Why Blogs?

Inspiration from Latoya Ruby Frazier

 

For this project, we used personal narrative and photography to portray the different impacts that the coronavirus has had on people from different backgrounds. Not only have photographs, like nurses’ selfies, played a critical role in spreading awareness of how dangerous the virus is but personal accounts have been very impactful and have allowed people to step outside of their own quarantine bubble. We used people of all different ages and with different experiences and involvement during the pandemic to highlight the struggles that each individual faces amidst these challenging times.   

 

Our inspiration for incorporating both photography and personal accounts during the pandemic arose after reading the work of Latoya Ruby Frazier. Her personal narrative in “The Notion of Family” conveys the hardships and difficult living conditions that she had to endure living in Braddock. While our narratives focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and the many different struggles that individuals have faced, we wanted to build off of Frazier’s moving personal narratives as they are very moving and will hopefully remind everyone that we are in this together. 

 

The coronavirus is not only physical, but social. 

Something to consider while reading our blog...

 

Our world has been plagued by a virus. A virus that is digging up and exposing every aspect of our world. As we stop and evaluate, there is one thing that is evident: we are suffering. “We” meaning the entire world as we are all collectively suffering from this crisis. There have been thousands of deaths, millions of lost jobs and a definite loss of normality in life. While some communities face higher mortality rates, others face higher unemployment rates as they struggle to stay afloat economically. While we can acknowledge this fact of collective suffering, we can not go much further than this simple acknowledgment. When suffering, we lack the empathy it takes in order to understand the suffering of others. Everyone and every community has different lives and different struggles, and the differences among our cultures does not explain the suffering. This can be too much to take in during a time of struggle and sacrifice, but it is our obligation as people of a society to rethink our practices. We need to correct our struggles and practices to promote change in our world. No change will happen unless we have knowledge of the suffering outside of ourselves.