What is wrong with simply observing the world?

First, we must recognize what It means to ‘observe’ which is from my understanding being able to notice/perceive what is in front of you and then register it as being important. But if all you are doing is observing, how can you create a change? You can not. The only way people can make a change is through ‘doing’, so action. Observation without action is reflected in Elie Wiesel’s famous quote “What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.” All this can directly relate to the issue of racism, which is prevalent everywhere you look or go around the globe and is a huge problem that a lot of people face in there day to day lives. People are just simply observing and not attempting to act upon this, allowing the problem to continue being a problem.

Racism includes the assumption that people of a specific race share inherent traits and qualities, and that people of different races deserve dissimilar types of treatment in society. The term is often associated with acts of prejudice, violence, oppression and discrimination purely based on ethnic differences. The disease of racism may exist in the mind/hearts of masses around the world but when racism is acted upon, particularly by a group of people, things may become dangerous and even deadly. For example, World War II, which killed 52 million globally. The Nazi genocide against Jews, Gypsies and non-whites to name just a few, were a strong example of racism. Can you believe that people were killed because one race of people thought they were more superior than the other? Now as a media practitioner we have the ability to influence larger audiences and cause meaningful and positive changes on political issues, such as racism. We have seen racism on a bigger scale, but that does not mean we can look past the racism people experience in work places, school and just in everyday life. More than half of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who experience ethnic discrimination suffer psychological distress, which may lead to developing anxiety or even depression. So, it is evident that Racism can affect people both mentally and physically. We can longer just stand here and observe this sickening behaviour and mistreatment of innocent people whilst having the capabilities of raising awareness and educating anti-racism, because just observing makes you a “bystander” and without raising our voices we can detriment our future generations society.

Just observing the world and its problems without challenging them can cause the issues to continue and risk getting worse. Watching oppression helplessly does nothing to fix and improve the issue at hand. 13th (2016) a documentary directed by Ava DuVernay, explores the “intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States;” the name of the film is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which freed the slaves and prohibited slavery. This powerful film is about the history of racial inequality in the United States and draws attention to the fact that the nation’s jails are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. What I want to draw from this film is the problem with turning a blind eye and allowing racism to go on for generations, the film explores the demonization of minorities through these decades to serve political ends, which contributed to unrealistic fears of minorities by whites. Not only that but African-Americans, even currently, 30 plus years after the civil rights movement, are oppressed in countless ways. What this tells me is that we as humans have just been “bystanders” for countless decades allowing racism to pass and go on and thus racism is still evident in todays society and if we don’t start to ‘do’ and implement change it will still be an issue for our future society. What Ava DuVernay did as a media practitioner is what all media practitioners should be doing because with this art form and technology we have access to in this day and age, we are able to reach large amounts of people much easier.  And by reaching out to these people we as influencers can contribute to the awareness and are able to educate people by confronting them with the harsh reality of issues in today’s society through different approaches, such as the one DuVernay took a more in your face, confronting yet informative film which depicts the severe reality of racism in America.  For example, I’ve been working on a documentary addressing the issue of recycling, for assignment 3. How this relates is through the different ways I can address the problem through a documentary but making sure the message is highlighted and easy to understand all through the film, in my case I wanted to create a narrative and tell a story rather than having boring interviews and facts. That way I can make my documentary much more confronting and, in your face, the same way Ava DuVernay did in her film, because I believe the more truthful and confronting films are the ones with the most impact to influence people into wanting to make a change and act upon the issues instead of remaining silent and allowing the issue to continue.

If we didn’t have media practitioners to express issues in their art forms, it would be a waste of reach, I would even consider it turning a blind eye to the problem which is as bad as the actual issue. Because as I said earlier If all you are doing is simply ‘observing’ how can you create a change, in order for a change to happen there must be a catalyst and the catalyst in this instance is “action”, only then will we be able to begin to get rid of the issues which are widespread in he world. Instead of staying silent, we can make our voices heard using new media and spreading knowledge/awareness of issues which need to be addressed.