Trayvon Williams tragedy(not)

[Ian Livingston]

I think it altogether fitting that literary types examine the common
misuse of a term in the pornography of life the media generates around
these awful instances. In this case tragedy has been transformed into
a reference to the family's grief, which degrades both the term thus
misused and the grief itself. But the incident, made topical, while a
betrayal of grief, also ennobles the family's sadness by giving it's
cause power in the struggle against evil in the political realm. The
law, and those sworn to protect and serve under the law, in this case
clearly need opposition. That opposition should be angry, reasoned,
temperate, and enduring. The dead boy is honored if change for the
good comes of his death. But if we shake our heads and call his death
tragic, then just go on about our petty lives unconcerned about the
causes, we do him no honor at all. Enter the filmmakers and other
vampires to suck the life out of those who remain.

Life unexamined is not worth living; death unexamined is merely death.
If the incident becomes tragic by examination, some good might yet
come of it.

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:35 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to say that playing literary word games with this boy's murder
> seems callous to me.
> Just sayin'...



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant