A few weeks ago, at my paying job, I got into my normal Monday meeting with my co-worker. As she is semi-retired and only comes in twice a week, both of those days usually have a couple of hours or more dedicated to us going over details that outline the occupational responsibilities we will be taking on that week. Pretty boring stuff, but it pays the bills. Unlike another hobby of mine I could mention. As any two or more people would normally do, we try to lighten our load by adding inflections of personal nature to our dull bean counting and scheduling. What did you do this weekend? How's your family? Are you doing anything for the holiday? Etc, etc, etc...... This time, however, she threw a monkey wrench into our conversation. In the middle of our work related banter she decided to chime in with "On a completely different subject entirely... Can you believe what happened to Kobe Bryant?" Normally when someone asks me if I can believe something I may pause a moment and think about the wording of my answer before responding. On this particular occasion I simply answered "Yep." almost immediately. "I mean, isn't it just terrible what happened?" she asked. "If you mean do I think it's terrible that people lost their lives in an accident? then yes, it's a tragedy. But people lose their lives to mishaps every day and you never see their names plastered all over the news." I replied. "But he was one of the greatest athletes to ever play the game!" she insisted. Another one word rapid response from your truly. "So?" "Why do I even bother to talk to you?" she stated rhetorically as the subject came to a grinding halt.
For as much as my colleague questions why she bothers to talk to me, I have as much trouble, if not more, trying to wrap my head around why we as a society become so forlorn over the death of a celebrity. Why is it that we grow absolutely beside ourselves when some undeserving moron, who got a free college education (with degree) because he could play a game and can't even speak intelligently or some beauty contest reject who made her millions pretending to cry in front of a camera, gets taken out when their "private" whatever they were riding on that moment, that was transporting them to make or spend in a day what takes the majority of us to earn in a year, crashes into a mountain, sinks into an ocean or rolls off a cliff? My apologies, my fellow Observers, but I have to be honest. I don't see tragedy here. I see poetic justice. The only thing I hope for is that they didn't hurt anyone else while they were practicing their decadence.
What bothers me the most about this practice is that the people we should care about seem to be beneath notice. The family of five that were killed by an intoxicated driver, who walked away without a scratch. The father that was traveling out of state to provide for his family when his bus rolled over on the highway. The couple who perished in a plane crash after saving for years to go on a belated honeymoon. We hear about these "ordinary" people every day, but I don't see thousands of "grievers" rushing to their homes or to where they died to create makeshift shrines made out of candles, flowers and teddy bears.... do you? Don't these people deserve more than just a passing "Isn't that too bad?", "My God, that's terrible." or a "Those poor people." being uttered quickly from our lips before we continue on with our day? Don't they count? Aren't they worth a self imposed weeping wall as much as a celebrity? Or is that honor just reserved for people we only think we know because we see them on TV, in a stadium or read about them in the tabloids?
I've made mention on several occasions that I take issue when the general public holds a person or a group in higher regard over others due to their occupation, gender, religion or ethnicity. Not only do I dislike it, I cannot comprehend it which makes it even more frustrating when I'm constantly bombarded by it. Gay lives matter, military lives matter, Muslim lives matter, black, blue, red, green, purple with pink polka dot lives matter. For crissakes we even have a "tow" lives matter movement going on now. Yes... apparently now we have to recognize tow truck drivers as being more important than Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public and their herd of little Publics. For those that may have missed this one, it's been labeled "yellow" lives matter. Great!.... just what we need... another color. When is all this going to go away? When are we going to collectively realize that all this "lives" nonsense is nothing more than just a sophisticated form of prejudice? Revering someone or a particular group and claiming that their "lives" are more important based on any difference is exactly that as far as I'm concerned.
