Louisville is a city full of refugees, immigrants, displaced people of all sorts. While I would never place myself in that category, I moved here from New Orleans, 10 months after Katrina, so I have a different experience of trauma that can still apply.
Ever since I moved here, I've been appalled at the Thunder Over Louisville air show. I get that some people love to view these weapons of war flying over the city-- that little kids, especially, can enjoy these machines of devastation without relating them to the death and havoc they cause in real-world applications.
But we're adults. We should know better and be more empathetic to the refugees and immigrants from war-torn places, and to our war vets, where every whoosh and boom from a fighter plane or bomber means immanent threat to them or to people they love. Our "Compassionate City" shows no compassion on Thunder day to those people who hear these machines in the sky and feel a dread in their hearts and souls that is absolutely unavoidable. You live with these noises and consequences long enough, that memory never faces. It scares you. It causes you panic.
I'm the same way with helicopters. Living in New Orleans even 6 weeks post-Katrina til the following July, the helicopters were relentless. Some were patrolling for looters, but others, especially during the day, were still air-lifting dead bodies out of flooded areas. The sound of helicopters is a menace to me. It meant death and danger. It signified what horror we'd see on the evening news that day.
And since June, when people started to march and to protest Breonna Taylor's murder in Injustice Square, helicopters were a staple of every evening's life up until a month or so ago. But tonight is Halloween and they're back.
The traffic in the air seems equal part law enforcement and TV news, and do either of them need to be there? I haven't seen a shred of evidence that either organizations caught any footage from the air that brought anything new to light.
On the part of the law organizations, these chopper flights are meant to intimidate, to shine literal light onto protestors and remind them they're being watched. Intimidate. Escalate. Unsettle.
On the part of the news organizations, I feel like they're in the skies because of FOMO-- what if they missed out on a shooting or a riot?
I live a couple of miles from downtown where most of the protests have happened, so my house is always being buzzed by copters when they're out. Many of our refugee and immigrant friends live even closer and are certainly subjected to more.
I think #LouMedia really needs to take a close look at itself and ask do they NEED to have choppers out and about? Have they ever scooped a story that way? Do they have any sense of how many of their followers/watchers find the sound of their helicopters in the sky to be terrifying in the most "terror" sort of way.
Now that we have reasonably-priced drones at our disposal, do we even need traffic helicopters? Do police and media even need them at all?
Asking for a friend. That friend is me. Also asking out of empathy for people for whom the noise of Thunder air show and the routine helicopter buzzes means past danger to them and their loved ones.
Comments