by Kathryn Miranda
For this week's throwback to the past, we are reviewing a piece written in December of 2013 by Julie Harris. Titled "Hope for Haiti", you can read this great work of nonfiction here:
Although the author wrote this piece in 2013, we feel as though it hasn’t lost its impact because it discusses many things relatable to anyone living today. Making use of a second-person point of view, the author tells the story of one who gradually stops caring about the tragedies plaguing our world. The narrator is a relatable one—one who dwells in the mundane of life, spending their time on things like magazine quizzes and trips to Starbucks, but when they hear of the Haiti earthquake, they find themselves engrossed in learning all that they can. Despite the initial attentiveness to such a cause, that concern quickly diminishes once the narrator subconsciously realizes that they have no power to do anything about the grim news.
With this in mind, we think this piece is still relevant today because this seems to us a familiar occurrence to anyone who has access to social media or any news apps and websites. With the technology to access information from anywhere around the world as soon as it happens, we as a society have become desensitized to the content we consume. Instead of being distraught over the news of death, we move on from it far too quickly because we see and hear bad news all the time. Furthermore, this piece is especially relevant to us as we are working through life in the middle of a pandemic. Despite there being concern and caution at the very beginning of the COVID-19 virus, it didn't take long for the world to push back against the safety regulations as soon as the virus became a headline no one wanted to hear about anymore. This piece is an important one because it asks questions of morality; if we’re seeing acts of violence and tragedy every day on the news, what then is there to do? Does buying that “Hope for Haiti” shirt really help alleviate the pain of the victims who lost everything or does it just make us feel better about ourselves?
On a closing note, we’d like to affirm that we do believe there are many ways for individuals to fight against the injustice we see onscreen; we do not think everyone is selfish and only concerned about things that apply to them. We just find this piece to be a rather compelling one considering the way many of us cope with the news of today.
Kathryn Miranda is a student at New Mexico State University who is currently pursuing a Bachelor's in English. She has been interested in all-things writing since the first grade and continues to put to practice this interest by composing a number of short stories, unfinished manuscripts, and essays. Kathryn aspires to use this passion for English to teach and inspire a new generation of writers.
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