Category Archives: Op-Ed

An Op-Ed opinion piece.

Dangerous Discourse

Op-Ed

“We’re gonna win bigly, believe me!”

One of the characteristics that sets President Trump apart from his predecessors is his style of speech.  His speech lacks the professionalism and thoughtfulness that we have come to expect from a president, and it is easy to criticize him for what some might consider poor grammar.  To do so, however, is to overlook the real problem, which is how Donald Trump chooses his words.  As a prominent figure in the media, he and the rest of the Trump administration have a significant impact on not only what issues are talked about, but how.  The media, as well as other politicians, should not replicate the discourses that he legitimizes and creates through his speech, because they are harmful even when not supported by action.  When contrasted with the last administration, it is clear that Trump’s words are causing a shift in different discourses. These shifts, which are further propagated by the media, range from subtle differences in word choice to outright differences in opinion.

An example of a more subtle shift is in the way Trump talks about stereotypes of different groups.  Throughout his tenure, President Obama’s refused to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.” This refusal stems not from his doubt in the motivations of certain groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda, but from the recognition of his influence on the discourse surrounding terrorism.  In an effort to avoid reinforcing stereotypes of Muslims, he refrained from using the term.  On the other hand, President Trump uses the term freely, likely with the opposite intentions of his predecessor.  Because they are in such public positions, both Obama and Trump influence the ways in which the general public talks about this topic.   Trump’s rhetoric influences how people understand the relationship between terrorism and Islam.  By conflating Muslims with terrorists, Trump legitimizes harmful actions against Muslims.  This was reflected in the spike in Islamophobic crime in the US after his election. Trump’s harmful language extends far beyond this particular example.  His categorization of Mexican immigrants as rapists or references to black neighborhoods as hotspots for crime and violence only reinforce harmful stereotypes.  In this case, media outlets, politicians, and other prominent figures should take a leaf out of Obama’s book and do their best to call out Trump for these comments and mitigate this kind of language in their own work.  Otherwise, they are simply contributing to harmful discourses which in turn can put people in danger.

Another, perhaps more obvious, difference between Trump and his predecessors is the way he talks about news and the media.  Throughout his campaign he regularly denounced the press as an “enemy of the people.”  In a press conference in February, the president used the term “fake news” to refer to both news outlets and the content they were reporting.  Rather than denying the claims of reporters or addressing their concerns, Trump has chosen to attack the institution of the press itself in an unprecedented way.  This new discourse surrounding the media that Donald Trump has created is dangerous because it removes a barrier to unchecked power.  Although many who do not support Trump’s presidency will ignore his attacks on the press, his comments give supporters the go-ahead to ignore criticisms from reputable sources.   While it seems there is little the press can do without being banned from the White House press room, there are others who can speak out against Trump on this matter.  Republicans in Congress, other local politicians, and conservative media outlets who have sway with Trump’s voter base (but don’t depend on him for their jobs) should speak out against Trump’s attacks on the press.  While they may support his actions now, passively accepting Trump’s views on the press will limit their power should they have any reason to criticize him.  They, too, could be lumped in with reporters of “fake news.”  By adding new, non-liberal voices to the discussion, they can shift the discourse on the media away from Trump’s flippant dismissal.

Prominent voices, be they reporters, politicians, or celebrities, need to be thoughtful when discussing and broadcasting Trump’s words and ideas. When analyzing the President’s speech, it is important to pay attention to the ways in which he is changing the discourse on certain topics, not just the ideas themselves.  The biggest problem with Trump’s language is not “bigly” or “yuge,” but how he uses his words to exert influence in a way which is manipulative and dangerous.

The One and Only

Op-Ed

As an adopted Chinese woman, I grew up hearing about China’s One-Child Policy.  It is easy to chart the historical events that led the Chinese government to impose one of the largest experiments in population control.  When Mao Zedong came to power the Communist government encouraged larger and larger families; the goal was to strengthen the People’s Republic of China.  As a result, China underwent a population boom during the 1950’s.  China’s infrastructure and agricultural output could not keep up with the growing population and many were left without food. The 1959-1961 famine, which killed over 15 million people, demanded government action. The One-Child Policy came about as a way to curb population growth until the government could figure out a way to stretch the country’s resources.

