Feeding Our Emotion

My uncle died, when my family heard the news it was the first time I ever saw my father cry. It was his older brother, after all. Both my parents were drowning in a sea of grief, my dad more so than my mom. While my older brother and little sister weren't as grief stricken as my parents, they were still devastated by the news. Then there was me, I had to fake being devastated, that my uncle's death actually bothered me. As crazy and harsh as this may sound, I just wanted to continue playing on my DS because I felt absolutely nothing over his death. Though it was a few years ago, that day was forever burned into my memory because that was the first time I realized something wasn't right with me.

Well damn! Is probably your first response to this, but it's true something is wrong with me. I became desensitized. Do you guys know what that means? No? Well, it means the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative, aversive or positive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. In simpler terms, one does not respond emotionally to negative or positive situations after seeing it too many times. For instance, me feeling nothing over the death of my uncle because I was exposed to a lot of deaths in the media. You get it? Okay cool!

So where the hell am I going with this? I’M GOING BACK TO M.T. ANDERSON, THAT’S WHERE! *Real quick M.T Anderson is the author of Feed, it’s a satirical novel placed in a futuristic dystopian society where a computer is implanted into everyone's brain and issues like corporate power, consumerism, data mining, and environmental decay are discussed.* In my last blog, I mentioned how he foreshadowed a lot of shit like technology ruling the world, nature slowly becoming extinct and corporations starting to sell customer information. What I forgot to mention was how he also foreshadowed how people will start to become more desensitized.

Anderson uses Violet and Titus as a prime example of this notion;

“...I’m going to turn in evidence in court and everything. I mean, you are too, but we’re going to have to go to court against that guy….”

She looked at me strangely.

“What?” I said

“No one’s told you?” ….

“No one told me what?”

“We’re not going to court.”

“We got out of it? My dad was trying to get us out of it.”

“He didn’t need to. The guy was dead.”

“What? How?”

“He died a day after we went to the hospital. Contusions. Broken skull.

“What are contusions?” I looked it up. “Oh.”

“He was beaten to death at the club. We saw it. The police remember? The beat him over the head.”

She reached out and took my arm.  

(Page 123)

In that scene, Violet didn’t seem all that bothered that the hacker was beaten to death and Titus appeared to lose interest in his death after learning how he died. This just makes you wonder how many people the police had beaten to death for them to not feel anything.

Does this remind you of anything? I’m talking about Police Brutality if you said no. Whenever I hear or read news about the victims of police brutality dying or severely injured, I’m honestly like “What else is new.” I’m not being a heartless bitch or anything, it just gets tiring, hearing the same damn thing every time you turn on the news and learn that another person died and was severely injured by the police, guys. And I have friends and family members who feel the same as me. So don’t judge me guys because you know damn well that deep inside, we’re just like Violet and Titus when it comes violence and death; desensitized.

Alabi O.
Word Count: 635