Yue Yue Exposes My Ageism

By Seth -
This morning, after settling into my comfy office chair and firing up my laptop, I found myself stunned by the video below. Be warned. What you are about to see is truly terrifying.




Watching the clip, I couldn't help but be reminded of the tragic tale of Hugo Tale Yax, the homeless hero neglected by New Yorkers last year as he lay dying.

My first response: sheer horror. To watch a toddler's body crushed beneath large vans is terrifying, but to watch unconcerned citizens stroll by idly causes an even deeper dread of disbelief.

I wanted to believe this was a hoax. I even checked Snopes.com to be sure. I didn't want to believe man has lost so much of his mannishness that he would treat the plight of a dying child with such cavalier coolness.

But then I remembered: business as usual will continue in America today even though 3,000+ children like Yue Yue are crying out for help. This is not new.

And this led to my second response: Why did I find myself cringing more and seeking more to hide my eyes from the video of Yue Yue than I do from the images of children dying from abortion? Is it because those images have become normal to me? Indeed, the mode of her tragedy, brutal though it was, is no more barbaric than the method in which preborn children die (being torn limb from limb).

Perhaps I, too, am guilty of the ageism of our day. Perhaps I, too, cringe more with the death of a born child than a preborn one because I can more easily relate to the former. But why should my ability to relate to a human have any bearing upon her value?

Put simply: it doesn't. Our subjective emotions are wholly separate from the objective matter of one's humanity.

What is more terrifying about Yue Yue's story is that we actually watch the people walking by---though she is dying before their eyes. And this led to my third response: If people can walk by and do nothing when children are dying in front of their eyes, will they ever intervene for those dying behind closed doors?

If Yue Yue's tale is any indication, the answer is no. And that is why we must bring the victims out into the light and challenge people to defend them.

Some argue that it is wrong to do this. I would simply refer them to a comment posted on a shorter version of the Youtube video by user thersten: "[T]hey shouldn't censor this. The world needs to see what is wrong with society before we can change it."

Exactly.

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