Peter Nickeas, crime reporter for the Chicago Tribune, made a public Facebook post:
The difference between the shooting this morning in Virginia and every other act of gun violence is that the internet had to see the fear on a woman's face as she realized she was about to die.There is a regularity to violence in urban areas. Today everyone saw what violence looks like, except the victims are usually a little younger and have darker skin. It's not often on tape so the reaction isn't so visceral. This is what violence feels like to people who see it happen, we can now all say, because we've all seen it happen.
In Chicago alone, it happens more than 2,000 times each year. Go to a crime scene and ask kids if they have seen someone shot. And the answer will be, "well, the first time ..." What the Internet is going through right now is almost a rite of passage for kids in urban areas.
So for everyone sitting at work saying, "man, that video messed me up," well, yea. It should mess you up. It's a disgusting thing to watch. For everyone who says "I can't even" or "I need to disengage today," those are normal reactions to exposure to violence. Seek help if seeing people get hurt doesn't bother you.
And, the emotional me wants to grab people by their collars and drag them to a crime scene so they can see the ghostly faces of people who saw it happen lingering around waiting for detectives, or the anger behind someone's eyes while they sit there staring at the body.
The logical me knows that's not right. I can't begrudge someone for being fortunate enough to have never seen or been exposed to violence.
I was stewing on all this on the train this morning. I was (and sort of still am) having a hard time with educated people from nice homes in nice neighborhoods who went to nice schools being outraged by something that is a regular occurrence. (Just this morning, someone shot into a crowd with an automatic weapon on the West side, killing one and wounding three others.)
I thought, to myself, I can't deal with the outrage and the hot takes and the grief, so I'm just going to leave social media for the day. I'm going to transcribe interviews and enjoy the scanners and go to an event for work tonight, maybe have a giant glass of Jameson when I get home and sleep in tomorrow.
And this woman stepped on the train, I think it was at Damen, with a small child in a stroller. She was 9 months old, wore a white bonnet, a blue-and-white striped shirt and had giant brown eyes. Her eyes moved around the train, from face to face, soaking it all in. She had a sort of mischievous grin. (One that my father would call "a shit-eating grin.")
She made faces at me, I'm fairly certain, so I made faces back. The woman who was sitting next to me was waving and seemed to derive great pleasure from seeing the child find delight in new sights and sounds. Innocence personified.
So I go back and forth between - this world is fucked, that it's in someone's head to film a murder and upload it to social media. But there's some good to live for, even if it's just children who haven't yet had to face the reality that everyone today is now facing.
It hurts to think though that this chubby-cheeked child with endless curiosity and eyes that could melt you is going to grow into a world where, yea, seeing violence is sort of normal. And if she lives in any number of areas in this city, it will probably happen sooner than later. A friend, a relative, a loved one.
Kids in urban areas don't have the option to turn off social media if they don't want to see violence. They can't just say, I'm going to stay off Twitter. It's real life, it's not a video on the internet. They stay on the block. It's a relative who was shot, or beat, or stabbed. Or worse, it was them.
Kids see the "oh shit" look on someone's face right before they get shot. And the video doesn't cut off. They hear the gunfire, see the body, see the police, see how the family reacts. Soaking it all up. And we wonder why a percentage of kids end up violent or starving for adult attention when they have to internalize all that anger and grief that the internet, collectively, felt today.
You wouldn't show the videos to your nieces and nephews. You'd go to great pains to prevent it from happening. City violence, any city, is often met with a collective "shrug."
I'm sorry everyone had to see those videos. I am. But also ponder that feeling you have in the pit of your stomach and the effect it might have on someone half your age who doesn't get to look away.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 27 August 2015 05:01 (ten years ago)