OTM #2: Damned If You Do

So I wanted to point out a very important segment from the latest episode Damned If You Do: How To Write About Native Americans. This was a discussion between the host Bob Garfield and journalist Aura Bogado.

In this segment they're talking about how in the coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline, it is critical for journalists to make sure the important part of the story isn't overlooked. Bogado points out right as the segment begins that Amy Goodman's story, which brought on the national attention, missed the mark with its focus. As we're provided with the opportunity to hear the stories of the Native American's whose futures are at stake, we must take it.

Although there has been a lot of amazing coverage of the people involved, Bogado worried that it was too juxtaposed with the past, and would lead to people feeling that we don't have to deal with it today. She said: "It makes it easier to say things like, 'well they've always been so screwed over' and 'it's just happening again' as if its fate. And I don't think that that's reflective of what's actually happening".

I know for myself that I get that feeling with almost all current issues. It's important to remember, however, that we still hold the power in this country and the only thing holding us back from it... is ourselves. The common belief that "what I do doesn't matter", when it absolutely does. If we just change how we tell these stories, just as Bogado suggests, we could potentially save these tribal nations' future from further assimilation and annihilation. And if we could do that, couldn't we take that farther and save our own earth from the same fate?

Well Informed 2.0: Racism and Law Enforcement

Across different social media platforms we saw the hashtag #blacklivesmatter arise. Soon after came two more hashtags that meant to discredit the first hashtag and create a divide against it. Those hashtags were #alllivesmatter and #bluelivesmatter. The irony of this is that the first hashtag means that black lives matter just the same as all other lives. So these redundant hashtags were pretty much arguing against what they were arguing. It just didn't make sense. What also didn't make sense was the blue lives. Because a profession is not comparable to a race in any way. But these hashtags all have a lot of backing and following despite all of this. It's been incredible to watch yet again our nation split apart instead of coming together over the tragedies that spurred these hashtags in the first place.

Social media has been such a powerful medium in spreading awareness about systematic racism in law enforcement across the country. But for some reason social media has not been successful at all for hosting civil public discourse. There are huge divides for every issue, and it seems unacceptable to be involved and not align yourself with a specific hashtag. And again, remember that they all mean the same thing. I know that the opposing parties believe the same thing too. They just seem to be the people who don't or can't believe that racism and segregation still exists in America, or the people who fear for their friends and families in the police force.

The big question is how do we bring all of these parties together as they should be? I struggle over this question for every major issue, myself. How do we get humans to love and support other humans? It seems so absurd these days, to remember that we are all the same no matter how different we are.

A student mentioned getting cops involved in the community outside of their law enforcement duties, I think that would be incredibly successful in eliminating the us against them mentality from both sides. I also know that cops are trained to kill in the U.S., and maybe if we changed their training they would have other resources at hand in the moment rather than pulling a trigger. What's also missing throughout a lot of these occurrences are ethics and accountability on both sides.

What we can do as a public, would be to make sure the information we view on social media platforms is credible, not react in the heat of the moment, and do more to help the problem rather than only spreading the fire with our fingertips.

OTM #1: Never Again, Again

For this first assignment I went back and listened to an episode from June that discussed the aftermath of the Orlando shootings. More specifically this segment discussed the politics that arose from this event.

"Soon after the news from Orlando broke, the massacre was almost entirely about politics," stated Bob Garfield. "A vehicle for numerous agendas, with the media acting as a prism refracting the event into competing narratives vying for attention." This is important because this has become almost a routine following these types of tragedies in the U.S. Although I did see multiple media outlets shift their entire focus to the victims, the major discussion did circle around the politics involved: gun control, LGBT rights, and terrorism.

I draw attention to this specifically because I find this "routine" to be ironic. The Orlando Shooting was a hate crime. And can't we source hate crimes back to the exact kinds of politics that immediately gain voice in the wake of these events? This heated discussion of politics in the wake of fear and tragedy successfully pits a lot of people against each other. Although the politics are about finding solutions, I think as a nation we have been going about it all wrong.

We can talk about gun control and terrorism (which leads to racism) until we are blue in the face, and we have, but has anything changed? No. In fact these type of events seem to be getting worse and becoming more frequent. We need to change the nature of our discussion, just as some media outlets did when they focused on the victims. It's all too easy for people to ignore the most important issues which is the human loss, and the hate that was responsible for it, and instead align themselves on a side of the resulting arguments.