The other day, I watched a video on the website ted.com. Chris Jordan, a researcher, showcased his art based on several statistics, including a particularly striking image of piles and piles of orange prison uniforms stacked on top of one another, symbolizing the number of Americans imprisoned in America (I loved it so much I decided I had to put it up on my rarely-visited blog).
I think above all, his message was that math can be beautiful, and tell us all of the things we need to hear. This was especially hard for me to grasp, particularly since I've struggled with math for as long as I can remember. But seeing those stats personalized was a sobering experience, similar to the room in the Holocaust Museum full of glasses, or the Vietnam Memorial with all of those names engraved in marble.
Because they aren't just names, or numbers, or even prison uniforms.
Those are people.
The 1,100 people that die every day of smoking cigarettes are sisters, brothers, grandmothers, and grandfathers. My grandfather's among them- he died of lung cancer from cigarettes. It hit me hard to know he wasn't going to be around anymore, and I imagine that their families were equally devastated.
Those Americans in prison may have children that they never get to see. They could have left families and friends behind, back when their lives were ordinary. The prisoner on death row and I may have equal hopes, dreams, and desires. But societally, we're nowhere close together.
That's what I think Jordan's work changes. It unites the nun and the unwed mother. It bonds the drug-free teenager with the drug addict.
Let's see these connections- and keep remembering that when we look at statistics, we're not just seeing numbers.
We're seeing the story of a person similar to you.
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