Imposed in 1979, the one-child restrictions have had lasting economic and social effects. As a product of the system, I know how the policy disproportionately affected Chinese women and girls.  One of the most globally publicized outcomes has been the population’s gender imbalance, a result of the social preference for boy children.  Part of the reason sons were preferred was that the burden to make money and financially provide for a family is one traditionally placed on men.  It is also customary for the son to take on the responsibility of caring for his aging parents.  Any female child, once married, would leave to live with her husband and help care for her husband’s parents.  For parents considering the economic benefits of having children it makes sense that they would favor boys.  In many ways, by restricting the number of children most families could have, the government inadvertently increased the pressure families put on their children, both to succeed and conform to the parents’ desires.  These desires often coincide with following traditional gender roles and getting a high-paid stable job to support the family unit, especially regarding male children. With a shrinking population of predominantly male only children the current concern is that the China’s population is, on average, getting older and does not have enough young people to fill the labor market. Another concern is that all young boys that have grown into men now have too few options when it comes to finding a wife.  I find it difficult to sympathize with those men when there are so many others who have had less opportunity because of the intense population regulations.

The very process of having a child, male or female, in China is controlled by the bureaucracy. Penalties for breaking the One-Child law included losing a job or paying high fines or both.  Certain communities, such as minority groups and poorer rural families, weren’t subject to such strict enforcement, partially because it was harder to keep track but also because of the desire to increase agricultural output. Of course, the One-Child Policy was broken many times and not just by families with money.  This group of “missing children,” children being conceived but then removed from Chinese society, was understood to be a result of abortion, infanticide, or adoption. As for the children who were placed in orphanages, the Chinese government holds the power to determine which orphaned children are adopted.  Generally, they give the most desirable children (babies without mental or physical disabilities) to the “ideal” couples—heterosexual, young, and wealthy.  This kind of discrimination discounts a huge number of capable parents, namely single women and homosexual couples who want to adopt, and keeps many children from finding a decent home.  Families that chose adoption risked getting caught.  A faster and less dangerous option was infanticide, which has a long history of being standard practice, if not morally condoned.

Until recently, no one considered other options parents could take.  Children born during the time of the One-Child Policy could live in secret, protected by their families, unknown to the Chinese government and the statisticians who studied the gender gap. It was only after the One-Child Policy was lifted that there has been news coverage of people coming forward to say that while they only have one child on record they have other undocumented children.  These unregistered children have lived on the fringes of society and have been largely overlooked.  This population of undocumented children face a particular set of challenges because their mere existence is a crime.   They have limited autonomy and face a difficult life, since they have no government-issued IDs, are unable to attend public school, and are unable to get decent jobs.  Even now, after the One-Child Policy has been lifted, these undocumented people are denied the same rights as their siblings and peers.  In 2013, the One-Child Policy was relaxed and families could apply to have a second child. Many people tried to register their children retroactively but were still met with steep fees. The unregistered children are now older and because they are still unable to properly join society, they have become a greater burden on their aging parents.  Understandably, they are looking for a way out that isn’t based on paying impossible fees.  As awareness increases the Chinese government is forced to confront this group of people they have neglected for so long.  The Chinese government is quick to deflect criticism, deny accountability, and shut down resistance, not matter what the issue—in this case, it’s wasted potential and a human rights violation.

As China’s economy grows the wealth of the nation increases.  Many studies show that increasing wealth actually decreases the birthrate.  Instead of waiting for these patterns to play out the government attempted a short cut via the One-Child Policy, leaving many in trouble. Despite the economic challenges of meeting the demands of a huge population there is no reason for the government to interfere with how and when a woman chooses to get pregnant, nor limit the opportunities available to the child once born.

Worth Every Penny

Op-Ed

In Tessa Spillane’s twelve-year tenure coaching the Wellesley College varsity rowing team, the program has developed from a historic (first women’s collegiate rowing program in the country) but competitively average program, to a national championship-winning team. This shift occurred for several reasons, such as a collective team initiative in 2010 to go to the national championships for the first time, the intensification of the team training plan, and the focus on a healthy team culture. One factor that cannot be dismissed, however, is the amount of additional resources the team has received: a new strength and training coach in the fall of 2013, three new boats donated during the 2014-15 season, and updated equipment like lighter oars and new erg machines. These investments in the program, advocated for by Spillane, have seen significant returns, not just at the national championship, but at regional and conference levels as well. As Wellesley’s team becomes faster, so too do the other Division III teams. The amount of time it takes for a women’s DIII varsity boat to complete a 2,000-meter race, the standard in rowing, is steadily decreasing and approaching times previously thought to be accessible only to Division I or II athletes.

