physical repercussions of past and current events on the local, national, and international stages (why aren't we hearing more about ISIS, re-militarization of Iraq, folks evacuating Syria, debt crises in South America, how many innocent civilians died today across the world?). We cannot guess the sum total of what each person carries within him/her/theirself by scanning their clothing, posture, skin color, and gender expression.
I commit myself to seeing you as a person first, loved and loving. I commit myself to expanding my love to work against systems that perpetuate oppression of and discrimination against my neighbors who don’t look or behave like me. Would you do the same?
