By Kenneth L. Hardin

I’m not sure, but I think I’m going through the change. No, not the one that takes a woman through a range of unpredictable emotions and even more confusing physiological challenges.

I’m secure in what gender pronoun I should use, so this change has nothing to do with which bathroom I want to frequent. It’s much deeper than that.

I’ve found myself sliding into an area of apathy and disillusionment that has affected so many other people in the orbit around me. Regardless if I use it as a determiner or a pronoun, I find myself saying, “Whatever” so much more now. My continual use of the word isn’t concerning for me, but the feeling of abandonment of all the socially conscious things I used to find passion and connectivity in are troubling. I don’t need to go lie on anyone’s couch to identify why I’ve become this somewhat sullen and distant image of the person I used to be. I know exactly why, I’m just tired. It’s not a kind of exhaustion where an extended rest can snap me back into an enthusiastic state of delight. The John Coffey character from the 1999 Tom Hanks movie, “The Green Mile” effectively explains my state of mind, “I’m tired, boss… Mostly, I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I am tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day. There is too much of it…Can you understand?”

It came to a crescendo over the past couple of weeks with all the terror and brutality that occurred in Israel. My heart sank as I watched the horror, fear and pain of those who were subjected to the heartless violence. I actually sat in front of my TV and shed relatable tears of concern and  compassion. A couple of things changed my feelings about it. First, I had a family member who was in Israel playing professional basketball and lived only 30 minutes away from the violence that broke out. Our extended family was kept abreast of her 26-hour journey to escape the country through Ethiopia; Ireland; Washington, D.C., and finally returning safely to her parents’ home in Charlotte. So that made it personal for me. I watched the news daily in the early days of the reporting and felt so much heartfelt pain and sympathy for all those needlessly murdered. But after realizing I had kin in possible peril, I had to pull back from my viewing.

What disappointed and disillusioned me more was how quickly people turned the massacre into a political football contest. Several people attempted to engage me in debates about the historical feud of who was the rightful heirs of land ownership going back to biblical times with Abraham and the descendants of his sons, Issac and Ishmael. I endured passionate speeches on the history of each opposing group killing innocents with the intervention of other countries helping do the deadly deeds. In one conversation last weekend, after enduring a pseudo historian’s inane proselytizing, I declared loudly, “I don’t care! I’m more concerned about the callousness of it all and man’s inhumanity against man rather than a piece of dirt.” I’m just so tired y’all.

What has also chafed my spirit and diminished so much life in my soul is the obvious hypocrisy of people who feign so much fake and insincere concern about the massacre. I find it interesting how people, who don’t look like me, can appear so aghast at the brutality inflicted upon people 6,635 miles away, as the crow flies, from our shores, but then act so distant and immune to that same level of needed compassion towards skinfolk whose ancestors endured the same treatment.

Where is that warmth and understanding for a people that endured the same and probably worse inhumane treatment, not for one fateful day, but for 400 years of forced servitude here?

I want to see the same amount of tears and cries of “never again” on my TV for my ancestors who had to endure daily acts of similar violence and terror everyday through slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights era and the new Trump style hate of today. Try showing compassion instead of a dismissive attitude towards their progeny’s pain too. I don’t believe in monetary reparations, but some type of acknowledgement would be a start. That’s a small ask considering America has paid $1.2 billion to Japanese Americans, $32 million to the Ottawas of Michigan, $31 million to the Chippewas of Wisconsin, $12.3 million to the Seminoles of Florida, $165 million to the Sioux of South Carolina and $81 million to the Klamaths of Oregon. A House bill in Congress was introduced in 2021 to simply study slavery reparations but has since stalled and no consideration has been given to vote.

Sigh, I’m going back to bed.

Kenneth L. (Kenny) Hardin is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.