While Wellesley’s rowing team is growing and thriving as a result of these changes, women’s sports, especially team sports, continue to suffer from a lack of investment and support. The US women’s soccer team made headlines in 2016 when their five highest-profile players brought a lawsuit against their governing body for wage discrimination. More recently, the US women’s ice hockey team threatened to boycott the world championships because of inadequate pay and a lack of training and development opportunities. Steph Houghton, the highest-paid female soccer player in the UK, is paid about £65,000 (approx. $80,300) annually, as compared to her male counterpart, Wayne Rooney, who makes £300,000 (approx. $372,500) each year. The tennis star Serena Williams, the highest-ranked player in what is arguably the most equitable sport (tennis, thanks to all four grand-slam events offering the same amount of prize money for both genders), still made less per victory than her male counterpart because of prize money disparities at lower-level competitions.

Many of the arguments in defense of these lopsided numbers are based on the idea that since women’s sports don’t attract the same amount of attention as men’s sports, women don’t deserve to be paid the same. Either the sporting events are not as competitive, which detracts from the entertainment value, or consumers have simply declared their lack of interest.  The proponents of this defense argue for salary based not on the merit of the quality of play, but on the quality of entertainment. Either way, the governing bodies of these sports are requiring the same amount of work from the female players as from the male players when the cameras aren’t rolling. In order to compete at the level required to even contend for a medal at international events such as the Olympics or World Cups, national athletes must train like the athletes they are: professionals. A professional athlete’s schedule and training plan are as time- and energy-intensive as a full-time job, and they should be compensated accordingly, as the men usually are.

There are, in fact, athletes who have been able to successfully balance a non-athletic profession with high-level athletic performance. They are typically individual athletes, however, like the rower Gevvie Stone or the triathlon competitor Gwen Jorgensen; these athletes have total control over their schedules, their choice of coach, and their training plan. Team sport athletes, on the other hand, have much less flexibility. They are held to a strict practice schedule and, in the case of US women’s soccer, are required to compete in at least twenty games during the season, each of which they have to win in order to earn the same amount that the men would earn even if they lost each game. Their governing bodies, such as the US Soccer Federation, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), and the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), require a level of commitment from their athletes comparable to that of many full-time occupations, and rightly so, but without providing the appropriate compensation to support their employees. These unsustainable standards are particularly problematic for Olympic-level athletes; while individual athletes are selected several months before the Games, team athletes are selected and commit to mandatory training schedules several years ahead of time.

How then do we ensure investment in and support of female athletes in these sports? Notable examples abound, especially outside of the United States. In the United Kingdom, for example, the English women’s cricket team won their first victory in the Ashes competition after a succession of losses, and the England and Wales Cricket Board increased their pay significantly. This investment on the part of the sport’s national governing body enabled the players to be professional cricketers, a change that brought them a larger following. Within the rowing world, one corporate executive, Helen Morrissey of Newton Investment Management, completely shifted the dialogue when she decided to sponsor the Women’s Boat Race, ensuring that it happened on the same day and with the same media coverage as the men’s. A Russian professional basketball team, owned by a billionaire industrialist, paid one of their players, Diana Taurasi, to rest her body and not play for her American team in the WNBA – the difference between what she is paid by the Russian team for a season and what she would have been paid by the WNBA was over a million dollars. In each of these cases, a different investor made the choice to support female athletes by providing capital and resources: a governing body, an external business professional, and a team owner.

Women’s sports are worth the investment, both as jobs for women who deserve to earn a living wage for the remarkable work they do, and as a product that generates consistent returns. Governing bodies and the organizers of competitions hide behind the excuses that female athletes “aren’t as competitive” or that women’s sports are a “vicious cycle” in which there is no interest from the public to drive investment, but interest from the public can only be generated through investment. Demonstrated in sports varying from cricket to basketball to rowing, there are plenty of ways outside of traditional entertainment practices to invest in and support women’s sports, which will generate the consistent, positive return that both athletes and their fans deserve.

