Mental Health and Black Lives Matter
On the Streets With Photographers of Black Lives Matter Protests Across the U.S.
One would naturally assume that in the event of a widespread uprising against what would be perceived as a clear evil by all, justice and correction would be met in a swift and definite manner.
Apparently though, if there exist entities, persons, that differ in principle from the justice seekers, either by deliberate choice or as a result of deep-rooted conditioning, the fight and the problem in question are far from over.
The Tragedy
May 2020, innocent George Floyd (may his soul rip) unjustly lost his life in the
hands [under the knee] of a three compatriot-backed officer. With a hard-to-watch video earning quite the attention in the media, global rage was immediately triggered.
Let’s rewind a bit, shall we?
Recap….
The year 2020 has proven itself to be pretty much the “crazy deal” if anything so far. The COVID-19 pandemic has had most of the world crippled with many, if not all, having to quarantine within their homes. With practically no where to go and with majority understandably feeling “imprisoned” rather than quarantined.
The only choice left for folks to remain a “part” of the world rather than feel “locked out” was through the media where they maintained (and intensified) active interaction. Frustration levels began to grow over stay-at-home orders and soon some multitudes made their way to the streets, holding anti-lockdown protests with ignorant excuses some of which included “wanting a hairdo”.
Then “it” happened.
Last Straw (or was it the first one? )
With heightened levels of frustration, despair and agitation that people had been harboring over weeks and months of quarantine, the unjust death of George Floyd inevitably triggered an avalanche of the difficult series of events we have and are still witnessing.
The Black Lives Matter movement has had a blistering intensity which has the entire world forced to pay attention closely with many other similar protests occurring in solidarity outside the United States.
From there on, it has just kept getting wilder. Each event unfolds another which unfolds yet another in what has been a pattern of long ignored, suppressed and muted injustices sprouting to the surface of attention at a time when tensions are high.
Chaos
A typical pattern in the Black Lives Matter movement is how there’s been tons and tons of very disturbing content continually posted all over the media from both recent and old times that it’s become pretty unbearable to look at a screen.
One day you find (and take part in) media rage over an incident that happened during a protest, the next day it’s about taking down “all lives matter” protagonists and the next it’s about a “fresh” unjust killing or the comments of a celebrity / politician, and then it’s the pain of the experiences a victim once suffered, then it’s screenshots of disgusting chats with racists.
It’s this… and then it’s that… then it’s the other…. and it just keeps going on and on. You’d have to wonder how many of us today will make it to 2021 in one piece (if at all). Every time you look at the screen of your gadget you’d have to brace yourself.
Nearly all the content on the media, as much as it may seek to serve a just purpose, can be pretty much “tiresome” to the soul. There’s so much graphically sensitive content on the media right now that, for “soft” people (like myself) can be potentially harmful to mental well-being.
On the media it’s pretty much topics of murders, rape, racists, Trump (yes: Trump), police brutalities, gang attacks…. (I don’t want to go on). It’s really just anger, stress, pain and tears, death and violence, insults, lies and “rough arguments” every single time you’d look at the screen and it feels like emotional and and mental stress.
Yet we keep going back because we feel we “need to know”. We’re scared of being “left out” and “left behind” as events keep happening around the world. This can be self harming nothing more nothing less. I listened as an African American man said it hurt when he re-watched videos of racist acts as it “reinstates the feeling of inferiority”.
You have to fear for the black and colored children getting the message that the world is cold and unwelcoming for their appearance. It’s telling them that being born black is being born with a “disability”. This is a world with ugly people, and that’s why we’re fighting this fight.
Things aren’t going well at this point, with everything that’s happening around the world. There is need of justice for all the racially and sexually abused, there is need of a pandemic-free world, and there is need of mentally healthy global citizens (which is on a sharp downward spiral).
Self-justice
Two days after George Floyd’s death, I noticed quite a couple of people announcing they’d “stay away” from social media platforms (Twitter especially) for a while. They were either being portrayed by majority of media users as ‘hypocrites’ or ‘racists who couldn’t stand watching blacks fight for their rights’.
A day later though, stress and anxiety stemming from the content I was feeding on in the media, began to get to me and then I understood, for sure, why it was necessary to give the media a rest. The truth is, it really wasn’t about giving the media a rest but about giving myself a breather.
If you feel you need to get so actively involved in all that’s going on with the fight for the black community, please do, it’s a good fight and a just cause to fight for. Do not restrain though, to slow down or step aside when you feel your back is beginning to break. It’s not being a coward or a hypocrite.
It’s also not ‘turning your back’ on the movement or abandoning it and neither is it ‘giving up’ (who says you can’t come back once you’re recharged). It’s you ‘not turning your back on yourself’. You’re building a much needed resilience that both you and the fight for justice will largely benefit from. You’re pulling together pieces of your soul to recreate your composure and establish fresh strength and energy at a time when most people are far too out-worn by crisis.
So go ahead, take some time off the app. Take the time to heal yourself. Engage in something less aggressive in nature. Listen to your favorite music. Write in your journal. Talk to loved ones. Go on walks, but be sure to wear a mask and keep at least 6 feet apart from people (don’t forget we’re still in a pandemic )
Self care is self-justice.
