Green, Q. & Shahjahan R. A. (2013). Unpacking desensitization,
whiteness, and violence. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 10(2), 130-133, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2013.849631
“As we, two scholars of color, learned about the Boston marathon bombings recently, we simultaneously felt both indifferent and guilty for not feeling much—desensitization. We experienced a similar desensitization following the Sandy Hook school shootings. Why did we feel desensitized? Why didn’t we sympathize or empathize with the victims of these two events? We suggest that over time the racially minoritized in U.S. society become indifferent toward these violent events by repeatedly seeing and hearing the same types of victims. More significantly, this repeated coverage discourages any form of advocacy against violence since our emotional responses to violent events lessen over time. Due to Whiteness (a particular system of racial domination that elevates White people over people of color), the racially majoritized become desensitized to the experiences of people of color, and people of color become desensitized to their own and the dominant group’s experiences. To address this desensitization, we suggest a more holistic definition of violence that moves beyond an exclusively physical focus to also include non-physical forms that many of us (i.e., the racially minoritized) experience daily (albeit in varying degrees due to our social positionality)” (p. 130).
For the full article: Green, Shahjahan 2013 JCP