The painful image of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, who drowned in the Rio Grande while trying to get into the United States, is burned into my memory. Part of the permanence of that image in my mind is because it’s everywhere. A number of publications, and many of my Facebook friends, shared the photograph.
Everyone had a reason for why we had to see their lifeless bodies. Media outlets saw the image as an aspect of uncensored news coverage, which I personally saw as an attempt to increase clicks. My white liberal friends had better, albeit misguided, intentions. They suggested we needed to open our eyes to the seriousness of the immigration crisis. They penned long statuses about how we have to stop ignoring what’s happening to folks whose only crime was seeking a better life. But it felt like the way they were doing it, by circulating such a heartbreaking image, was all wrong.
For nearly a week, I scrolled my timeline with my eyes partially closed in anticipation, as I never knew the next time the photo could reappear. It wasn’t about censorship, or facing the realities of migrant struggles: It was about trauma.
I didn’t understand how to verbalize what I felt until my friends of color spoke out on why sharing these images was a form of violence. I felt that, and also saw it as a grim reminder of the disposability of black and brown bodies for the purpose of media sensationalism.
As a black woman, I didn’t need to see lifeless bodies, particularly that of a young child who is right between my own children in age, in order to sympathize with their struggle. I’ve seen countless images of black death over the years, potentially to the point of racial trauma.
I don’t need any more images.
When you understand that we all have value, regardless of country of origin, you don’t need to see people in death to connect with their struggle. In some ways, though, the image made me feel more connected to other people of color, since our experiences are different manifestations of the same struggle.
But it also got me thinking. There have been few, if any, times I’ve witnessed the same depictions of lifeless white bodies. Between all the shootings, murders, and mishaps that have ended people’s lives during my lifetime, I just can’t recall it. I’m not saying it never happens (or that I want to see it), but it doesn’t seem to happen nearly as often.
With white death, as with white crime, we typically get professional pictures that show moments of joy. At worst, we see the scene where the body was found, strewn with police caution tape. But we hardly ever see white youth, severed and bleeding, like we do black and brown children in the U.S. or children abroad, like in Syria. The way we talk about citizenship, similar to how we talk about police brutality, is very much racialized. I’d argue that the way we show death is influenced by the same forces.
Motherhood has changed the way I see things. It’s forced me to take a look at the global impact of whiteness as the standard, along with how it silences all of us. The otherness experienced by black and brown folks across the globe is undeniably connected.
It’s perplexing how easily some people of color can rationalize what's happening at our borders. It’s not just about citizenship: It’s about racism and whose presence in the U.S. is deemed valid.
Despite there being immigrants from a wide array of cultures and colors, we’ve been convinced that immigrants are brown. We’re even fine with legislation founded on racial profiling being used to “send them back.”
Our acceptance of this is a defense mechanism. Perhaps people of color hold on to the idea of a race-blind society in hopes of moving past the legacy of racism. We don’t want to be victims, and we deeply want that “you control your own destiny” myth of capitalism to be true. Instead of looking at the oppressive conditions that affected all of us, we focus on the events that affect our communities, and we do our best to avoid seeing the larger chain of disparity and mistreatment.
Looking out only for oneself requires rejecting the complexities of our full selves, and humans aren’t simple. We’re a mix of many things. Covering our eyes to the multitude of differences makes us victim-blame others for their struggles. If we accept that “they are struggling due to personal failure,” it’s easier to sleep at night.
We forget that racism and its cousin xenophobia are shape-shifters. They don’t improve, but they continue to find new methods to deny the humanity of the “other.” If it comes for one of us, it will come for all of us.
We’ve been gaslighted by the selective memory of the United States. We deeply need for our country to be remorseful, despite evidence to the contrary. At the same time, we feel invested in its success.
Still, our experiences are more collective than individual. I can’t forget the parallels between my pain as a black mother running from poverty, and the forces that motivate a migrant father to cross the U.S. border with his young daughter. We’re both victims of weaponized citizenship. My people were forced to come here in bondage. Their people are forced to come here thanks to decades of economic destabilization, possibly at the hands of the United States.
Motherhood has taught me that the struggles of migrants and their children are terrifyingly similar to the struggles I face on a daily basis. We both have targets on our backs by law enforcement and face a heightened risk of being stopped, frisked, and violated. In the eyes of white supremacy, neither of us belong.
Although it hurts, I can’t look away anymore.
I feel their pain and can process their struggle. But I don’t need to be further traumatized by images of brown death to connect with that experience. And we’ve got to stop spreading the trauma. I don’t want to see that image displaying dead brown bodies. It’s too triggering—and it hits too close to home.
A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez is a diversity content specialist whose work can be read in the Washington Post, InStyle, the Guardian, and other places. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
This post was written through our Daily Kos freelance program.