Proximity

On Tuesday, a large cargo ship lost power and hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, causing it to crumble into the Patapsco River. Six construction workers died. Each of those construction workers had names and were loved, and when this happened, their loved ones had their world upended.

It is devastating.

On Tuesday, food aid from the U.S. government fell through the air via parachutes, causing it to land in the Mediterranean Sea rather than the shoreline. Twelve famished Palestinians drowned as they swam after the food. Each of those Palestinians had names and were loved, and when this happened, their loved ones had their world upended.

It is devastating.

Because of proximity, we may have heard more about the first story.
Proximity of location,
Proximity of position,
Proximity of experience, and more.

We can imagine being a person on a bridge. We might not be able to imagine being a famished person, starving, and swimming for food.

We might recall the horrific news in Baltimore as that terrible thing that happened last Tuesday, knowing it was so out of the ordinary, scary, and traumatic. It truly is, and it deserves our attention.

And

With so much death, destruction, and dehumanization in Palestine, we might see a headline about drownings in the pursuit of aid, and think consciously or unconsciously, “just another Tuesday.” None of us wants to be people who would shrug off the second story, and we shouldn’t. But we are in danger of normalizing this kind of violence. We have to challenge this in ourselves and in others.

We must make these stories a part of our proximity too. It’s not that people need to be close to us to have value, and certainly, people don’t need to be like us to have value. People have intrinsic value. But we lose contact with our shared humanity when we normalize starvation and massive amounts of casualties.

We also do have proximity. I write this as a U.S. citizen, and my government is not only dropping food over the sea; my government has sent massive amount of weapons to create the very conditions that are forcing people to swim dangerously to obtain that food. I am complicit in this. I am close to this.

Today, I lift up these two stories, not to place them in competition (both deserve our attention and care) but to say that human lives are worth mourning. And certainly, human lives are worth protecting.

—Renee Roederer