United States of PTSD

S 3 E: 24 Who counts as human when grief goes public?

• Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP and Co-host Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel • Season 3 • Episode 24

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We unpack reactions to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the messy truths of trauma responses, and why some grief gets megaphones while other suffering stays invisible. Trauma reactions come in many forms.  But what is it that makes such a tidal wave of reactions when the targets are high profile white men, but a resounding silence when it is from other groups.  

• setting intentions, limits, and non‑violence
• why man‑made violence destabilizes more than disasters
• viral footage, repetition, and normal trauma responses
• witnessing harm and preventing entrenched PTSD
• media bias, scapegoating, and selective outrage
• interpersonal versus systemic violence
• sympathy, empathy, and compassion defined
• mixed feelings about public figures and moral nuance
• global grief hierarchies and who gets to be human
• systems “working as designed” and dehumanizing language
• moving from feeling to practice with concrete actions

Task yourself with one compassionate act this week that eases someone’s load—one person or one community. Share what you chose and why.


Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4

Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.


Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.


Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com


SPEAKER_03:

This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic advice or to replace any professional treatment. These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any company or agency.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of United States of PTSD. Erica and I are here today to talk about some of the pretty horrific things that have happened over the past couple of weeks. We decided to do this episode because of that, and we will be releasing episodes in a weekly format, probably for the next month, again, as a result of addressing these issues as they pop up. Erica, is there anything you want to add to that?

SPEAKER_04:

I think I'm going to start off by like setting some intentions for our conversation and our audience and for people who might be hearing this in the future. So we're living in a time in which information is changing very rapidly. So at the time of we're recording this on September 15th, by the time this is released, it's possible that there's new information out there that might theoretically have had some impact on some things that we were going to say.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a great point. And I do want to just also say to the listeners that Eric and I would love to release content more often, but it's, you know, we both obviously have very busy schedules and it takes a lot of work behind the scenes to get these things out. So thank you, Erica, for actually timestamping it because I do think it's important to say the date we're recording it. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_04:

And and the other thing that I want to make clear so Matt and I are both rooted in both like professional and personal philosophies of non-violence. Also recognize the fact that it is like non-violence is complex, right? Because how we define nonviolence for ourselves and how people experience violence is definitely not treated the same and is not valued the same. And that's part of what the discussion we're going to have. Um, we also recognize that we are are basically like citizens experiencing something collectively. Neither of us have any expertise in investigative journalism or like police investigations. We also have limitations in the knowledge that we have. So that's I'm going to state that out that we are people with experience in fields that give us assistance in in being able to have discourse on it that may have value to the general public. And also, like we are human beings that have limits to our knowledge. And um, and I think that's important because we're talking about something that involves gun violence, political violence, um, assassination of public figures, killings of non-public figures that have like happened at a same time. Right, and how and how life is fundamentally valued differently in how our society talks about life and the loss of life.

SPEAKER_01:

If I could add to that, Erica, and and again, thank you. I so appreciate um your um perspective and and the way because you have a much, I think, a more scientific, logical way of putting things down, which I super appreciate because I I don't always have that. But I do want to add, although you are correct, we don't have expertise in journalism, investigative reporting, like any of that stuff. We both have expertise working with people and the impact that that has, or all of this stuff has, on the psyche of both people individually, and then the psyche and collective kind of thought of a society. So that's the stuff I think we're really gonna focus on.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. You know, part of part of this opening, right, I would say is the has to do with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. So um as a little bit of background, Charlie Kirk, and I'm I'm gonna say this based off of my experience. So I live in Arizona. I live in Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona is where um Turning Point USA, the organization that Charlie Kirk both founded uh at 18, um, and also like that he runs, um, is based close to where I live. And Arizona as a state, right, has a lot of complexity. And he is a political figure. He's a political operator. Like there are people who who might not be aware of the degree of his political importance to people who are processing his assassination who um have strong feelings about him as a public figure and um who are like followers of what he said, right? And of course, as a polarizing figure, people are going to get different pieces of information about him. So, what we are seeing is the assassination of a very public figure that had controversial ideas. And I would invite you to think about that in general, as far as political violence, right, and how that happens, because this is not like a new thing, right? We can look at these. Um, and I think it's important to acknowledge him as a very influential political figure. And it means that how people respond to discussions about him are going to be reflective of that.

