#especially given the way AI images and videos are poised to skew any “reality” we see on here

[roseseafoam]

My final thoughts about the reporter:

I think it’s crazy to just pass judgment on that situation without looking at the context. I can understand why, but going so far as to read into what someone’s saying and suggesting that they believe their struggle (which, mind you, is also a genocide) is more important due to some inherent “Arab antiblackness”… Without any attempt to directly reach out for clarification. As they’re pointing out aid that should have gone to your country…

I’m going to trust the Sudanese woman who repeated the reporter’s words verbatim and explained exactly what he said. To me that’s a much better contextualization than “sksksk me and the girlies think what he said was super racist, he thinks his struggle is more important than ours, if you know you know!”

Especially given that he stands to materially gain… what, exactly, from the alleged antiblack sentiment? What does he stand to gain from demeaning the tragedy of another group of people in favor of his own? The answer is not hardly clear enough for me to levy that judgment against him, I’m sorry. Especially without at least trying to have a conversation about it first.

A lot of us are going to have to work harder to contextualize both what we see and what people are saying about what we see. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s necessary. We need to be able to think for ourselves. And we don’t have to agree on everything, nor will we. But being able to have these conversations (both among ourselves as to whether something really is antiblackness and with the people who we feel have hurt us) is necessary. If we can’t ask one another, “Do we really think this is the case? Is this indeed what’s going on?” then we’re just setting ourselves up for critical judgment errors in the future.