Remember when certain parties and entities used to tug at our heartstrings after a tragedy like Las Vegas in order to motivate us to go along with their political agenda--or better yet, get motivated to do some grassroots activism on your own?
Oh, the shift started at least as far back as the Orlando shooting. I was seeing in social media hashtags that expressed vulgar opposition to the NRA and nothing about the shooter, but there was still sympathy for the victims mixed in. Of course, the shooter was a Muslim, so any motivations related to that were off limits, but they spent very little time speculating about how he may have been more mentally ill and less a fitting representative of Islam. Not much of a fig leaf.
Five to one the next terrorist attack they can't write off as simply "workplace violence" they attribute to the neologism "white Muslim."
But back to Vegas. The blood was still wet on the ground when people jumped on the bandwagon faster than they took a knee to fill the vacuum of Colin Kaepernick.
I've been seeing blurbs since day one criticizing Trump for expressing sympathy instead of banning guns. Really? If you can't even see the humanity in the victims--I'll let the humanity in your political opponents slide for the nonce--clearly enough to add even a drop of compassion for the victims and their families into the mix, is there anything about the victims that motivates you at all? Anything?
I saw one tweet express that sentiment in 25 characters. That left 115 to say something human instead of merely political. There's a time and a place for focusing on the message, sure, but the bodies in the street were still warm; can we at least talk about that and be humane for a minute?
This is why you get knee-jerk slacktivism like celebrities posting selfies and issuing platitudes that could have been written by a kindergartner but then not doing anything to actually fix a problem--no, the real work is for someone else. The real work isn't even for the mediocre unemployed athletes who touched off the whole thing and now have enough time on their hands as well as money to make a difference.
Oh, the shift started at least as far back as the Orlando shooting. I was seeing in social media hashtags that expressed vulgar opposition to the NRA and nothing about the shooter, but there was still sympathy for the victims mixed in. Of course, the shooter was a Muslim, so any motivations related to that were off limits, but they spent very little time speculating about how he may have been more mentally ill and less a fitting representative of Islam. Not much of a fig leaf.
Five to one the next terrorist attack they can't write off as simply "workplace violence" they attribute to the neologism "white Muslim."
But back to Vegas. The blood was still wet on the ground when people jumped on the bandwagon faster than they took a knee to fill the vacuum of Colin Kaepernick.
I've been seeing blurbs since day one criticizing Trump for expressing sympathy instead of banning guns. Really? If you can't even see the humanity in the victims--I'll let the humanity in your political opponents slide for the nonce--clearly enough to add even a drop of compassion for the victims and their families into the mix, is there anything about the victims that motivates you at all? Anything?
I saw one tweet express that sentiment in 25 characters. That left 115 to say something human instead of merely political. There's a time and a place for focusing on the message, sure, but the bodies in the street were still warm; can we at least talk about that and be humane for a minute?
This is why you get knee-jerk slacktivism like celebrities posting selfies and issuing platitudes that could have been written by a kindergartner but then not doing anything to actually fix a problem--no, the real work is for someone else. The real work isn't even for the mediocre unemployed athletes who touched off the whole thing and now have enough time on their hands as well as money to make a difference.
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