SPEAKER_01:

I want to add one thing to that, Erica, that we said when we were also talking to Amy last week. I think I think it was when we were talking to Amy, is I I do want to just remind people that the definition of trauma is a normal response to an abnormal circumstance. So his assassination was certainly an abnormal circumstance that we do not see in that context every day. Now, obviously, we see it kind of in the periphery when we talk about things like school shootings because nobody's actually seeing it televised on TV. So I think it's different when you have that kind of visceral image behind it. And I know I had shared with you earlier before we started recording that when I saw the video, it was out of context. I didn't even know what happened. I just received a text and um I watched the video, and instantly it was just this horrific response that I had, right? And how how each person deals with that response is normal.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. And I so I think that there's some unique things, right, as far as political violence or um gun violence being something that impacts our society greatly. Um, as Matt was mentioning, the amount of spread of the actual footage of it happening is unusual. And so that is a a circumstance with which we are navigating collectively in trauma. I saw it as well, and it was, you know, I I am a medical professional who looks at and has witnessed and seen pretty awful things. I'm also familiar with awful things and seeing awful things due to following global violence, right, that occurs against citizens. And I've grown up with stories about it too. So in some ways, when I watched it, like for my personal, like sharing of my personal processing of it, part of it is a way that I'm also measuring how numb, you know, some of the work that I do makes medical professionals, right? And how and how we are um, so in some ways, it's like this this also the distinction of realizing how we are all impacted differently by violence. And we are all impacted differently with the chronicity of our exposure to it. And I just my heart is aching for those young kids who witnessed that because it's it is it is a trauma that that changes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

I also want to normalize a different type of reaction that people might be having that don't talk about. There's a thing in trauma called repetition compulsion where somebody does the same thing over and over again because they're trying to gain mastery of it. And that often happens in relationships where somebody will leave one, you know, abusive relationship and then end up in a very similar relationship because they're they're really trying to kind of master what they're struggling with. So there are some people as part of that that might be watching that video over and over again and might be feeling guilty about it because they're maybe they're thinking, oh, this is sick, but there's there's a part of them that's really trying to grasp what the heck just happened. So if you're having that response, I do want to just say that's a normal response. So don't judge yourself for that or don't think you're uh crazy for doing it. There is no normal response to what we saw.

SPEAKER_04:

And so yeah, and also for people who are experiencing the relivingness, and so I'm actually I'm I'm gonna share another personal story. Um, there was a a person uh shot by Mesa PD on the highway too long ago. And there was an organizer that I know who who witnessed it. She was in her car, she saw it. And the story between what police put forward and what she directly witnessed. So they basically said that he had a gun. And what it was is that people who were there who saw it saw that he did not. So basically, people witness a person with their hands up as a citizen get gunned down by police, state police violence. I I was able to have conversations with her about what she was probably because it's a very when something like that, when someone witnesses something like that or experiences a traumatic experience, by having conversations with supportive people and having the degree of the trauma recognize, saying that like this is a very traumatic thing, what you just experienced, and being attentive to yourself is important, that can prevent it from solidifying into a PTSD-like state. And one of the things that we talked about was which was considered helpful, which I think is really important to talk about, is that sometimes when you're when your brain is replaying it and you're like, why is my brain replaying it? Sometimes it has to do with the degree of compassion, right? You are trying to understand, like you're like, how could this uh uh the desire to understand the degree and severity of what happened for yourself in order because your heart is wanting to um do something around the suffering that you just witnessed.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And to also add to that, Erica, because this is an important distinction with trauma for people who are listening, is that there's the type of trauma that people do not that do not do well with is the man-made stuff. So for example, if you survive an earthquake or a hurricane or a natural disaster, not to say that people don't suffer and that they do, there's a certain amount of normalcy behind that. People know hurricanes happen, people know typhoons happen, they know earthquakes happen, they accept it. They struggle with it, but they accept it. When it's something like this, when it's something like somebody being assassinated for talking about their opinion or kids being executed in schools, or a woman on the subway being stabbed repeatedly, those are things that are man-made and they fall outside of our norm. We don't want to believe that that happened. So those are the things that people struggle with the most. And it's really hard for people to really take those, take that and kind of incorporate it and realize that okay, this is not what the whole world looks like, even though in the moment they think it is.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So I I want to express Matt how deeply I appreciate because what you're talking about, these are all things that were happening pretty much at the same time, right? These other uh that happened. So we had a school shooting in which I think there were at least two kids who were killed.

