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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and we'll end for our last few minutes today with a call in on the question, how do you take care of yourself when you're traumatized by the news? 212-433-WNYC, how do you take care of yourself when you're traumatized by the news? We especially invite, again, given this week's news, our Black listeners who have reason to feel the weight of this week's news more heavily than other people, and given the weight of history as well, do you engage in the cliche self-care techniques of watching cat videos and taking a bath? There are cliches for a reason, right?
Cute animal videos definitely will make you smile, and a bath is a wonderful way to relax. Maybe you play a particular album or song, maybe you hit up the closest local protest to demand justice or a vigil to pay your respects. That is self-care too. When you're traumatized by the news, whatever your self-care techniques are, we want to hear it as your answer may help another person who's listening, 212-433-WNYC. How do you take care of yourself when you're traumatized by the news? 212-433-9692, and there have been a number of traumatizing headlines over the last week.
Memphis, obviously also the mass shootings in California that killed 19 people in 44 hours. According to CNN's count, there was the footage of Paul Pelosi's hammer attack, which came out the other day as well as the Tyre Nichols beating and attempted murder or second-degree murder video. You likely don't know him personally, but maybe he feels familiar to you. He could remind you of your brother, your son, your friend, or even yourself, the unbearable pain of his mother and family, as you see.
Those play out on TV or wherever may be tugging on you, or the fact that an incident like this is happening again. It's heavy, and as a country, we're carrying the weight of this trauma some more than others. Help your fellow listeners out there. How do you take care of yourself when you're traumatized by the news? 212-433-WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer. Will take your calls after this.
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Brian Lehrer, on WNYC, now to your calls on how you take care of yourself when you're traumatized by the news. Maybe some of the ways that you do will help other listeners. Robin in Queens, you are on WNYC, thanks for calling, Robin.
Robin: Hi. What I've been doing is going to church. I've been going to the actual building itself instead of doing it on Zoom, sitting in the sanctuary, and listening to gospel music. I also do a lot of prayer meditation every single day. Also, monitor how much I take in in terms of taking in the newsfeed, and also just speaking to my family very clearly on things that have happened in my family. My father's cousin was lynched in North Carolina, they found his remains in the barbed wire in the lake. Relating the oral history of the tragedy and trauma that has preceded their lives and the sacrifices that people make in order for them to live the best life possible.
Brian Lehrer: Beautifully said, Robin. Thank you very much. Listener writing on Twitter writes, "I've been reading James Baldwin and it gives me comfort, not sure why." Probably a lot of other listeners could tweet why, but Rolando writes, "I've been reading James Baldwin and it gives me comfort, not sure why." Anthony in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Anthony.
Anthony: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I always go to the good old reliable Marvin Gaye, What's Going On album. Sometimes I'll push it to The Temptations- Ball of Confusion, just to understand what's going on and realize that nothing is new, it's been going on for years.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Anthony. Appreciate it. Willa in Sleepy Hollow, you're on WNYC. Hi, Willa.
Willa: Hi there. Can you hear me?
Brian Lehrer: I can.
Willa: Okay. I'm not a person of color, but I am a political science in urban geography major, and thus I can't really take a step back from the news for my own passion and for my own studies. The way I cope with it is I run while I'm listening to the news or right after, just so that I can get all of the negative feelings out and just breathe them all out. I end up sprinting pretty fast, but these days, I think running and exercise afterwards, just cleanse.
Brian Lehrer: It's interesting, I do that too, and I've never been a morning runner and maybe the reason that you say for yourself is the reason that I've always wanted to run after work every day. Obviously, we deal with a lot of heavy things on this show. Every day I am just driven to run my little route, and not in the morning, but maybe there's a relationship there between what you say and what I've experienced.
Willa: Yes. You want to expel it.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, exactly right. Thank you very much. Wendy in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Wendy.
Wendy: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I have a Black son, he's 10 years old, and while we are trying to protect him from the news I have found that these traumatic events, in order for me to self-care, I need to self-prepare for as cliche as that may sound. When I see these events happen, and when I'm surrounded by what I fear may be traumatic events in his future, I joined Mom's Demand Action.
My husband and I read Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man together, and then read parts of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy with our son, just so that we are better prepared to have these uncomfortable conversations. For me, self-care, when I get stressed is when I realize I may not be as prepared as I need to be to have these conversations, or I may feel increasingly concerned about the future. What can I do either to serve a community now or to prepare myself to serve that community in the future? Those things help me climb back on off the walls if you will after this. [crosstalk]
Brian Lehrer: Yes. It's very practical because you're preparing for the next one, but by the same talking, it's really sad because you're always anticipating there's going to be a next one.
Wendy: Well, yes, and I hate that we have to, and I think for any parents in your audience of Black children. I am a white woman raising a Black child, and so I have needed to lean on several of my Black friends and Black mothers and fathers. It's not their responsibility to educate me, but I am extraordinarily grateful for the ways they have reached out to teach me how to better care for him and better prepare for him his future, and encourage me to do this work.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Wendy. Thank you very much. A couple from Twitter, listener writes, "After 9/11, I realized that I couldn't watch videos of the planes hitting the towers. For weeks I only listened to the radio rather than watch television news, I avoided the videos of Tyre Nichols on the same basis." Someone else writes, "One must set boundaries, one need not bear witness to all the traumas that are now recorded. Acknowledgment and reflection allows for the soul to rebound, writes another listener. Kim in Putnam County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kim.
Kim: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I turn the news off and I also go to the history books. I'm a Samoan American and what the colonizers have been doing, this is just the modern version of how the colonizers are keeping control. If you go to the history books, just like the man talked about reading Jimmy Baldwin and just like the woman talked about telling the history of her husband's cousin that was found lynched in the barbed wire in the lake. When you look at history and just like the other man said, this is nothing new. We now have the mass media to tell us, but the colonists were killing and murdering their own women and children on the boats on the way over. This way of controlling people through fear and threat of death and actual death, it's an old colonizer's trick.
Brian Lehrer: Does reading into that history help untraumatize you or does it further traumatize you? We have 10 seconds.
Kim: It is a double-edged sword, you're absolutely right, sir. I'm wondering when are we all going to come together to turn it around because we've been now living under this for 5,000 years. If you look at the light of the Jews from slavery, so we got to-
Brian Lehrer: The good, the better, the best question to end on, even though we don't have the answer. Kim, thank you very much. Thanks to all of you for your calls on how you take care of yourself when you're traumatized by the news and your tweets as well. Coming up right after the news with Allison, she's going to start a show with more conversation about watching or choosing not to watch this video. Her guest will be none other than Arun Venugopal, WNYC's Race and Justice reporter. Stay here to stay with us a little longer, and thanks for listening to us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.
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