One Million Bones

As I sat at the table, molding a humerus for the One Million Bones project, I was struck by an incredulous feeling of positionality. To begin, an overview of the event: As part of the One Million Bones project and Students Rebuild, the USF class "Literature of the Child: Trauma and Healing," hosted a clay bone moulding activity. The intention was to send these bones to D.C. to raise awareness about genocide. Each bone was to generate a $1 donation.

While creating my contribution, I thought about which causes manage to gain media attention. Genocide, for one, sometimes manages to capture the collective consciousness. However, I wondered why some genocides we gain widespread noteriety and why some go largely unnoticed. I certainly knew about the Holocaust within my first few years of education but I didn't hear anything about Rwanda until middle school or the former Yugoslavia or Sudan until high school. I'm still a little hazy on the details over Burma/Myanmar and wonder why we still tend to refer to the actions' of early white Americans against Native Americans "wars" rather than genocide. I think this relates in large part to our discussions of intersectionality. I also believe it is an incredible example of the ability of those in power to shape the discussion. Just like we discussed who gets to call domestic violence "domestic violence," rather than "terrorism," we could untangle who gets to call genocide "genocide" or "war" "ethnic cleansing" or "collateral damage."

Finally, I dwelled on the Bezos Family Foundation, which was receiving the donations that the bones generated. Relating it to our past reading on the Iraq War, I wondered who was directing this organization, who was setting up the priorities, who was running it, etc.

Overall, I don't know whether this activity will have a cumulative positive effect or not. I do know that genocide is an issue I care about, and that there is nothing to justify it, but  don't actually know the effectiveness of "generating awareness," or raising funds for an organization that I am unfamiliar with. Those are certainly questions to consider...

-Laur