Rethinking Sensitivity

I saw a video of a tornado that was on fire yesterday.

It was one of the first things I saw when I opened Twitter- an eight-second video of an on-fire tornado with a helicopter strafing the blaze attempting to put it out. 

I immediately sent it to friends and family of mine in disbelief and did more research into the incident. It’s something that has been seen increasingly more in recent years, with a firenado in Redding, California reaching speeds of up to 140 miles per hour. The drought in western America, warmer temperatures, and acre upon acre of dry vegetation have come together to form the perfect combination for firewhirls to occur.

When I sent this video out to people, there were mixed responses. Some reacted with the same shock as me. I knew about the fires out west, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing something quite like this. Most people, though, responded with borderline indifference. I say borderline because they weren’t completely apathetic. I’m not sure who could look at an on-fire tornado, shrug their shoulders and keep it moving. However, there was absolutely a tone of resignation. This was just something that happens now, and it’s an event that can become a footnote in the public consciousness considering other things that are occurring. Daily developments in Afghanistan, continued coverage of the Delta variant, Hurricane Ida; one can be forgiven for not focusing on firewhirls as much as they probably should. The word “desensitized” was used more than once to describe how one felt, a sense of having seen it all before and being jaded.

I understand that sentiment completely, in a way I’ll elaborate on soon. With that in mind, we as a collective group of people can’t be desensitized to things like this. We must retain our ability to be shocked, to look at catastrophe, and feel horrified. This is much easier said than done, but when it’s done it can have great results that affect the world around us for the better. 

I’m speaking from personal experience when I say this, as I was desensitized to police violence for most of my life. In a fantastic article called The Trayvon Generation, poet Elizabeth Alexander delves into this phenomenon. Near the beginning of the piece, she states:

“I call the young people who grew up in the past twenty-five years the Trayvon Generation. They always knew these stories. These stories formed their worldview. These stories helped instruct young African Americans about their embodiment and their vulnerability. The stories were primers in fear and futility. The stories were the ground soil of their rage. These stories instructed them that anti-black hatred and violence were never far.

They watched these violations up close and on their cell phones, so many times over. They watched them in near-real-time. They watched them crisscrossed and concentrated. They watched them on the school bus. They watched them under the covers at night. They watched them often outside of the presence of adults who loved them and were charged with keeping them safe in body and soul.”

 I can personally attest to this. I was in middle school when Trayvon Martin was murdered. I remember Ferguson and the response to Michael Brown’s murder. I was sitting in bed watching Philando Castile be gunned down. Over time, though, these events stopped being news to me. They never left my mind, but instead became relegated to a place in my head that could be tapped into to keep me alive someday. The best way I can explain it is using another hallmark of my adolescence: mass shootings. The Trayvon generation makes up a part of a larger generation defined by mass shootings: Sandy Hook, Parkland, Aurora, etc. Eventually, the raw shock of these events fades and is replaced by familiarity, a fear that is still present but allows you to function. This is why during the Capitol riot earlier this year, young staffers were able to keep cool heads and barricade themselves efficiently. They tapped into the school shooting drills they had been raised on.

I know the same drills, alongside a different set of drills that comes with interacting with police while black. Being still and keeping your hands visible, not making sudden movements, keeping an even tone of voice, and not giving any reason for escalation while also knowing your rights- it’s essentially a playbook for staying alive. The cost of this, for me personally at least, is that having a playbook eventually overshadowed the fact that the playbook shouldn’t need to exist. Police brutality had cemented itself in my head as a force I need to prepare for, and I consumed innumerable pieces of black death through media in the name of preparation without thinking of the trauma I was ingesting.

Until last year.

The video of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder is what finally broke me. Watching him be shot dead in the street was the first time I felt that raw, unfiltered shock in around a decade. I then realized that I had been so busy prepping for the worst that I had just accepted the worst as inevitable. I regained the ability to say “this isn’t right” without saying “but I’m just going to have to deal with it”. In a turn of events that I never saw coming, the murder of George Floyd seemed to make the entire world do the same thing soon after. It’s the best recent example I can think of when it comes to shock and horror being used as fuel to achieve results. If you want to see how crucial it is to stay vigilant and not jaded, look at those protests.

I completely understand how difficult it can be to stay afloat and energized when you’re being battered by wave after wave of devastation from the news, often from all angles. There’s always something. Everyone is going to deal with that differently, and they should. Take a break from social media if needed, turn the TV off, and prioritize your mental health. Do whatever you need to do and come back when you’re ready. What we can’t afford to do, however, is lose our ability to swim entirely. Accepting the situation and choosing to sink is the only way that we will 100% never reach land.

 There’s plenty more to talk about, plenty more dots to connect, plenty more context to give. We’ll continue doing so next week at 2 PM.