SPEAKER_01:

And that was not covered nearly as much, nor was the woman the she was from Ukraine, right? The woman that was on the yes, that was barely covered. I I didn't even when I saw it, I wasn't even sure what it was about until I heard more about it.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. And, you know, there is something like so it is noted that in in Trump's discussion of violence, you know, the political assassination of uh two democratic uh politicians and representatives was not named. So this is uh a pointing out that um there is the politicization of this in which um it is being utilized to target and scapegoat uh particular populations as a strategy of fascism. So that's something also to be aware of. Um, in this particular situation, what we have is that the literal statement that this shooter was trans and they were not, um, what it turned out was that there was an unverified or there was a report of things that were carved on the bullets. It was misattributed there, it was just like arrows, like the the bullet had arrows carved in it in different directions, and some completely idiot reporter who should get sued for the egregiousness of it claimed that that was related to transitology. And so, what happens in this situation, you have a cohort of people right now who are being targeted and blamed and who will um experience danger, violence that will that is being like viewed as justified. So, so a particular cohort for no reason at all was further dehumanized.

SPEAKER_01:

You know what I also think of when we had Zach and Bree on the show and they were talking about the use of police dogs and how it when a dog is chasing after somebody that has not been convicted, it is not, they they don't have any proof on them, and then they get mauled by the dog. Right. Is it if you look at I mean if we just look at the facts of what's happening in our country right now, we have armed people, masked people ripping people off the streets. We have media people saying on TV that they think people with disabilities should be allowed to kill themselves voluntarily or involuntarily.

SPEAKER_04:

And we have uh also the unhoused population, people facing housing insecurity are being dehumanized. And like there was recently a politician who had to retract a statement that where he was basically justifying like murder of unhoused people. Well, like injection.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that was like the Fox News anchor said that he had said that they should be allowed that they should be involuntarily injected and killed. I had also just recently apologized for that. So we have that, and then we have these detention centers where they're selling merchandise for. Where have we seen this play out in history before? Like seriously, where we like this is like play by play, where have we seen this before? And the amount of people who are turning a blind eye to that and saying, Oh, it's not really happening that way, or you know, this isn't the same thing. I mean, it's it's literally the same thing.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, I've I uh you know, there are a lot of us that have heritage in this to recognize, and like so honestly, like this is where some of the reaction to someone like Charlie Kukirk espoused violent ideology in addition to his very faith family and interpersonal. So this is like the distinction between interpersonal violence and systemic violence, and um I think that people have a tendency to not acknowledge how Charlie Kirk's actions had and statements were directly related to and in support of like state violence towards particular cohorts, towards violence that kills just as readily as active violence is a gun, but it doesn't because it doesn't look that way, right? This is this is something that you know, for example, the distinction between um how Americans were will perceive like imperialist Japan compared to our dropping of a nuclear bomb. So I think it's it's very like this is kind of like a I have explored this because it is of personal impact, right? Like I am half Sudan German, right? I have from the beginning of my consciousness explored the concept of violence in this way because my family comes from a heritage of a people who were like the the borderlands people that were punted between this and then became part of this Nazi apparatus that committed a genocide inspired by the genocide of the United States against the indigenous people here, which is inspired by the genocide of peoples all over the world. In some ways, like all of this is connected because those things happen through a combination of rhetoric, political rhetoric, mass communications, the overton window shifting. Um, and these are all terms, if you haven't explored them, to explore them. Um, because um, you know, regardless like we are all being acclimated to violence.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that that's been happening for a while. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this is just a thought. I'm not claiming this is fact by any means. I was just thinking about this the other day. You had that person who said when they were referencing genocide about killing the offspring, like it's important to like kill all the kids so that they don't, you know, continue. But then I think about what's happening in this country. So we have vaccines now being questioned and being said, like people don't have to get them anymore. Well, who dies from diseases when they're not vaccinated? The elderly and the young. We also have or and the and people who are compromised with health, and then we have schools where the department of education is now being defunded, and all of these things are happening with that, but students can't focus because they're worried about getting shot in school and they're starving in school. So, what are we doing to the the kids in this country? We are what are we doing? It it seems a little too similar to me. That's all. I mean, it it's different but similar.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I think that yeah, yeah. I I I um as as someone who has has focused a lot of of my organizing efforts on youth empowerment, and that's like when you think about it, like turning point usa, this is like Charlie Kirk interacting with you look like with youth. And like although I absolutely disagree with so many things that he's uh and I'm part of communities that he is actively harmed by and and that he has contributed to making a world in which you know people I care about are at even more risk, right? So it's like direct violence versus indirect violence. Um, I can also acknowledge the fact that he was engaged in youth, right? And he was engaged in connecting with youth, and that he did connect with youth and he did make young people feel seen and cared for and their problems cared for. And as someone who works with young people, it's a it's a vacuum. It's a vacuum. People are have in general been much more focused on, and this is something that I encounter in in my profession, in the veterinary field, about how like so many people out in the profession have just completely disconnected themselves from what the young people are having to grow up in and navigate by themselves in isolation. That is a a population that is discontent, that is not having their needs met, that is that is suffering, is going to engage very greatly with anyone who chooses to make them feel seen.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that would go nicely with the conversation we had before we started recording about empathy and compassion.

