We may have found a cure for most evils; but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings.
This past weekend, I went with family and friends to see the film 12 Years a Slave. As the only African-American in a group of Australians, Europeans (Dutch Jewish), and Africans, everyone turned to me for my reaction after the film. Truthfully, I left the movie feeling emotionally and intellectually shell-shocked. It was one of the rare times when I had to completely emotionally shut down.
When I allowed myself to feel again, 24 hours later, I realised what had most disturbed me about the film was its unrelenting portrayal of slavery as a system of apathy to the suffering of others. Everyone in the film (e.g. blacks, whites, men and women, young and old) had moments of apathy to the suffering of others. As described by the director Steve McQueen, the hanging scene in the movie captured this in the most visceral way.