This week’s readings captured unspeakably vile realities of the genocide against the Yazidi people, so much so that it feels disrespectful and silly to try to summarize them for reading response. So much cruelty is enacted by power-drunk people for the sole reason that they can. Why is it that we can revel in somebody else’s excruciating pain? How can we see another as so dehumanized that we can inflict such torture as is described in The Bee Keeper and the Zaman piece? Dehumanization is easy to recognize when it is used to justify horrific acts. But on the topic of dehumanization, this particular quote from the Zaman piece landed particularly unwell with me: “[The Yazidis] typically experience less of the racism endured by other migrants. This is because ‘the German taxpayer understands that their situation is unique, that they have truly suffered’ and therefore takes pride in offering them a haven, Blume explained,” writes Zaman. 

“Truly suffered” – they have “truly suffered” – what does that mean? In my view, this is no true kindness or reduced racism. To look at a group of displaced people and decide not to be racist to them because they have “truly suffered” is dehumanization too. It reminds me that people of color will, in perpetuity, convince the white ruling majority that their suffering is real. They are asked to rehash, perform, confess, and cry while the white jury looks on and decides if it is true enough to reap pity. The pragmatist in me realizes that this is just how it is, and it is ultimately best that they are safe and housed away from harm. The human in me is disgusted. To this end, I do not find the closing comments of the Zaman piece shocking – “we have to hurry. The welcome coming atmosphere of 2015 is no longer here,” interviewee Minnayi says. How could the welcome last if it was never based on real respect or empathy as much as it was self-serving pseudo-heroism?

This brings me to the question posed for this week’s discussion: should journalists sensationalize tragedy to spur action? My response is that I don’t know that it is a meaningful action that will be spurred, especially as it relates to migration. Sympathy brought on by sensation is performative and shallow and only followed through with if it causes no discomfort to the giving party. That is, if people are not educated fully and brought to view others as human – deserving of peace not because they have performed a trauma circus for them – but because we trust them and welcome them because we truly see them as equals. I’m not convinced that journalism that centers on sensationalism can ever encourage a society of equals – is it the practice of consuming sensationalist media itself not somewhat grounded in an inherently patronizing lens? Journalism speaks to the public directly and shapes their view of people they do not know. It seems to me that journalists have a duty to educate rather than sensationalize, although I do not know where that line is in the case of such atrocities.