The Other Yellow Fever

Op-Ed

“Amy, he has yellow fever!” said my friend, with her hands up in the air.

“Yellow fever? He looks fine to me.” I said.

“No, I mean the Asian fetish kind!” she said.

Before coming to the U.S., I had never heard of yellow fever. It was one of the most unexpected things I learned in my first few months in college.

The expression “yellow fever,” or Asian fetish, is used to describe people, usually white males, who have a predilection for East Asian women due to the stereotypes of the hypersexualized East Asian female. Those with yellow fever believe that all East Asian women are shy, submissive, exotic and sexually open-minded. Where did this inaccurate notion come from?

In the 19th century, the first East Asian women to immigrate to the U.S. were Chinese prostitutes. The Chinese men who came before them provided cheap labour for the American railroad companies on the West Coast, and were not allowed to bring their wives. Anti-Chinese sentiment was high:  Americans did not want Chinese men to start families and permanently settle in the U.S. During the period that Anti-East Asian immigration laws were in place, only kidnapped or bribed Chinese women were allowed into the country to work as prostitutes for white American men. As time went on, the stereotype permeated beyond the West Coast as the media continued to disseminate images of Chinese women as prostitutes.

During and after World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, increasing numbers of East Asian women were brought to the West Coast as war brides for American soldiers. This further perpetuated stereotypes of East Asian women as sex objects or women whose only objective in life is to serve men.

Like many of my East Asian friends, I have at times wondered whether it’s because of my ethnicity and the assumption that I am sexually subservient that I am attractive to a white guy, especially one who serially dates East Asian women.

A white male friend, to whom I was explaining yellow fever, asked whether it was the same as finding East Asian women attractive. I was appalled at his ignorance and inability to see from my perspective. This is why yellow fever persists; people, mostly white men, do not understand the difference. Finding someone attractive because of their physical appearance is dissimilar to finding that same someone attractive because of the ethnic stereotypes they are associated with.

It’s also our media that allows for the persistence of the hypersexualized portrayal of East Asian women. Hollywood films reveal us as sexy China dolls or Geishas who seduce white men. These women are depicted as cunning, sexually voracious, and eager to feed the men’s fantasies. There are dating websites are created specifically for white males to find an East Asian girlfriend or wife. The advertisements for these dating sites often show East Asian women with large breasts, little or no clothing and posed seductively. Little surprise then that the stereotype that East Asian women in general are hypersexual beings.

I had never heard of yellow fever before coming to the US. But didn’t the influence of American culture bring the hypersexualized image of East Asian women to Canada? Well, the first East Asians who came to Canada were not prostitutes but were either wealthy business people or middle-class individuals who brought their families over for a better life. And the war brides who came to marry Canadian soldiers during the war were all white Europeans.

I grew up in Vancouver, one of the most multicultural cities in the world with a large population of East Asians. Perhaps in cities with a significant number of East Asians, such stereotypes are broken down or never developed because of the daily opportunities to interact with East Asians. Cynthia Berryman-Fink, a Professor of Communications at the University of Cincinnati, found that increasing interpersonal contact between races in three mid-western colleges led to a decline in both general and specific prejudice. She also found that the more students from different backgrounds interacted, the more they cultivated a positive attitude toward one another. Thus, intercultural education and travelling can lead to greater understanding of different cultures and ethnicities.

As our world becomes more globalized and an increasing number of people become aware of the dangers of stereotyping, perhaps we will reach a time when we no longer associate any ethnicity with stereotypes and eradicate yellow fever.

Distorted Reflections

Op-Ed

Jordan Peele’s popular horror film about racial anxieties and anti-black racism in the United States, Get Out, made over $100 million in its first three weeks, making Peele the first black writer-director to earn that much on a debut film. The success of Get Out reflects the high demand for quality visual media about the lives of people of color by people of color. Even though the United States is becoming more racially diverse, Hollywood still tends to create and recognize content with majority-white casts. This trend is so persistent that even when Hollywood creates adaptations based on source material about people of color, it’s often altered to showcase white characters.

