Rolling Stone's August 1st cover with a photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seeminly refuses to give up its seat on the bus of public discussion, and I find this discussion fascinating.
This is complicated in part because of those judged lines of journalistic capability (or perceived capability) or lack (or perceived lack) thereof. Rolling Stone has long wanted to be relevant in a scene set larger than a stage of music, and has accomplished this to wildly-varying degrees of success. Does that impact our assessment of their intent? And if so in what direction: positively, for a perceived improvement of their abilities and (therefore-) product, or negatively, for being presumably desperate and/or sensationalistic?
On how many layers is this discussion occupying space in our national dialogue?
For example, what if Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev was black?
Well, that hardly seems glamorizing of OJ, does it? Because let's face it--he's not young and pretty. So is the impact of your journalistic intent judged solely on the looks and age of the subject?
Well sure--because Charles Manson looks like Charles Manson, damn it, a crazy mass-murdering cult leader. But what if on this cover, exactly this cover, he, in the exact same pose, was, simply put, good looking? What if what we saw here was not the distant gaze of a homicidal madman but the dreamy, far away gaze of a good looking kid? What role does the processing of that have to play in the impact and decisions behind such a cover?
Although putting this particular picture of Tsarnaev on the cover obviously opens the door to criticism based on an argument of glamorization, it also gets to what is for me the heart of it: this kid could be anyone. You don't have to look like a crazy turban-wearing jihadist to wield the power of hate. That he is a good looking kid pushes the discussion in a direction that we cannot go without experiencing discomfort: Kid Next Door, your daughter's prom date, fell victim to that voice of darkness, now you get to choose if you take that kindling and build a fire of constant suspicion and blind hate or if you fuel a fire of societal introspection. Why did he fall victim? What roles do we all play in that? What lessons can realistically be learned?
If putting an attractive photo of him on the cover is bad because it glamorizes hate and violence, could we instead post photos of him bloodied, laser-targeted, and submissive? That way we would only be glamorizing... violence and vengeance. Whoops. I meant to say "justice."
I think that people who scream that the RS cover is glamorizing Jahar are themselves discomforted that they find him attractive and are incapable of channeling that into an internal dialogue about that dichotomy. How could he be both attractive and a ruthless killer? And the fact that these people may be incapable of initiating that conversation within themselves does not render the exercise moot; it is an off-putting, awkward, necessary path for the national conversation to follow if we desire a realistic engagement on the issue of domestic terrorism.
That this young man wasn't born a terrorist but became one while living here strikes at the heart of the discussion that needs to be happening. We perch ourselves high on a limb of political and ideological purity: we are fighting for right, our violence is perpetuated for right, against a clear evil who has brought meaningless violence against us and murdered our brothers and sisters. They must be stopped and their message must be exposed; words you could attribute to a soldier fighting the War on Terror and yet words one could also imagine coming from one of the Tsarnaev brothers. I am not mocking your position, I am simply making a point of perception.
Therein, to me, lies the dialogue that we cannot start without examining him as a human being, and crossing that line of comfort by plastering his pretty face on the cover of Rolling Stone is a step in that direction.
