It’s fascinating how the notion of terrorism can change people’s perspective on things - or in this case warp it completely.
When you get right down to it the marathon bombing was just a double murder - the clowns who did it couldn’t even build a decently powerful bomb. Double murders are as common as dirt in the USA. Indeed, Boston didn’t even go another month without one; there was a double murder in Roxbury on May 5.
3 people were killed from the bombing, a fourth was shot while sitting in his car 3 days later. 260+ people were injured, 16 lost limbs. No matter how you spin it - this wasn’t “just a double murder.”
Okay, a quadruple murder. Google “quadruple murder” and you’ll find a number of cases nobody talks about incessantly.
If you ignore the 16 amputations, and 250+ others injured, sure.
But see, here’s the problem. In 2013, **counting **the deaths from the bombing, Boston had 40 homicides–that’s 6.2 per 100,000 population. In 2013, Detroit had 333 homicides, or 47.5 per hundred thousand.
I don’t know how many amputations, wounded, paralyzed victims there were in the two cities. Given those figures I cited regarding homicides, I’d be shocked to discover that Boston had more who were wounded by violence, or even if it had more who were seriously wounded by violence.
And yet, how much did we hear about Boston’s terrible tragedy in 2013? And how much did we hear about the ongoing tragedies in Detroit? I’ll give you a hint. A) a ton; and B) virtually nothing.
And to bring it back to sports, during the ALCS last year, I can’t begin to tell you how many things I heard and read about how wonderful it would be if the Red Sox went to the World Series–how healing it would be, how it would bring the community together, how it would show the strength of the people rising above that awful tragedy. Well, I don’t need to tell you; I’m sure you heard it too. How often did I hear people say they were rooting for Detroit because a Tiger victory would provide a glimmer of hope, would help heal the community, would show Detroiters that they could rise above the violence? Not once. (I am not a Detroiter or a Tigers fan, by the way.)
Well, I think that’s a real shame. I’m not prepared to say that the horrible violence that happened in Boston in April was more appalling than the string of horrible violent attacks that happened in Detroit all year long. I suspect that the friends and relatives of those 333 homicide victims in Michigan would find that difficult to say as well.
Thing is, what happened in Boston last April was not the only terrible thing that happened in the United States in 2013. It was not the only violent thing that happened in the United States last year. And yet, the attention given to this incident suggests that it was far, FAR worse than anything else that happened during the course of the year. I have a real problem with that.
I feel sorry for the bombing victims but I’m tired about all of this “healing”. Why do people feel it necessary to carry this on their sleeve? And I don’t give a hang about Boston. Well, maybe the Red Sox. (Why is this thread in the Game Room?)
I’m kind of with RickJay here.
There was a tragedy in Boston last year, no doubt. But why keep dwelling on it? Bad things happen to all people (deaths in the family, etc.), and yet, all people do not dwell upon them, past a reasonable period of mourning. They do not fly flags, they do not replay the manner in which family members died; and most importantly, they do not connect patriotism to the event. They simply move forward with their lives.
Although it was a fictional Philadelphian who said it, Rocky Balboa said it best: “It is not how hard you can hit–it is how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.”
Keep moving forward, Boston.
Let’s hope that it gets a bit less overblown with each passing year I’m still waiting for the same to happen with 9/11.
I figured someone would pull up 9/11. But it’s just not the same thing.
9/11 is literally orders of magnitude more significant in terms of the number of lives lost and affected and in terms of the manner in which it changed world events (sadly, not as for the better as it could have if the right people had done the right things, but that’s not a topic for this thread.) 9/11 was an extraordinary event. Nobody had ever murdered 3,000 people in a single act in the United States before; it remains not just the single deadliest act of terrorism in history, but about as deadly as the next ten combined. Killing three people at once is something that happens in the United States probably every week, and beyond the initially somewhat hysterical reaction to catching the Tsarnaev brothers, the bombing was of no particular consequence beyond its dreadful effect on the victims and their families.
You’re right, 9/11 was orders of magnitude more significant than the Boston Marathon bombings. But it is still way overhyped. It made the nation thirst for war, enabled the dismantling of civil liberties, and fanned the flames of religious bigotry. Every year we go through the same recreational grieving. Enough already. Time to put 9/11 into the history books and stop with the manufactured grief and gnashing of teeth. Now that the Marathon is a year behind us, let’s give that a rest, too.