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From with/holding, Caitlin Press, September 2021 |
There was a time when everything we needed to know
was already written and printed and loaded on a truck
by 5am. 5Ws. 1H. That’s it. The entire world came flat
n folded, 1 colour image on the front. Local, national, inter- national, everything slid under a welcome mat. Back
then I could roll it up, tuck it under my arm, pop it in
a mailbox, toss it on a lawn or a driveway. Next day,
I could just throw it away, or line the kitty litter box. My grandfather’s TV news took 15 minutes. After dinner,
three-letter-network-men in white shirts and dark neck
ties told serious stories in black and white about kings
and queens, prime ministers and presidents. They called it reporting, what happened when the people followed
their rulers. They marked the daily measurements, fixed
the world view on a map, and set straight the social order.
They called it breaking news, when sometimes trouble- makers stepped out of line, like those Birmingham kids
that skipped school and took to the streets marching for
their civil rights. In Halifax, my 13-year old mother watched
those white police officers load colored children into buses and cart them off to jail. Out the window there was singing
and two girls smiled for the camera. One had two braided
plaits, the other a fresh finger wave, like they’d dressed up
for jail, like protesting was fun. Her father said, Girl don’t go getting any of your bright ideas. The next day, the police
came back with fires hoses and German Shepherds. After
the cardigan sweater attack, her mind added dogs to her
fear list, not German Shepherds, dogs, all dogs holding the #2 spot between the deadly Black Widow spider she’d seen
once in a 4th grade encyclopedia and white people. It was all
happening in black n white in America, broadcasting in her
living room, small screen flickering behind her eyelids. Back then, you watched the news. You sat still and paid attention.
It was all moving so fast. You couldn’t move, you couldn’t look
away for fear of missing out. No repeats. No do-overs. Some-
times, the three-letter-men returned at night with an update, a Bullet- -in, to stop the world so everyone could get some sleep. That’s why they called them anchors. Now the news is always breaking, always watching, pinging
my pockets, hungry for Blackfolkswhitecops, hourly bullet-
ins, weighted by the hashtags and Getty images, my grand-
father’s news reincarnated on my tiny screen, same head- lines, same stories, same songs, same night sticks, same #Fear
Of Missing Out—this is not nostalgia. At night, i watch those
three-letter-men on YouTube, think about how we took it all
in, shitty graphics, crappy sound, static, blur, how fogged the lens, how we believed we were seeing everything so clearly,
how quickly we convinced ourselves we were watching the
truth.
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