Dear Editor,

Thomas Gray wrote that “where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise.” I do not believe in ignorance, yet I have begun to understand what he meant.

I have stayed informed. I have read everything I could, voiced everything I could and listened to every voice the article says I should. And the world kept burning anyway.

What staying informed has given me, more than anything, is grief. A daily sadness that spills into my relationships, my family, and my community. 

For me, living with OCD means every headline about the sixth extinction or war crimes does not stay as information. It becomes a weight I carry all day. What the news reminds me of, more than anything, is how powerless I am to stop any of it. 

For some people, chronic news consumption becomes something closer to drowning, a slow erosion of the ability to function, connect, or feel hope. We are not weak for feeling this. We are human. You cannot pour from an empty cup.

There is also a deeper harm the article does not address. As a Métis person, I have watched media, even well-intentioned media, treat First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples as subject matter. Our land, our history, our lives framed as issues to discuss rather than realities to respect. When you see your people reduced to a headline every day, it does something to you. Not because you stop caring, but because caring starts to cost too much. 

Staying informed, through a system that has rarely covered Indigenous peoples fairly for example, asks me and other Métis, Inuit, and First Nations people to absorb that harm in the name of civic duty. That is not a reasonable ask.

To note, this is not an experience unique to Indigenous peoples. The intersection of race, identity, and other characteristics that make a human a human through history means the news is rarely a neutral source of information for many of us. It arrives loaded with context that reminds you, again, of where you stand in the world. There is meaningful trauma in that.

Shamefully I will quote Billy Joel where he once sang, “We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning.” From what I gather from Billy, being asked to watch it endlessly does not put it out. It just burns you too.

Staying informed matters, and I believe in journalism. But choosing to step away is not always ignorance. For many, it is a response to trauma delivered through the very outlets asking us to keep watching.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

 

Merci beaucoup,

Cole Dimitroff (he/him)

BSW Student, Fort Garry Campus, U of M