SPEAKER_00:

Right?

SPEAKER_01:

Because that because you know, when you're engaging with a group of people who don't feel heard, there's certainly a level of empathy that goes in with that. And, you know, we have created such a, you know, you were talking earlier about when you do professional work, how sometimes it can desensitize you. And I thought about when my grandfather passed away, I was in my early 20s, and my cousin was a nurse and he was on hospice care. And I remember she was helping to take care of him, but it was really clinical. And she seemed to switch roles. She went from being like a family member to almost like a caretaker. And I remember like a professional caretaker. And I remember thinking at the time, well, like, how is she not being affected by this? Right. So I think that is a complicated question. And I'm sure she was affected afterwards, yeah. Like, but because you know, I know that obviously through my own experiences, but when we talk about empathy and compassion, I think that it's important to define those two things, and it's as we talked about before. So let's do that.

SPEAKER_04:

When we're talking about there, there there's this discussion, right? Because of course, now in the you know, public square where conversations are happening, when we're talking about three concepts sympathy, empathy, and compassion. So, and and this has to do with the fact that there are people who disagree with Charlie Kirk, who are saying that he is the person who said, you know, that he hated the word empathy. Um and then cohorts who are saying that there was a misattribution or that the quote was taken out of context. The whole thing statement from him is along the lines of how much he disagrees with the word empathy because it implies that you can understand another person's experience and that uh sympathy is more appropriate as a general state of the human condition, that like the existence of empathy is basically a lie, and that um compassion is what he thinks is most important. So this is very interesting because there are things that I both agree and disagree with, and part of that I think the irony is that compassion itself is described and also not very well studied. Uh, last time I wrote a presentation where I looked at the literature about this. But compassion as expression in relation to most of our knowledge of it is comes from religion and um the expression of action around the alleviation of suffering. So this is definitely something that is like very, very prominent within Buddhist theory and different aspects is the concept of the observation of suffering, the seeking to understand that suffering, which would be where we speak on empathy, and then taking action to alleviate that suffering. And so this is where some of Charlie Kirk's words and actions can separate. Also, in the irony of saying that he doesn't believe in empathy, but believes in compassion, um, is how should I say, one could um, but I know sometimes I get a little bit too precise in like the origin of words and their definitions, and it's all made up anyway. But I think that's made it up, right?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it it's helpful though to kind of flesh out those nuances of everything. When we're talking about empathy, my experience with that is a lot of people don't necessarily understand what that means, and they will use displays that are maybe disingenuous, but but call it empathy. And with sympathy, sympathy I've always perceived more as a pity position. It's your it's like a power position. You're kind of above somebody looking down and saying, like, I feel sorry for you down there, which is not always super helpful, depending on the circumstances.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I think that sympathy is honest and it's encompassing that we might not be able to understand another person's experience, right? But as uh political figures are likely to do, they will take something to the extreme. In that the statement of it is impossible within the human condition to be able to understand another person because you are not in their head, right? And that is very distinct from this concept of a unifying humanity, right? So, what Charlie Kirk is is assuming in this context is that the hyper-individuality that humans are so individualized that they are not connected in any way, shape, or form, in which empathy is possible.

