I know that a lot of people went to petition for more coverage of the genocide in Darfur by the San Francisco Chronicle today, and I had some interesting experiences that made me think about this class, so I thought I'd write a little about them and maybe some other people could, too? Jillian and I were going up to people sitting on benches; many of them were very nice and supportive. We met one man who told us "You do know that this isn't going to do anything, that this means nothing at all, and that they won't look at this, right? What you should really do is start a blog." We then got to tell them that our class had a blog about genocide and human behavior. It also made me wonder if this guy was right. If a newspaper isn't covering something, there's probably a reason. This made me question what that reason was. Maybe that's a very naive question and the answer is staring me in the face, but I can't seem to understand their motivation for not covering it, or at least not very much in proportion to the number of important occurrences taking place there. If anybody had asked about that I would not have been informed enough, but nobody did.
I think the scariest thing we encountered was a genial elderly woman reading a romance novel. We went up to her and started to give her the mini-talk about how despite the fact that there was a mass murder occurring, it was getting minimal coverage in the Chronicle. She asked a question, and we proceeded to give her more details about the genocide. Then she started laughing kindly, and said. "Oh. Well, I don't really care!" We knew that there are people who don't care about this in the world, but to be faced with it so bluntly was very shocking, and we didn't really know what to say. Part of me wanted to say "Well, you should, hundreds of thousands of people are being killed," but I knew that acting discourteously would not help anyone. I think what shocked me more than anything was the way that she was so friendly in this statement, as though it was just that she did not care about whether it would rain today. When I think about people who don't care about the genocide occurring, I don't tend to picture them as friendly or nice, and this woman showed me how universal this apathy could really be. It was a very frightening thought.
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I'm glad you posted a response to your experience today, katie, because nina moog and I had some pretty unnerving conversations today as well. We approached one older man who was sitting outside a coffee shop (with a younger man, who, consequently, went to Lick). Before Nina and I had finished our short speech about what we were doing, he grumpily interrupts us by telling us we are too late in our efforts. "You're four years too late," he exclaimed with obvious annoyance. His reaction caught me completely offguard, because while I sympathize with his frusteration, I was very surprised that he was taking it out on me and Nina. A bit bizarre. While we were able to find encouragement from groups of willing and supportive teens, there was one group of college-aged guys, who, when asked to sign our petition, looked at us with blank stares. One guy wandered off, while another said, "Uh, I have no idea what that's about, but I'm assuming it's bad since it's a genocide..."
All in all, it was an interesting and slightly unsettling experience...thanks to Sam and Kelsey for planning and executing such a great thing.
Kelsey and I also went petitioning today, and we had similar experiences. A lot of people were interested in the cause, but a lot of people waved us away or said "not right now", without really listening to what we were saying. We approached one woman waiting for the bus at Embarcadero station and asked her to sign the petition, and she said "I don't care about Darfur", which was shocking to both of us. I was also suprised by the number of people who didn't know about the genocide. Several people asked where Darfur was, and some were apparently unaware that it was happening at all and had to ask what was going on. I'm suprised and disappointed that something so horrific as the government murdering their own people could go unknown by so many people, which i guess is why we organized this petition in the first place. It was an interesting and ultimately rewarding experience to be the upstander, instead of a bystander.
In response to Katie's question about the reason the paper won't cover, it's that a newspaper is a business, and it's primary purpose is to sell papers. I'm guessing the Chronicle thinks that news about Darfur (and this goes for international news in general, also) isn't as interesting to people as more local or human interest stories and putting that on the front page will sell less papers than a story about lost whales. (Ok, an extreme example, but I personally do not believe that deserved front page coverage) And also they have far less reporters and budget to do international news: they recently laid off a quarter of their newsroom staff to cut costs.
The question about news media and genocide is do people feel disconnected from an issue like darfur and therefore won't read about it, or do they feel disconnected because newspapers like the Chronicle doesn't have prominent coverage of it? What causes what?
