TV Boy, Do You Know My Life?

Americans watch a lot of TV. Most estimates say that the average American watches more than four hours of TV on a daily basis. Four hours. That’s half the average work day. Half a flight to Paris. It’s a lot of time.

I was thinking about this recently as I read Dave Eggers' new book, “What is the What.” It’s the story of Valentino “Achak” Deng, a “lost boy” of Sudan, one of the thousands of boys who were displaced from their homes during the Sudanese civil war.

At the beginning of the book, Achak is being robbed at gunpoint in his Atlanta apartment. Later, he is tied up with a phone cord, knocked out by his assailants, and put under the watch of a young boy.

Except, the boy doesn’t watch Achak. Instead, he is glued to the television in Achak’s kitchen, sitting there for almost eight hours as Achak lies bleeding on the ground.

Achak tries a number of times to talk to “TV Boy,” convinced that if he only knew Achak’s history, knew his story, he could not sit there and let this happen. Achak is convinced that if TV Boy knew that he had watched his neighbors murdered, been forced to walk across a barren desert, seen his friends eaten alive by lions, and then watched those who made it to refugee camps die of dysentery and malaria – then TV Boy might care.

It’s just a book, I realize. But it’s a book that speaks some truths. If Americans watched four hours a day of images streaming in from Darfur, images of refugees, of the displaced, of armed militia attacking unarmed civilians – could they stand by? Would the average TV Boy do something?

I don’t know. But I like to think they would. I like to think that if forced to think about this issue for hours a day, people wouldn’t be able to look away. But maybe that’s just hopeful thinking. In the book, when Achak tries to talk to TV Boy, TV Boy attacks him. Maybe that’s the problem. We don’t want to listen.