SPEAKER_01:

And we've created that though, right? I mean, the whole sense of individualism.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I would say American culture hasn't created.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. What I meant we, that's what I was referencing. Like it's it's this individualism that would be the antithesis of somebody focusing on empathy, because it's all about like how you you disconnect from people. And that is not where it is. You don't have to go through the same experience that somebody went through to understand the feeling behind what they're going through. So, you know, you don't like relational, relational, right?

SPEAKER_04:

To put yourself in that position to the best of your ability.

SPEAKER_01:

But if you connect to the feeling, that's what's important. So, for example, if somebody loses their parent, you don't have to lose a parent to understand what it's like to grieve. Right. And that's that's the commonality behind it. You might not understand what it's like to grieve a parent, but you know what raw grief feels like. And instead of focusing on that, we focus on the the separation. Like, well, you can't get it because you didn't have this exact same scenario. But I don't think you need to have the scenario to relate to the feeling.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and in in this way, I can reflect, and and so it's interesting to me because I have people in my life who resonated with some of the things that Charlie Kirk had to say, and depending on whether or not they were also in spaces that were offering up the critique, and I mean like critique as in far as like intellectual critique or like under like unpacking rhetoric, unpacking um like actual meaning of these these things. So even in the context of what Charlie Kirk presented around the limitations of human-to-human connection and making empathy possible, right? Like I can point out through a process of deconstruction of what he's saying in comparison to other sources of where there are limitations in his thinking and as being expressed, or things that are not necessarily maybe on first pass sound really good, but have other things that are worthy of discussion. And the issue is with any political figure or any sort of, and this is like I I try and bring up idolatry, right, to people in religious spaces as far as when the language of any individual person becomes sacrosanct, right, or free of critique. And that is that is what I observe um American culture to be very. susceptible to because people have on average less exposure or less like um exploration of other forms of like of culture right so where I just said like what the issue with what he says in this is saying that humans are incapable of connecting with one another. That idolatry that you just talked about talked about that echoes again what Amy said right and how cults start when you start perceiving what one person says or what a group of people say as the absolute truth and nothing nothing goes beyond that that absolute truth yeah that makes a lot of sense um so it's been it's been interesting because like um you know I think where I see right now is also people not necessarily if if what they what people talk about about Charlie Kirk being so resonant with them is talking about how he made them feel about connection and about community and about connecting with family and about forgiveness and all these things and yet are unable to utilize what they are proposing as his theories that they are wanting to live their lives by and their ethic of how they treat other people.

SPEAKER_01:

And what we see is the selection right the selection of how things are applied who is treated as I I think the inherent conflict there is that if somebody is hearing your space, if somebody is holding it and saying like okay I understand what you're talking about and I I can give attention to that and helping to validate somebody is one thing but validating people by invalidating other people is not where we want to be and unfortunately that was the that was part of his message was that I can hear you but and what I'm hearing you is that you're different and better than all of these other people. And that in itself causes more divisiveness and a problem. And I I I also want to say this too because I think it's important to understand that we can hold two feelings at once and a lot of people are um being guilted for this right having mixed feelings about it. We go back to empathy and sympathy. You can sympathize with what with his family and what happened and say like okay nobody deserves that. But at the same time it's okay to not have empathy for that if what he was talking about is something that would have adversely impacted you or the people that you care about. So it's okay to have both of those feelings at the same time it doesn't make you a a bad person it doesn't make you're not glorifying somebody getting killed you're honoring the two parts of you that are like okay I I can I can sympathize with with this but at the same time I just don't have the same level of empathy that I would because that person was directly attacking me.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah I mean I I I think what I also see in addition to that as far as like in um as far as like cohorts the I think it's more like this deep breath is at all of the other violence that goes unacknowledged. Right because this is like the the pedestalization of individuals who it's just like like the the type of of violence that is cared about right we don't even like no one is say to recognize that political figures are going to result in a half mast but not you know at the same time we're seeing how like but only certain honoring space of the pulse map but that's but there's only certain political figures as you pointed out earlier with the two democratic lawmakers that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's even not just with lawmakers across the board or or or political figures it's just particular ones and I made a I mean it was kind of a joke but it's kind of the reality of it is people were saying well how come we don't do half master for school shootings and I said if we did the flag would never come back up. It would stay down literally all year long. And that's the truth.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean maybe that's what we need for people to see that possibly um yeah I think that also like for me I'm living in an area where there's a lot of organizing around the grief right like his remains are being interred here um his his remains are in the city where I am living and um the like we'll say that perhaps this part or this area is the center of grief at the moment because he was a direct member of this community. And you know in myself as someone who sees this like outpouring of grief for a single individual in the midst of observing you know two genocides that like um going on like the genocide of the Palestinian people. And I say this because the West Bank is actively experiencing a lot now and it will continue to do so until until uh the powers that be or the people put enough pressure on the powers that be. Watching all of this empathy pour out and and this like like anger like the the righteous anger of like how dare you comment on my grief and how few Palestinian Americans are are afforded that when we have you know Palestinian American children imprisoned in in Israeli torture prisons.

