#RuthInAmerica: Looking Away

Mrs. Mamie Kirkland, a 107-year old survivor of a lynching that took place in 1916.

IT IS A natural human reaction to look away when confronted with injury or suffering. I grab a cushion or duck away behind the closest body when there is blood and gore on television. In this era of mass media where drowned refugee children wash up ashore and onto your screen and where ISIS decapitations flood the internet, this reflex can translate into ‘misery fatigue’, the feeling one wants a break from the constant stream of human misery the media … Read more