Who counts as human? Whose lives count as human lives? And finally, What makes for a grievable life?
(Butler, Judith : 2005, Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence, Verso:London, p 20)
There have been so many deaths around the world over the past 18 months and it only seems to be escalating. Terrorist attacks in Paris, Tunisia, Orlando, Nice, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Turkey have resulted in hundreds dead and injured. It’s gotten to the point where we have almost gotten hardened to it, with people hardly bothering now to change their twitter and Facebook profiles in solidarity any longer.
In fact as one person eloquently wrote in the Huffington Post, Je suis epuissee (I am tired), about the phenomenon and how little expressing prayers and solidarity seem to help to change anything See http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jesuis%C3%A9puis%C3%A9-nice-truck-attack-prompts-outpouring-of-exhaustion-with-terror_uk_5788acbde4b08078d6e87440 The article states that, “Collectively these hashtags represent at least 623 dead and 1,248 injured, spread across six countries over just the last 19 months.After each attack the relevant hashtag has trended as people show their solidarity with the victims.” But now people are just tired. One article quoted one tweet as saying Je suis sick of this sh*t.
Then we have the gun violence in the United States, most recently the two incidents where black men where shot to death by cops one on Minnesota, Alton Sterling on July 6, 2016, and another, Philando Castile, in Baton Rouge., Then we have the five policemen who were shot to death by a lone black gunman in Dallas. Most recently, three cops were shot to death in Baton Rouge on July 17, 2016, including a black cop, Montrell Jackson.
Montrell wrote eloquently before his death about his unusual position in American society about the difficulties he faced in being both black and being a policeman who happened to be African American. See http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/baton-rouge-police-officer-montrell-jackson-heartfelt-facebook-message_uk_578c8427e4b0f4bc594762e2
Montrell’s story is not one we hear often. He had multiple identities. He was a man caught between two different identities. As an African American, he was a cop and an African American. One identity caused him grief from people of the other identity. He was getting it from both sides. Actually, we as human beings all have multiple identities. Our identities are made up of our gender, social class, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and a host of other factors. These factors are constantly at play and interact depending on the circumstances and the situation. Also, if we’re committed to grow as human beings, our identities will constantly be changing as we encounter people of different identities and backgrounds who have different perspectives from us. Identity is not static and it is not homogeneous—we are not all one thing as set against a completely other. Identity is literally and figuratively not black and white.
Another story we haven’t heard until recently is that of the Dallas Police Chief, David Brown who is also African American. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/11/dallas-police-chiefs-own-son-died-in-shootout-with-officers-duri/ (This article is a great resource as it gives the names and dates of all those who’ve been killed by police in the last four years or so and gives a list and chronology of all those who’ve been killed in gun massacres in the United States since Obama’s inauguration in Janurary 2009. It is a sobering chronology and well worth noting.) Shortly after becoming the Chief of Police six years previously, his own son died in a shootout with police where his son killed policemen before being shot dead by police. Brown apologized to the victims. Now Brown is in the position of investigating the deaths of five of his men, killed by a sniper. He is quoted as saying the entire profession is “heartbroken and hurting.”
And what about the story of the woman, Diamond Reynolds, who witnessed her boyfriend, Philando Castile, be murdered in the back of the police car on July 7, 2016. Her interview on camera about the police shootings in Dallas, challenges the divide between black, blue, white and brown lives. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/08/remembering-philando-castile-everything-mr-phil-did-was-for-the-kids She is quoted as sayingm “Today is not only about justice, and getting justice … it’s about all the families who have lost people.”
These are also people who have suffered because of their position and identity as African Americans in American society where ‘whiteness’ is still the predominate norm. However, a common theme in all the stories above, is that what unites us is not our color but our common humanity. We all love and live and want a better life for future generations. We want them to flourish and reach their full potential. We do not want our children to suffer injustice and indignity. These three African Americans reached beyond their identities as ‘victims of oppression’ and were not defined by it, but by their common humanity. Would that some critics of Black Lives Matter would do the same and reach out and empathize and listen to the stories of those who are protesting and see their humanity and try to understand where they are coming from.
