yin yang media house

originally this title was reserved for an already written, though now long gone, essay on conflict and conflict resolution within a specific art context. that, i just, i don’t care. i honest don’t care about the art world enough, socially, to keep putting out writing on it. i believe this title is worth more; that it can be applied to something that relates to more people, for better or worse. blue or red? black or white? yin or yang?

a few days ago, Iryna Zarutska was murdered on a light rail in charlotte, nc. she was a Ukrainian refugee to the states murdered by a man who has been struggling, chronically, with mental health issues and a history of crime; a very persistent history with no positive outlook for reform. her killer is a black man. the brutality and apathy relating to her murder are definitely gut-wrenching. it’s clear she didn’t deserve that. after seeing the footage myself of not just the attack but the lack of action from bystanders, i’m upset too. i wish she didn’t go through that. i ask too, why her?

i watched a video, seemingly okay, titled, “Why didn’t anyone help her?” that’s a question i ask too. i want to know, right? so i click. the gentleman in the video is a behavioral analyst, body language. he uses the footage to show how bystanders stood by. people saw her, even with the blood pooling to the next level, ten or so people just watched. then, suddenly, the analyst goes on a tangent rant about democrats and the left allowing this. he signs off his video with the most latino, at this time in history, deportable, name you could imagine. this video opened the floodgates and exposed me to content i was not looking for. there spawned titles like, “Iryna Zarutska Deserves Justice — F*CK George Floyd,” and, “Undeniable Proof: Iryna Zarutska’s Murder was Racially Motivated because She was White!” a thumbnail of a video contained large, bold text screaming: HEY WHITE AMERICA.

woah, i pause having been whiplashed by an onslaught of rage bait, far-right media.

ok…yeah…that was fast. everything is faster with the internet.

i just have to ask…what are they talking about?

what happened to her was truly, undoubtedly, inhumane. more than that, it was avoidable. everything happens for a reason: the choices made in the past, by american systems, in accordance to this man led him to be free, on the train, with her. also russia waging war on ukraine led iryna to be in charlotte, on the train, with him. this is systematic, not personal. i didn’t see george floyd or anyone with a democratic button vouching and lobbying for her, or anyone like her, to die. in fact, her being in the states at all is proof that a two-party system, consisting of both democrats and republicans 100% of the time, did not want her to die, in ukraine at least. i don’t understand the jumps that happen in the minds of those making right-wing media. instead of seeing a systematic flaw leading to iryna’s horrible death, they see an opportunity to cause further divide; to point a finger and say, see! look at how these black thugs act! black people are murderers. it’s the democrats! how graphic and public her death was, along with the dynamic of the duo’s ethnic backgrounds, seduced right media to make a rope of racism to throw down the well of racism allowing good ole ‘merican racism to resurface and justify more racism.

not one of the men in these videos are helping iryna’s family with funeral costs. not one advocates for a better system that actually reforms those previously convicted and guilty (together) to prevent them from returning to crime in the first place—although that would never happen though since the usa treats prison as an industry and wants reoffenders (no one mentioned that either). not one of them actually wants to make the country they live in less hostile so people of any background don’t have to or want to commit crime to begin with; they instead add hostility into an already sensitive conversation. the hostility diverts from iryna’s death to black people, to this-or-that politics. they use what happened to her as an excuse to continue to be racist, overtly. it’s easy to be distracted by the untreated mental illness of racism and be ignorant of or dismiss systematic flaws that are just as much the problem, often delegating the task of seeing and fixing said problems to those who are so-called “at fault.” even trump holding up a side-by-side of iryna, a stunning photo, someone he’d be attracted to, and her black murderer in a jumpsuit perpetuate these ideas. it sends a subliminal message to his fans that says: i told you who the problem was. even the president ignores the states and circumstances that allow health and life to be so bad for americans of any background to murder someone on a train, but villainizes the product of the environment he maintains for profit.

i guess this isn’t surprising. this is how things work here. but i want to go back to something. in those videos i referenced earlier, all of the rants go into sharp, political factioning, or side-picking. they use very strong, aggressive language and tone. they, for some reason, blame “liberals” and “the left wing.” a bird needs both wings to fly. so, i have a simple question: left or right? heads or tails? which side of the coin is it? or is it the coin itself? i wonder if these men who make these rants publicly, the families who speak like this privately, have ever considered looking at the coin from its smallest side, the width. have they noticed the coin is made with the same material despite whichever side its seen from? that its imprinting is superficial? and that maybe seeing the coin straight on is part of the deception? a penny is cheap. that coin is held by a hand; is it yours or someone else’s choice how to view it? are these people using their own critical thinking skills to cultivate their own opinions, their own speech, their own anything? or are they just a product of media in the same way hyper-nationalist, japanese suicide bombers were? in the same way die-hard, american military personnel are? have they been completely brainwashed into being a type of soldier to keep the status quo of the running government on a civilian level so much so that they can’t offer anything about iryna’s death or how to move forward other than it being the fault of democrats? vietnam vets believed the propaganda too. the only difference is that they learned much sooner.

i don’t want to take away their anger. i’m glad they’re angry. they should be. she was stabbed three times and bled to death on a train and no one helped her for minutes. that is something to be angry about. but the anger is misdirected. instead of it being towards BLM or “the left” or black individuals in general, it should highlight the systems in place that have allowed her death. it should highlight russia’s imperialism that is not stopped by the us government (that started in 2014 and so trump has already had a full term to act on it), rendering her home uninhabitable. it should highlight the american prison pipeline, prison is an industry. they’d be happy to have him back a 16th time statistically and financially. it should highlight how the west views and treats and misunderstands mental illness, how the medical industry is underfunded and unsupported in this area: the shortage of psych nurses and hospital availability along with heavy stigmatization. it should also highlight the originally conservative, american notion of minding your own business. we allow so many things to happen to people in this country. we walk past people every day who need help; so why are we actually surprised when someone bleeding out on a train is ignored? it’s american culture to be apathetic towards another’s crisis. no one is taught what to do for another person in such an individualistic, othering society. it has to be instinct, a judge of personal risk, and how american you are (character) that determine what happens next in that situation. they’re not bad people for not helping, they’re traumatized and american. it has to be that this happened in here, in the usa, that people didn’t help her. the usa is not a safe haven. it’s at war with itself. finally, it’s highlighting, again, america’s tendency towards racism and how deeply interwoven into the minds of those glued to the news, to right media, it is. it’s so easy to be angry at the wrong person, but it’s really difficult to look at the right person when you love them and are dependent on them and understand that they are also compliant, complicit, complacent—if not the problem itself—then sit with that.