For this first assignment I went back and listened to an episode from June that discussed the aftermath of the Orlando shootings. More specifically this segment discussed the politics that arose from this event.
"Soon after the news from Orlando broke, the massacre was almost entirely about politics," stated Bob Garfield. "A vehicle for numerous agendas, with the media acting as a prism refracting the event into competing narratives vying for attention." This is important because this has become almost a routine following these types of tragedies in the U.S. Although I did see multiple media outlets shift their entire focus to the victims, the major discussion did circle around the politics involved: gun control, LGBT rights, and terrorism.
I draw attention to this specifically because I find this "routine" to be ironic. The Orlando Shooting was a hate crime. And can't we source hate crimes back to the exact kinds of politics that immediately gain voice in the wake of these events? This heated discussion of politics in the wake of fear and tragedy successfully pits a lot of people against each other. Although the politics are about finding solutions, I think as a nation we have been going about it all wrong.
We can talk about gun control and terrorism (which leads to racism) until we are blue in the face, and we have, but has anything changed? No. In fact these type of events seem to be getting worse and becoming more frequent. We need to change the nature of our discussion, just as some media outlets did when they focused on the victims. It's all too easy for people to ignore the most important issues which is the human loss, and the hate that was responsible for it, and instead align themselves on a side of the resulting arguments.
I really liked the thoroughness of your post. I liked how you pointed out several different aspects of the problem and took a new vantage point on those aspects. I think that every big, devastating event is going to be followed by political discourse. There's really no way around that. In an ideal world, people would be able to grieve and move on in solidarity, but if that were the case then change would never occur. I completely agree with your point that the nature of the discussion needs to change. It has always annoyed me that when tragedies occur, politicians and activists immediately try to USE the tragedy for personal gain. Should there be discussion and calls for change? Definitely. I only have a problem when people, especially politicians, start to twist the story and manipulate variables in order to use that tragedy to push their agenda.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you argument here because that has what our world has become to today. We are more worried about pointing the finger at others or not taking the responsibility when we should be worried about the families that were hurt in tragedies like these. I feel like people will not focus on issues like this till they are harmed personally. A way I think can solve this is reach out to those families who are harmed and through social media as you said.
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