Similarly, to be LGBT and Hispanic, while something to be celebrated, is a unique challenge in American society where neither identity is yet considered mainstream despite all the gains the LGBT community have made towards acceptance? The Orlando shootings highlighted these complex identities, identities that aren’t necessarily considered mainstream in the United States, but are different variations on what it means to be human. Their lives certainly matter and their stories need to be told, celebrated and mourned for being cut off so prematurely.
People on all sides of the political divides in America have been guilty of politicizing all these lives and politicizing the mourning of these lives by claiming the death of certain individuals and categories of individuals in order to shore up their political positions on the right or the left. For example, Donald Trump immediately took to the twittersphere to stamp his interpretation on the death of the officers in Baton Rouge, quickly blaming the Obama administration for these deaths. He also is guilty of politicizing the deaths of those in Orlando to shore up the pro gun control lobby audaciously at one point claiming if those in the night club in Orlando had had guns, the death toll would have been lower. Meanwhile Democrats and those on the left appropriate these deaths to support their campaign against gun control.
Can we all just stop a minute and mourn all of these lives? Can we reflect on all the different stories that are being told here. Can we celebrate the beautiful paintings of these lives and the tapestry their diverse and colorful strands are and have woven within human history. Our lives are richer because they lived. Without them, the world would be missing something very important. They are all human lives, black and blue, red, white, yellow, brown, etc.
However, when I say this I don’t want to minimize the Black Lives Matter movement. Because they are highlighting an important issue. As I write this on July 21, 2016, another African American, a therapist was shot even though he was on the ground with his arms up in the air begging the police not to shoot him. See http://abcnews.go.com/US/video-shows-unarmed-man-ground-hands-police-shoot/story?id=40760761 He was trying to calm down an autistic child. Fortunately he survived. When, he asked the Miami cop why he shot him, the cop replied, I don’t know.
In the United States, some lives do seem to matter more than others. The deaths of those who died in Orlando, largely from Hispanic and LGBT communities (or an intersection of both), have been more quickly forgotten than white straight victims in past gun shootings. Similarly, how much have those African Americans who lost their lives in the South Carolina church massacre been memorialized and remembered by those outside the African American community. There was a lot of solidarity in the moment, but what’s happened since then?
Let us mourn these lives not only collectively in the sense that all lives matter, because of course they do, but let’s mourn them in their specificity. Let us mourn these lives in a way that recognizes that some lives and identities do occupy a less privileged position in the world, in our nations, than others . Let us mourn them as human beings in all their specificity and diversity. This means that black lives matter in the context of their specificity—the challenges of being African American in the United States where young black men are given the talk by their parents at a young age of how to keep a low profile and to be submissive when confronted by police in order to survive into adulthood. Empathize and consider what it would be like if that was your daily reality? Similarly, Turkish lives matter, Bangladeshi lives matter, Iraqi lives also matter in their specificity as well as the fact that they are all human beings, natals, people born with potential to do new things and to change the world.
And in Western nations, some lives matter more than others around the world. For example, we, myself included, were quick to identify with victims of terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, but less quick to express solidarity with victims of terrorism in Bangladesh, Iraq and Turkey. Why is that? I think it is easier to identify with people who are nearer to us both in geographical and cultural proximity. It takes more effort to identify with others different to us. We are only human and it is a reach to identify with people who are so far away.
That is why story telling, including radio, novels, films, about people who are from different cultures and religions are so important. They help us identify with others in their humanity whilst also appreciating how they’re different from us. They show us different ways of imagining what it is like to be human. They teach us empathy. I love two websites that tell stories that you don’t usually hear here in the UK and in the United States. One is mighty girls https://www.facebook.com/amightygirl/ which is full of current and historical stories of women and girls who are and who have made a difference in the world through their contributions to history, culture, science, literature, space, coding, mathematics, etc. The other is Sister-Hood http://sister-hood.com/which tells the stories of different Muslim women. They are women and grils who are as different from each other as they are from me! It helps me to hear and recognize that there are multiple stories and voices even with in each supposed cultural, racial, religious or ethnic identity.
Because these deaths are public, these lives and mourning these lives have political implications. But can we mourn them in love with the intent to heal rather than in hatred and fear and in attempt to divide? And let’s open our hearts and ears to hear different voices and different stories and celebrate them in all their beautiful multi-faceted, multi-colored splendor.