One of the most egregious cases of whitewashing occurs in the new Netflix film based on the popular Japanese franchise Death Note. The main character in the original series is a college student who finds a notebook lying in the street. Upon further investigation, he discovers that anyone whose name is written in the book (a “death note”)  will die. He decides to kill all criminals, including people who try to stop him, by writing their names in the death note because he believes that killing criminals extrajudicially is the only way to create a more just society. The original manga series has spawned an anime, several live-action movies, and a recent live-action drama, all in Japanese. The show draws on themes of good and evil, which is evident even in the main character’s name. In Japanese, his name is Light Yagami (夜神月). His first name (月) is pronounced “Raito” (the Japanese pronunciation of the English word “light”) and spelled using the character for “moon.” His surname, Yagami (夜神), uses the characters for “night” and “god” in place of the traditional characters used to spell this name. Light Yagami is literally a god of night, a role consistent with the show’s overarching themes. However, in the majority-white American version, Light’s last name is “Turner;” his new name is meaningless. It doesn’t convey any of the themes of the original source material, which makes me wonder if the people behind this adaptation can even see the depth of the original series or if they’re merely blinded by dollar signs.

This is one of the largest issues with whitewashing – people who whitewash these creative works typically show a lack of understanding of the depth of the very shows and films they are hired to create. For instance, the popular animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender is remarkably diverse. Though the creators are white, the show’s characters represent different Asian ethnicities. All of the writing that is seen throughout the series is in Chinese (though the characters speak English), and many of the fighting styles seen in the show are based on Asian martial arts. In contrast, in the M. Night Shyamalan adaptation The Last Airbender, all of these characters are white except for the Japanese antagonist, Zuko, who is portrayed by an actor of Indian descent. Casting choices like these aren’t just superficial issues – they reveal a deep lack of understanding of both the series and its target audience, a telltale sign of poor commercial decision. (Did the film executives behind The Last Airbender really think that such a dedicated fanbase wouldn’t notice that they had substituted white characters for every single person of color – the entire cast – except for one?)

Less and less often are audiences supporting films and television shows that blatantly whitewash characters. The 2016 film The Great Wall, which is set in China and stars Matt Damon as a white savior, was highly unsuccessful domestically and overseas; according to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s slated to lose nearly $75 million. Its score on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes is only 35 percent (compared to Get Out’s 100 percent). The Netflix series Iron Fist, which has a whitewashed main character, has similarly poor reviews. The film Ghost in the Shell, controversial because of its whitewashed main character, made only $19 million in its opening weekend with a production budget of $110 million.

Audiences refuse to see these films and television series not just because they are whitewashed, but because this whitewashing represents poor storytelling. In the cases of film adaptations, the source material is wrung of its meaning. In the case of new remakes of old, problematic stories such as Iron Fist, there is an obvious refusal to update these stories for modern-day fans who are tired of seeing the same faces, stories, and races over and over again. These adaptations are also highly unoriginal. For instance, the new Death Note adaptation didn’t have to be related to the plot of the original series at all. Why not follow the story of a low-income black teenager  living in an urban American setting to see what would happen if he obtained a death note? Because these adaptations are afraid to take creative risks, film executives cast white actors and make superficial changes to the plot, resulting in lazy storytelling.   

Times have changed. Audience members want diverse movies and television shows, and we won’t be appeased by content that has one or two characters of color or erases the diversity of existing characters. To appeal to an increasingly diverse audience, film and television executives must hire more casts and crews who reflect the diversity of the country. In addition, existing creators should go out of their way to educate themselves on the ways in which negative portrayals of people of color and members of other minority groups are perpetuated. Without this awareness, they are bound to recreate the same tropes repeatedly. The Netflix series Orange is the New Black has come under fire in the past year for killing one of their only black queer female characters in an act of police brutality. While the show has been heralded for its diverse cast, the writers’ room is mostly white. Without adequate training in the media representation of marginalized groups, it’s inevitable that writers will recreate and sustain harmful tropes and stereotypes.

Thankfully, there are now alternative routes such as web series and diversity fellowships that people from marginalized backgrounds can take to enter the entertainment industry, though more must be done. In addition, audience members have more control over their response to a lack of diversity. We can refuse to give money to productions that whitewash roles. We can boycott films that rely on lazy stereotypes. We can work hard to enter the film and television industry and create the stories that we were unable to see as children. We can actively support (with our money or viewership) films and television programs that, like Get Out, bring distorted reflections to light.