SPEAKER_01:

Or or being handcuffed and buried alive which this that's happened or being shot with snipers or being raped or all of that stuff that's going on daily.

SPEAKER_04:

And and also when we think about like the Sudan and Congo and like in in in these things where like child children human beings are are being murdered on a mass scale for for gold and rare earth minerals that go into our phones and people are like talking about the iPhone 17 like the new iPhone coming out right so for I think for me right what I have been like sitting and observing this and trying to like process you know my experience of this and my feelings of this because you know I'm not really um I'm trying to stay focused on my work uh the people who I'm directly connected to that are are suffering and also the larger scale suffering that is going on. Like it is a little bit of a deep breath sigh right about how we focus on the quote unquote kings of today because that's what these individual or queens right yeah like people with such resources such power right that they take over our own capacity to think about our own communities.

SPEAKER_01:

Thoughts and prayers and then they just kind of terrible it which is the most disingenuous thing. And and I have to tell you the thing that pisses me off the most Erica is the same people who are talking about um Charlie Kirk and all of this stuff have been silent on every other atrocity that's happening absolutely silent and they still continue to be silent. Yeah and that that part to me is infuriating.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean I think it's interesting to so like I think it in that we concealed like a distinction um where I would say like my I don't I don't know if this is my like jaded or being numb right like for me it is like such old news about atrocity on like what we call like the people of global majority right like Asian African Arab all different identities like the global south other like Korea like all these places like our global suffering under the bombardment starvation mass murder rape like uh all of these things that like have been happening to people like us or even like if you think about like trans gender nonconforming LGBTQIA like like we have literally been existing in between the gear like we are we are what made it through the gears of of of just incredible violence and so in some ways I have a hard time like I can I can be like I recognize that it is shocking and and also like I am so used to how like white european how little white european culture thinks about mass murder or like such incredible violence that like I just I don't know like I I I feel like I'm like I'm sorry I am sorry because I understand the losing of that reality the semblance of safety is like a difficult thing.

SPEAKER_01:

