Humanize The Dead: Murdered Women, Murdered Syrians, Murdered Jews, Murdered Blacks.

I admit I did not watch Schindler's List, nor did I read I am Malala, but tonight I watched a film called the Woman in Gold. I like Ryan Reynolds, he is kind of funny so I imagined this movie would have his cheeky wit. This was not a comedy but some good scenes between Ryan Reynolds and Helen Mirren did have some moments. It tells the story of Maria Altman a Jewish Refugee living in the U.S. and her court battle to get back some of  the ill gotten gain by the Nazis. I was moved almost to tears. The scenes where she remembers back to her childhood and her wedding and the arrival of the Nazis in Vienna. By the way Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany is gorgeous and talented who plays a young Maria Altman. The movie is okay, its no Deadpool. The thing is it makes you humanize Maria. Not only Maria but many of the Jews of the Second World War. What I mean is that you want to know them. In this case you get know one family, just a little bit. But that little bit makes them seem so human. That's the key isn't it. We need to humanize many out there. They are not just nameless, faceless unknowns.  They were someone's Mom Dad daughter son - family. It is the human connection we normally don't have with people who have been victimized. We need to humanize.

It is important.

If you notice things many times we don't humanize the beings. In the case of the Syrians we either look at them as immigrants, refugees, war victims, and terrorists. We don't humanize them. If it wasn't for Aylan Kurdi we would have a hard time even thinking them as living beings - children - human beings.

Aylan Kurdi 

Malala is another one of those Muslims. We only see them as the troubled Middle East population. A population. Not human beings. With Malala we learned her name. She is a human being. 

Blacks in the United States are seen as segment of the population. Usually the Black population is in trouble or causing trouble. We don't see them as human beings - generally. We generalize the population and the generalization is usually negative. But we need to see the human being; the Eric Garners, the Sandra Blands. We need to see them more as just a population being killed by police forces. 

In Canada we have a movement to try and get government to look at why Indigenous Woman are being murdered and gone missing.  Right now the estimate is 1200 but Canada's  Minister of Status of Women  believes its more than 4000. 

We need to humanize the Women. The Indigenous public is trying to do that. Family members are speaking up. Wanting the general public to know these are not just "working sex trade" people. The media keys in on describing women as sex trade, workers. Not sisters, Moms, aunties or daughters. 

We need to humanize the LGBT community. Its easy to dismiss the community. We label them a community and don't look at the person, the human being. 

There is so much destruction going on in the world and the efforts of humanizing the dead takes effort. Remember Genocide in Rwanda? The Chechen Russia conflicts? The Bosnian war? The war rapes and ethnic cleansing (what an ugly ironic phrase). We heard about them but we don't humanize it. Do you know why we don't humanize it?

It fucking hurts to humanize things. Its easier to just think of an event or to label it. But to put a face to something. A name to something. It makes its hard to discount. Makes it hard to ignore. 

So we try everything to de-humanize events, and people. If we don't see them as human beings they are easy to dismiss, to disregard, to ignore. 

We should be humanizing the dead. They were - are living breathing beings. Just like you. 

They have Moms Dads Sisters Brothers Children. Just like you. 

Humanize them, just like you, you are human. 

Maybe if every one of them was made into a movie we would humanize them. 

Reasons why I didn't watch Schindler's List: its going to be sad.  We don't want sad. We don't want to be reminded of how ugly it is. 

We want comfort. We don't want to humanize the events - the people.