What's worse is that not only are we seeing it in the streets and on the news every day, we have to tolerate it in our holidays and how we teach our children. I'm probably going to take a lot of heat for this as I'm sure to some it will appear that I'm singling out a particular race, but I assure you I'm only using the most obvious and recent examples to argue my case. First off, Martin Luther King Day. I know.... I know but please hear me out. Question.... Why did we choose to call it that? Doesn't the day set aside for the cause he fought so hard for encompass more than just him as an individual? The Civil Rights Movement was a difficult, over a century long struggle in this country for all minorities that were being mistreated and exploited as well as having an tremendous amount of citizens involved from all races. Isn't the concept of the cause larger than one man? Phillip Randolph, Malcom X, Baynard Rustin, Betty Friedan, Frank Kameny, Nelson Mandella all mattered in civil rights for all and that's just to name a few in the 20th century. Let's go back a little further, shall we? Let's say a century or two. What about Thomas Paine, Alice Paul, Elizibeth Freeman, James Madison, Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman.... don't they matter? Didn't their contributions count? And if they did "matter" and they did actually "count" Why did we choose to fixate our attention on only one man and his birthday? Besides Columbus Day (and don't even get me started on how we're tearing that holiday apart) Martin Luther King Day is the only holiday I can find on the calendar that specifically focuses on one person's benefaction to our society and culture. Weren't all holidays that have been created designed to rise above the individual and meant to be celebrated together as a diverse nation that chooses to accept our commonality? We had no problem coming up with Presidents Day after all. So I ask again.... Why Martin Luther King Day? Wouldn't it have been more within the structure of our national holidays to call it Civil Rights Day? Wouldn't that have been a proper way to pay tribute to all who were involved in the struggle? Maybe it's just me but I feel that would have been more appropriate. I wonder what Reverend King would have to say about the matter? Oh well.... not to worry....
Another thing that's riding in the front passenger car connected to the train of double standard prejudice is Black History Month. No... not because there is one... because we are constantly being reminded of it's existence on TV, in the newspapers, magazines, billboards and in our schools. I am by no means trying to belittle the accomplishments of African Americans, as a matter of fact, far from it. Their contributions to our culture have been monumental and should be acknowledged. My problem is all the public relations money being thrown at it every February to promote it so heavily. Once again, my loyal reader.... Why? Why do we put such an emphasis on making sure every man, woman, child and pet are aware of it. Next month (March) is Irish American Heritage Month along with Woman's History Month (for some reason they have to share), but I don't see them being advertised between breaks of Grey's Anatomy or NCIS or having their own segment on Sesame Street. What about April? That's Arab American History Month. Don't hold your breath for any one to inform you of that little tidbit at a Trump rally. National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15th to October 15th but the only thing I see Luis Guzman doing on my TV is digging a Snickers hole. There is also Asian Pacific, Haitian, Italian, French, Jewish, Filipino and LGBT history months to name a few more. Where are their TV ads? Why aren't they included in our school children's curriculum? I don't see billboards devoted to what they have contributed to our country. Are we supposed to recognize Black History Month with more veneration because of the persecution they suffered? Seems a little unfair to me as all races have faced some sort of trial by fire or oppression and still have made sacrifices for this way of life. And yet we seem to pick and choose the few we feel are the most important while disregarding those that don't quite meet the social standard of the politically correct status quo.
The fact is that we have to mutually come to the epiphany that we all matter... we all count. That everyone has something to offer and that we can all learn from each other. We have to begin to understand that no one person or race should be regarded of higher importance than another. Until we figure that out and employ that philosophy in constant practice there is little to no chance that our sensibility will evolve. There will be nowhere for us to go as a species. We have to learn that the whole can and should serve the individual when necessary, but the individual is indeed part of a whole. That's what being human is all about. Humanity is far larger than how we label or market it. If we continue to hand pick the relevance of our achievements based on only what we feel should be accepted by a majority guided by the opinions of morality or politics, we will simply continue to fail in any effort to better ourselves. Strictly an Observation. If you'll excuse me, my co-worker just texted me about the Oscars.
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