Media Meditation #1: Television does not just erode our minds!

Lisa Shannon was a normal woman who dropped everything in order to help women in the Congo. That's her kneeling in the center of the picture above. I heard her interview on NPR for my Human Rights COR class and immediately thought of these meditations when she told her story.

In short, Shannon started the organization Run for Congo Women which now sponsors over 1,400 Congolese women.

How does a woman with an enjoyable, fulfilling life drop everything to help women in the Congo?

Apparently you watch Oprah.

Shannon was inspired by a segment on Oprah about the abuse of Congolese women. In the interview, available through the first link above, she tells all about how she was shaken down to her inner most human level when she heard about what was going on.

She even wrote a book about it called A Thousand Sisters. This video does a nice job of describing its focus as well as going a little bit more into what I've been saying.



One thing Postman didn't do a lot of was consider the benefits to television. Here's a prime case of television as inspiration.

Oprah's format probably conforms to the Peek-a-Boo world standards, but within that swirling muck of erosion are stable events that can evidently inspire people to do fantastic things. Lisa Shannon couldn't locate Congo on a map 5 1/2 years before the interview that I heard, but look at her now!

When Shannon watched that Oprah segment, imagine her limbic and reptilian areas of the brain. The horrors of Congolese reality probably kept her on a 'flight' mode, but the feeling brain gripped the inhumane, visceral information and called her to action. When I heard her telling me the realities, my limbic brain made me shudder at the visceral story of a woman who had her leg forcefully removed, cut up into 6 pieces, cooked in a fire, and fed to her 6 kids. (That woman participated in one of Shannon's runs after that had happened, by the way.)

What is the reality being constructed here though? It's hard to mistake these atrocities and I don't think Congolese culture involves mutilating women due to their husband's courage. Shannon, in the interview, said that Congolese men have chosen to be shot in the head rather than violate their family (mothers and children specifically). The presentation of the situation in Congo was credible because Shannon has been there so much and has this organization to show that. She knows the situation it is unfortunately very believable. But, how do we know, as simple listeners to the radio, that there aren't any cultural ties to any of this gender abuse? Maybe there are heightened expectations of gender roles that aren't fulfilled. I can't give any more reasons because I feel like I'm defending inhumane discrimination, but the point is that what is the story from the side of the people committing these heinous acts?

Her interview, when looking at the discursive shift, ties into the reality being constructed here. The interview didn't have anyone from Congo talking about it, just these people (there was a guest expert on Congo also) who have been there a decent amount and have experienced their personal adventures, but they did that rather than absorbing the plight of the entire nation through a life time of experience and actually being a part of that culture in every way.

The fact that she was inspired to do this by Oprah gives me a little sliver of the side of the story Postman didn't talk a whole lot about. Television changed her drastically, and not into a mindless (almost literally) drone of a human drooling on the couch!