I was in first grade, and the teachers sent us home around lunch time, as I recall. I lived just a block from the school, and when I got home, I still didn't know why we had been sent home, but my mother was crying. My grandmother was there and said nothing. The date was Friday, November 22, 1963, and President Kennedy had been shot. My mother, who was Catholic, tried to explain it to me. Being six years old. I didn't understand how a president could be killed or why.
Two days later, the NFL went ahead with their schedule of games. Pete Rozelle, then NFL commissioner, said later that it was his biggest mistake.
On Tuesday, May 24, a newly minted 18-year-old, sporting body armor and bullets bought with birthday money, went on a sociopathic rampage that killed 22 people, including 19 children, most 10 years old. The NBA decided that their playoff game between Golden State and Dallas scheduled for that night should be played. The game was in Dallas.
Golden State head coach Steve Kerr gave a pre-game presser commenting on the insanity of American gun laws. He said the game was irrelevant. The game was indeed irrelevant, but they played it anyway. I wrote "played it anyway," which is active voice, rather than "it was played anyway," which is passive, because I want to underline the fact that the playing of the game didn't occur via the hand of God. People decided that the game should be played, which I find somewhat nauseating.
Yesterday's Questions
That brings me to my question, "How many children need to die before the NBA cancels a game?" I'm going to email various league officials to try to pin down some kind of specific answer. Obviously, 19 children wasn't the answer. Is the answer 30, 50, a thousand? How anaesthetized are we to these deaths, these outrages, these terrors?
American institutions can't cancel a basketball game? Or a slate of regular season baseball games? What exactly are the priorities of this great U.S. culture that seeks to set an example for the world?
Horror and Prayers
Immediately after the massacre, many Republican politicians took to Twitter and other social media. Their messages seemed to unsurprisingly follow some kind of style guide. The words "horror" and "prayers" appeared in most messages, a kind of mantra written by zombies for zombies.
Personally, I don't think the word "horror" covers it, and I'll tell you why. Back around the same time JFK was shot, my favorite magazine was Famous Monsters of Filmland, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman. Famous Monsters featured reviews, still photos, and interviews regarding classic horror and sci-fi films of the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's. One line from Ackerman stayed with me through all these years.
"Horror," he said, "is when you walk into a dark alley and see someone being murdered. Terror is when you realize that you're next." The children in that Uvalde classroom experienced something far worse than horror before dying. They experienced the very essence of terror. Every one of them, over and over and over again.
No child should have to experience that kind of unadulterated terror. All because the world's most technologically advanced nation can't vet 18-year-olds buying body armor and semi-automatic weapons.
Welcome to America.
Bob Dietz
May 25, 2022