History Is Written By Diplomacy

Op-Ed

The saying “history is written by the victors” is commonly attributed to Winston Churchill. However, its true origin is unknown. What we can say without a doubt is that the expression has been applicable to the many ups and downs of human history. Whoever emerges on top in a struggle controls the narrative.

Sometimes the losing side’s story turns into one of the war casualties: the losers are portrayed as unprepared, insurgents, the wrongdoers in every way. We forget that in times of war each side can be guilty of inflicting cruelty and both are prone to the same bloodlust.

Nowadays, however, winning and loosing have become relative terms. There are even times when history is not simply rewritten: sometimes it is entirely forgotten. Sometimes a historical event is never spoken of again because doing so is better for all involved: it is too embarrassing, too damaging to the reputations of entire countries. At other times the event is lost in the general confusion, when there is so much history being made, good and bad, that keeping track of it all is simply impossible and some falls through the cracks.

In the increasingly globalized world we live in, one in which we can no longer afford large-scale wars, the divide is no longer as black and white as victor and vanquished. Instead, we have mediators and negotiations. There are back room deals, treaties and agreements: diplomacy at work.

From the last months of the second World War, and well into the period of peace treaties that followed, this precise phenomenon occurred. Something happened, and it was swiftly forgotten: what the Italians call “Massacri delle Foibe,” the Foibe  Massacres.

The term “foiba” was attached to the massacres because of its meaning in Italian: a deep karst sinkhole. As the image above illustrates, these sinkholes were the natural weapon used to commit the massacre.

As Tito took control of the government in what was then Yugoslavia and his troops took over the country by force, these encroached on territories that had been in both Italian and Yugoslavian hands since the first World War. The future dictator and tyrant wanted to reclaim the territory he saw as rightfully Yugoslavian. In their revolutionary spirit, their bloodlust, and reflecting the heavy prejudice that many Balkan states had against Italians, the troops murdered thousands of the inhabitants of Northeastern Italy by throwing them into the many sinkholes that are characteristic of the mountainous area. Italy was in disarray because of the recent collapse of the Fascist government: troops had no one to report to, resources could not be allocated, and the victims were left to fend for themselves.

It was a tragedy in every sense of the word, yet anyone reading this piece will be surprised to hear this ever even happened.

With the second World War still in the rearview mirror, and the Cold War quickly approaching on the horizon, the context of time weighed heavily upon the two countries. Whether dealing with (or facing) another genocide was too much to bear for European morale, or governments didn’t want to exacerbate tensions in the area from the long-standing dispute over the region, or even because of sheer embarrassment, these events occurred without creating any sort of turmoil, and for a long time without consequence.

Today Italians have the “Day of Remembrance” in honor of the victims lost to the sinkholes of their landscape, yet most of the world is still unaware of these events.

So, was history once written by the victors? Absolutely. However, in more modern times, there seems to be a new phenomenon emerging. As disputes and tragedies are no longer solved via war, diplomacy takes the reins. In the case of the decision to not react to the Foibe Massacres, there were many factors in play that contributed to the Italian state’s silence: the separation between Tito and Stalin after Yugoslavia refused to become a Soviet satellite state; the problem of fascist war criminals the state did not want to be forced to deliver to Yugoslavia if they went public with the massacres; the fact that by the 1960s tensions had eased between the two countries. So the government remained mum until the 1990s, when scholarly books and tales of survivors emerged and became increasingly available to the public. With a new government in place and the memory of Fascist times behind it, Italy chose a day out of the year and dedicated it to the massacres.

History used to be written by the victors, now diplomacy steers and determines the narrative of History.

There is always a larger plan at play, a bigger picture to think about, small-scale sacrifices in the name of the greater good. The world of international relations is no longer one of straightforward ‘attack and defend.’ It is a game of chess. One move can be deceptive; three moves can decide the fate of the entire game. It is easy to sit in our safe, millennial bubble looking back on the mistakes of the past, in this case judging the hypocrisy that comes with diplomacy: the constant compromises between humanitarian issues and the long-term needs of a country.  I could continue this piece and lament, “the Italian government sold out its own people to avoid dealing with an infuriated Yugoslavia!” However, kicking and screaming won’t change the events of the past, nor will it prevent anything like this from happening again.

Instead, we must strive to remember. Once something is uncovered, we should not waste time on blaming those from a time that is past. Rather, it must be our priority to preserve those memories, no matter how belatedly we find them.