Boom Boom Pow

When news broke of Steve McNair's murder, I was sad. Not just sad because America once again lost another important celebrity figure. Not just sad because a great man's life was cut way too short. I was sad for America. You see, the real tragedy behind McNair's death isn't the fact that McNair is gone, it's that we as Americans will inevitably learn nothing from it.

10 years removed from the tragic shootings at Columbine High School and midway through a year that has seen a overwhelming amount of families torn apart by random acts of killing, we just don't seem to get it about the dangers of gun possession. When Barack Obama was elected into office, many in the small town that I live in rushed the store counters in a frenzy to buy up all the guns and ammo they can out of fear that Obama was coming to clean house. That's right, despite the fact that this country just finished serving 8 years under a ignorant moron who plunged this nation into the worst economic crisis in nearly a century and sent thousands of young American to their death in a unneccesary war with a country that posed no immediate threat to us, the new face of fear in the hearts of many was a tall, lanky, Ivy League educated black man from the South Side of Chicago. The irony of the role of firearms in this country is that they are agents of safety that do everything but keep us safe. In 2009, guns are now easier to buy than Michael Jackson's Thriller CD. Gun nuts will be quick to spout off about how they have the right to bare arms and all that nonsense, but my response would be for what? What immediate danger is being posed to this country that we suddenly need to have our basements resemble the armory section of the museum in Demolition Man? Is it Al Queda? North Korea? Bin Laden? Because I'll tell you this, I'm not nearly as fearful of North Korea's nukes as I am of Dale in Tuscaloosa, who just lost his job and now has to come home to piles of bills and a cabinet full of rifles. What's the point in having a police department if Americans feel the need to serve and protect themselves?

It's an issue that seems to get glossed over even after incidents like Sean Taylor's murder, Pacman Jones' strip club fiasco, Tank Johnson's arrest, Plaxico Burress' nightclub fumble, and now the death of Steve McNair. Over the last two years, hundreds picketed outside of courthouses and stadiums to keep dog-killing miscreant Michael Vick out of the NFL or any other place of employment. You wonder if these same people will be picketing outside of hobby stores now that this country has lost another person to senseless violence. When did the killing of pit bulls become more unbearable than the practically daily story of enraged family man coming home to shoot up his wife and kids before killing himself? Is human life less precious than dogs now? More importantly, how can we stand on a higher ground and denounce poorer countries when our solution to adversity is to start shooting shit up? Are we not hypocrites?

Another matter that came out in the McNair tragedy that seems to sicken me is the questioning by media figures of McNair's legacy now that it's been revealed that he was having a extra-marital affair. First and foremost, that is and never was any of our business. Secondly, did having a piece on the side tarnish the legacy of Michael Jordan, who is the God of All Sports? Or how about his Airness' gambling addiction that may or may not have resulted in the murder of his father? Did you go out and stop eating Ball Park franks, slurping down a Gatorade while you adjusted your Hanes and tied your fresh new pair of Nikes? Or how about the sudden turnaround we all did on Kobe Bryant, who went from rapist to simply an adulterer to back to being a marketing cash cow in a span of about 5 years? Funny how we cared more about him winning without Shaq than internally questioning our own morals for cheering on a man we once condemned. We exert so much energy blaming guys like McNair and Kobe for bad judgement, but what about these girls? Should we not question the morals of girls who throw themselves at famous athletes that they know full well have families of their own? At what point, do we start holding them accountable? Sure, if McNair never cheated on his wife, maybe he'd still be alive. How about if this chick would have just went out and found her a regular college guy instead of a famous married man?

The reason for this epidemic is the evolution of promiscuity. Men and women are developing at younger ages, and especially now in the era of reality TV and Girls Gone Wild, sex is being marketed to them at a much earlier age than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It's why VH1 can have a never-ending primetime schedule of shows featuring (insert washed-up celebrity has-been here) attempts to find love amongst a sea of women who were too young to remember when this "celebrity" was famous but will jump his bones anyway if it means a slight bit of TV face time. So now you have a far larger population of women between the ages of 14-30 who are just dying to give it up to the first guy who asks for their phone number. It's why you see girls at very young ages wearing booty shorts and halter tops. It's a combination of poor marketing and poor parenting. It's another example of America's hypocrisy. We'll cut down the Muslim world for denying their women rights and keeping them enslaved in burkas, but we have no problem letting 6th graders play with makeup and dress up like Malibu Barbie. What would you say is a more disturbing thought: the mistreatment of women in a foriegn country that you wouldn't visit if they paid you or the fact that right now some old man in his 60s in his sitting on his couch beating it to a DVD of your daughter going down on her dorm-mate in a swanky Cancun hotel on Spring Break that he just bought with his AARP money?

After Michael Jackson died, I never would have thought I'd be writing another tribute a week later. The tragic irony of the loss of Steve McNair is that with all the wide eyes on the crime scene, we all seem to fail to see the big picture. How many good men and women have to die before we stop looking across the sea and start taking a long look at ourselves?

--Dave