Navigating Collective Grief.
When catastrophic events take over the news cycle. CW- Death & Grief.
Early Tuesday March 26th, 2024 most of America if not the world, woke up to the horrifying news and video footage of a cargo ship collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Maryland entirely. Since then, we have re-watched people, going about their business, live out their last terrifying moments on our phone screens.
The generations that lived through 9/11 can confirm that there something in your brain chemistry changes when you take in watching people en masse die on t.v. That sinking feeling in my chest has stayed there for decades and feels very fresh watching that timelapsed video (with commentary, like wtf?) of the boat striking this bridge.
Collectively, my generation has not been okay since seeing our parents watched people jumping out of windows escaping fire. I did discuss this with my therapist back then too but even now, this writing itself is me, grappling with the psychological and societal implications of consuming so much violence, death and truama for so long. Making it through the internet and social media as it transformed before our eyes, couldn’t have helped much either. I remember being a teenager consuming car accident videos at the mildest, if not outright human death. And I don’t mean I actively sought these things, they were readily available, porn and violence pop-into our timelines more often than any of us are comforable with.
If you live on the East Coast, especially the DMV, you’ve probably transversed through the bridge at some point in your life, and like all human beings with brains that connect dots and hearts that feel empathy, you too feel the cut a little deeper when thinking of your fond memories and connections to this State and City in grief and under states of emergency. No matter the connection, without much thought, one might feel inclined to share the news or post the video of the accident. Today I challenge us to think before we share though.
A few years ago, I lost someone precious and innocent to me in a very public way. I won’t ever forget the pain of reading stranger’s comments on my grieving sister’s parenting when a small town news reports of my nephew’s accidental drowning hit the internet. Unbeknownst to our family, Climate Reality had hit us: after a strong hurricane a sink hole was created in an otherwise shallow area of beach which had claimed another life a year prior. There was no signage then, there was no way of knowing that a few steps away from ankle deep water laid a 20 foot drop. It was an unfortunate accident, with deeper reasons that we could have known then, it was and is heartbreaking. And every share, comment and opinion on social media on our family tragedy rubbed salt on our fresh wounds.
I commend the Mayor of Baltimore Brandon Scott for calling the media and public in to stop sharing the videos of the impact, as these images are triggering to the families of those lost as well as any survivors. Facing not just a catastrophe to his City, he’s also facing the most spectacularly mediocre racists opinions on the internet. Blaming hundredths of years of inequalities that this Black and Immigrant City has faced on one man is absurd and not shocking. Because all of this always goes back to inadequate infrastructure and the willingness of our elected officials to approve budgets and bailouts for corporations and other nations waging war and genocide but not one cent going to help our large cities help accommodate more people, focus on them being climate ready, catastrophe proof and creating Green and Blue jobs in the process. And how the most vulnerable are always affected first, as we begin learning of the migrant status of the construction workers who died. We know that those that drive our industries forward are also at the front lines of catastrophic events like this and I hope in the weeks coming that their families are well taken care of and feel surrounded by community support. And that we name the deeper issues affecting our lives and futures.
Capitalists are already seeing this tragedy as an opportunity to profit with talks of “expect prices to go up” on the media not a day after the collapse. People have not been recovered, families notified yet economists are crunching numbers to figure out how much more price gouging people will take when faced with a National tragedy unfolding.
