In my documentary short, Greedy for Life, (www.beautyofaging.com), Shirley Windward says, “yes I’m greedy, but I’m greedy for wonderful things to happen”.This is a statement about enjoying life, looking forward to engaging in it more.
It is the opposite, to me, of the kind of greed that seems pervasive in many businesses, government practices, and of late, on the film set for the movie Rust. While I understand and feel empathy for all involved in that tragic shooting, I am wrestling with how it is that money trumps human wellbeing?
This is not new for me. How many places in the U.S. do people report toxic water with lead, oil spills, and a myriad of other environmentally unsafe practices that lead to illness and deaths for people in those communities? It seems that these hazards are more commonly found in poor and non-white communities with long delays in fixing the problem. In Flint Michigan, for example, “The Flint water crisis was a public health crisis that started in 2014 and lasted until 2019, after the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan was contaminated with lead and possibly Legionella bacteria.” It’s unclear if the water is 100% clean but it is better. It took 5 years to get any action on this crisis. I imagine had this happened in a wealthy white neighborhood, action would have been faster.
Least you wonder, I am white. I’m not anti-white, but I am against racist practices that affect so many individuals and communities due to the white supremacist practices that have been dominant in the U.S. since the beginning of this country. One has only to look at our slaughter of Native Americans to understand this. While I could go into a lengthy discussion about this, my point for now is that when a group feels superior, when people care more about the money in their pockets than the value and safety of human lives, when we worship the dollar above all else, tragedies happen.
I feel for the people who made the mistakes on the set of Rust. Having to live with the knowledge that those mistakes led to the loss of a human life is, I am sure, unbearable. I feel for the family of Halyna Hutchins and for the loss of this young woman’s bright future. I also feel strongly that change needs to happen, that all of us must not make money the most important thing in our life to the point of cutting corners, ignoring safety protocols, and stuffing our pockets and lives with dollars as more important than human rights and wellbeing. It’s true, out of this tragedy, reform may come on movie sets and that’s a good thing. I can’t help but wonder, however, how many atrocities must keep happening before real change occurs?
inneranthropologist 