And also there are many people like me who have like never lived in a reality where we didn't associate humanity with scales of violence that are um when you talk about how the um LGBTQ community and we talk about um I forgot the exact verbiage you used but it makes me think about up I think it was a couple years ago when I learned that during the Holocaust when the Allied troops came in and freed ever freed all of the people from the concentration camps that gay men went to prison because it was it was considered a crime. So they were freed last and they were sent to prison and we don't talk about that. There was also something called the Singing Forest which I never heard of before which is where they were impaling gay men on stakes that is also something that is not talked about. So it has there are aspects of it that it's still happening right like in in these in these groups that we're talking about. Another thing I saw and I'm curious what your opinion on this is is the when we're talking about all the cuts to farms right and all of that that that's happening and I'm seeing responses for people saying well that's what you voted for so good for you now you suffer it bothers. The the thing that bothers me about that is two things. First of all one not every farmer out there voted for the current administration so that's just globalizing people together again. But why do we continue to um make fun of people suffering? Like they don't deserve because whatever the whatever reason they voted for whoever they voted for they had their reasons for it. And we may not understand it but we should not also be gloating about them suffering.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know what do you think uh what comes to mind I think I have not like what what comes to mind is like I'm like I need to do some digging in the literature and also like socioculturally about vindictiveness yeah um I look at vindictiveness as a way of venting and coping right but it doesn't like it doesn't um like okay so like as a medical professional I think about things or I should say as a veterinary medical professional and so like I came to veterinary medicine from the perspective of environmental conservation and um and food security and food sovereignty right and that comes from growing up with the knowledge and story of both um starvation as a tool of as a as a weapon against populace um as well as destruction of of soil right and what happens when you have no infrastructure to feed people and then people like people forget about how many people starve to death after World War II. And also like the complete like obliteration of citizenry like for the purpose of what right for the purpose of empire for the purpose of wealth for the few this is something that like one health as the concepts of human animal and people like how that connects to each other right and so we think about time right short acute right versus chronic origins of something how does something what is a historical context what is the environmental context and I think that that takes a lot of um how should I say potentially like intellectual and emotional masochism to be willing to really explore those different dimensions as relates to the fleeting nature of human humanity right like the fleeting like mortality right and and I think my observations because I'm very comfortable with mortality because it has to do with my upbringing right and and it's interesting to what I see in some of this were reflected all over the place regularly is about a challenge in relationship with time and a challenge in relationship with mortality. So like and like I know that has kind of it's not directly related but it's it's about how like coping right that short-term mechanism of blowing off steam you're right and you're right and it is it could be a very normal response absolutely I think my where I'm going with that is we are never going to become more empathetic if we be if we continue to do this.

SPEAKER_01:

And as long as as long as the citizens are stuck in this us versus them among each other it's never going to change. And I I think that's kind of where I'm going with it is that we have to learn with the citizens I'm not talking about like the people the the you know the imperial people that are not them right but like with each other. I think we need to stop doing that.

SPEAKER_04:

Well I think honestly because it's a distraction you know like I look at this kind of stuff any type of like mouse communications that are c it's um it's a 10 it takes the attention right so it it is absolutely like every human life for me as someone who cares about living beings right like I rescue bugs out of the water of a pool right like that's that's the type of person that I am um and like I recognize at some point there's like a futility in a component of that but that's natural because everything dies right everything dies. We will die everything will die humanity will will potentially die out like you know why would we be so special as a species as to not eventually face extinction um shrug like and in some ways so some people who know me well like joke it's like a weird type of Buddhist nihilism but a a component of it is saying that when we lose like when we lose historical loved figures like people we've we've been here before and I think it's very interesting because historical context is only a small window into the reality of what happens like what is important for an individual now right is it more important for you to be angry or is it more important for you to turn your energy into towards your community I'm I'm just inter it's more like I'm fundamentally I'm interested in output like how do we build how do we feed people right how do we make sure that people are healthy happy content because none of those systems are working or are they none of those systems are working from the perspective of you know when we're talking about health happiness nourishment the systems that are being utilized to move large amounts of resources around oh we could probably get into a huge discussion about that I actually just had a huge discussion with my mother about that which was always I had a conversation with her which is very shocking and surprising. This sounds like a whole nother episode a whole nother episode but but it's the discussion of the story of how little the people with the most wealth care about everyday people is probably one of the most consistent threads throughout the history of humanity that exists. And I think people need to understand that you are just an everyday person. Just like the Iranian poet that you and I talked about like a citizen of this country has more in common with an everyday citizen in Palestine than you realize than you want to realize because our lives mean very little to people who do not have a perspective of humanity the type of people who are comfortable kicking 10 how many how many people are going to be kicked off of healthcare 10 I don't want to I don't want to understate it with the big beautiful bill. Things like that where we understand that every strategy to dehumanize an everyday person is a strategy to dehumanize the citizen.

SPEAKER_01:

And if we go back to basics of teamwork the expression is you were only as weak as your weakest team member right so our country is only going to be as strong as the people that we put at the bottom and that's that's a problem. I mean we need to stop I agree with you I mean healthcare should be a basic human right and it's not but we fund it in a different country we subsidize healthcare in a different country while at the same time in this country we don't care if people are homeless. We don't care if people are starving we would much rather argue for more guns than food in school but that's but that I think is also part of the the fear that has been created is that we have to have guns you could you know you the place where it took place didn't the campus wasn't in a carry wasn't it a carry campus that you could carry guns? Where was the good guy with the gun that stopped him? Where is this mythical good guy with the gun that always comes in and stops people? It doesn't happen but we continue to pretend it's happening so it's I would argue you know the systems are working exactly the way they're designed to work which is to make the ordinary everyday citizens right disposable.

