#Blinders

How to prove your insensitivity. Instantly.

How to prove your insensitivity. Instantly.

One thing I learned early while in PR at Solomon McCown, where I worked during the 9/11 attacks, was to read the newspaper before anything else. You don’t talk without listening. You don’t enter the day on behalf of yourself or anyone else with blinders on.

Today my morning starts even before CNN.com, with coffee and Instagram. I look to the community I have there as I try to process the news of Manchester.

Amidst the heartfelt attempts to process, amidst the small gestures of respect, amidst even, the silence, here’s what I saw:

Posts about new sneakers just in.

X food “fixes everything!”

Using the words “killer” as in “this killer look” and “explode”as in “exploding with fruit.”

“Missing the beach?” asked a fashion brand.

“Tanned skin, messy bun, happy thoughts!” said a blogger.

It’s hard to know what to say or do when a tragedy strikes. No one wants to seem to be inserting themselves in it to be relevant. But at least be restrained and thoughtful. I don’t say this from a PR perspective. I say it from a human one, and as a mother of a teenager who could well have been at a concert like this.

I can understand the inability to process events like Manchester. I can understand that the world shouldn’t stop (though it has for some), and that certainly we shouldn’t give in to terror.

But we can at least remove the blinders enough to be kind.