I'd like to add that I think this petition was a great idea precisely because it shows them that people are interested in Darfur coverage and will read about it, especially since teenagers organized it, and they're a demographic newspapers are worried about losing to information from other sources.
To answer Diego, I think people tend to feel disconnected from events when they are happening far away from them, as goes the saying, "Out of sight, out of mind." We discussed this a little at the beginning of the quarter, and I remember that we also came to the conclusion that if one does not share national, religious, or ethnic ties with a group, sometimes it is harder to feel any connection.
I think this built-in disconnect causes the disinterest. Just looking at all of the articles about the Armenian genocide in the New York Times and the lack of action on the part of the American public, I think that the apathy comes first.
Another reason for disinterest is that the news covers so many disasters every day, sometimes people just get tired of hearing about all of it and want to tune it out. Last year when Agape showed the documentary Invisible Children about child soldiers in Uganda, people expressed these opinions. Several people told me they weren't coming because it was going to be "too depressing" and that they were "depressed enough and didn't need anymore downers." I think this is pretty sad coming from more than just a few Lick students. I am saddened by the fact that many people disregarded the Darfur petition, but at the same time, looking at my experiences with Lick students, I am unfortunately not all that shocked.
I agree with everyone's comment about this weekend. i totally agree that because the public does not see how we can affect and help the genocide, there's no need to really listen. Plus, we could be selfish and ignore petitioners (hope that's a word) because they "always" ask for money. I think it's due to pop culture as well-what's gonna sell: Britney Spears' failure at being a mother, or the genocide in Darfur?
While I did not go petitioning today (which actually would have been very interesting), I have a different comment to make. I am doing an independent study in French this semester with Kelsey and Emily and we've been reading different newspaper articles from Le Monde, the French newspaper. Today I read one on Darfur and then it hit me that I was actually reading newspaper article on Darfur. I then went to the archive on Le Monde and searched under "Darfour" and just for in the last month, a lot of articles popped up. This really surprised me because I thought the coverage in France would be similar to that in the U.S. It seems that other countries (or at least France) are following the crisis and giving it more media attention than us. Why might this be? Is it because they're closer than we are (like Melanie suggested)?
In response to Aileen's comment, I also find that very surprising and also embarrassing for America as well. If what Diego said is true, and that newspapers are largely motivated to print what sells, then why does the French public have the interest (and heart) to pay to read about the atrocities that are going on in Darfur, and we aren't? Despite location and the fact that they may be a little closer geographically than the US is to Sudan, we are both still completely separate and different countries, so location shouldn't be an excuse.
I was talking to Nina about her petitioning experience and she said that she was talking to people and having them sign lined pieces of paper with no descriptions above or any sort of detailing/writing on them, and I got to wondering if the presentation of the petitions affected people's responses to them or the petitioners.
I feel like presentation and the first impression of documents is really important in how significant people feel they are. For instance when you see an official form with a letter head/logo/address/stamp/seal, you take it very seriously, but when you see a hand drafted document, you might disregard it automatically. I don't mean to discount any of the work or petitions people did and gathered this weekend, but I am just saying it's a possibility this affected the response people had.
I would also just like to note that there was an article about Darfur in today's paper; there was also an opinion piece in Sunday's paper. This makes me really optimistic about the Chronicle; perhaps they have made an independent decision to publish more about the genocide.
On another note, in response to what the man said to Katie and I about how he thought what we were doing what completely pointless and, as he said himself "Ultimately a complete waste of our time," it really made me think about what the point of the petition was. Obviously, it was to get the Chronicle to publish more about the genocide in Darfur, but while it is unlikely that our petition will significantly impact the events the Chronicle decides to cover, I think the greatest impact we could have had was to teach people about it ourselves and raise awareness. If one person that Katie and I met learned something new about their world on Sunday, or if they were inspired to take action or go online and read more about the genocide on their own, then I think I accomplished something really important.
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