SPEAKER_04:

Think about what in companies like let's think about our self-interest as everyday people and this is like this is like the message that I think is more important to push right because um before Erica hang on before I lose my train of thought yeah um think about I think you're you're probably old enough to remember this maybe not before human resources was caused was called that it was called personnel and now we call it human resources.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean if you really think about that and we know that HR does not represent the people of the company they represent the company but the fundamental word is that humans are resources and it went from personnel which is much more individual and talks more about the the humanity of a person to now calling us a resource yeah I mean I think that people I think that people are not necessarily ready um I mean like you and I work in spaces where we understand how everyday people are dehumanized because we are always only one step away from being dehumanized right and so this concept of like who is excess humanity well the majority of us are absolutely that right and um and this is because um there is uh well you know part of this is when we talk about the transnational migrant worker people who are and and I know about this because I work in I have enough experience to understand how food systems work.

SPEAKER_04:

So how um the immigrant farm worker right how they are treated and also when we look at construction work. So Trump engaged in enslavement internationally for the building of some of his properties so it is important to understand that the worker right is you is is is viewed and there are other examples of this of of how a certain level of of um class um views everyday people as property right and I and I think this is something that many femme bodied or people who are born as women who are socialized as women um understand about um being treated as property like the history of of of women not being able to have their own bank accounts not being able to vote like that was not very long ago no it wasn't it was within some people's lifetime that are listening to this podcast right now I mean it's it's not that long ago so so in some ways what we were talking about and when we were also talking about violence and like kind of some of my perspectives on this also comes from being a femme bodied person because fundamentally that has like awareness of international issues because the first thing that happens during conflict or deconstruction of some sort of semblance of of society is um sexual violence as a as a weapon of war.

SPEAKER_01:

And I and um can I add to that because this takes this takes me back to and again we see this play out in history over and over and over again the vessel virgins do you know about the Vestal virgins it's not coming to mind at the moment. So the Vessel Virgins were uh they carried a significant role in the Roman Empire they were representatives of the goddess Vesta um who was the Greek goddess Hestia and they were supposed to be virgins and they were responsible for keeping like an eternal flame going and what they did was if they if they were not virgins they would be buried alive because they um they went against their sacred oath. However it should be noted that that was either consensual or non-consensual so if they wanted to get rid of the Vestal virgins who actually carried quite a significant amount of political power within the Roman Empire the men would rape them and then they would be buried alive because they they did not maintain their their vow. So this is you know that's just one example of how this has gone on over and over and over again in countless timelines. And um you know it it it's just continuing to happen right now and we we see it play out. So on that note because we are running out of time Erica I'm wondering if what we could do is for the people that are listening we talked about compassion and Erica you had said that compassion was taking empathy and then doing something productive with it. So I'm wondering if the people who are listening right now if you could task yourself with doing something out of compassion that is going to make a difference to either one person or to a community of people I think if we continue moving that gauge we're gonna see changes. Do you agree Eric or do you want to add anything to that?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah I I mean I think that that that is um that is something that I could be in agreement with with Charlie Kirk who comes from an ideology of a lot of people who do not think that someone like me should be alive. Right like I'm I'm just like really pointing oh yeah absolutely I think that's important. Like Charlie Kirk and people who he was speaking to with some of his language think people like me should be dead. And so I'm emphasizing that where I can say that I can I am willing to still acknowledge that compassion is perhaps something that he and I would agree on as something that's very important. And my hope and my aspiration and literally how I live my life is based off of both demonstrating and modeling my path of how I express compassion in the hope that it humanizes me to other people. And I think that that's important to recognize some of us have to do more work to be humanized and to be seen as human in order to receive like compassion and for people to care about the violence being extracted on us as a community. And so just spend some time thinking about how to expand your skills in expressing compassion.

SPEAKER_00:

Well said Erica thank you and we look forward to the next episode thanks everybody and thank you again for listening this is just a reminder that no part of this podcast can be duplicated or copied without written consent from either myself or Wendy. Thank you again

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Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP

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Donna Gaudette

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Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel

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Julia Kirkpatrick

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Wendy Picard

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