As I approach my eternal valediction, oddly I recall the first draft of my high school salutatory speech - before its sentiments were edited out of existence by the faculty “advisor”. It was 1962 at the Rhodes School (which, had it not presciently rode off into the sunset beforehand, would have had to change its name to ‘de-colonize’ itself), a private academy for spoiled children in NYC. I was an idealistic, un-worldly kid and completely thrown by a particularly senseless murder in the news. Accordingly, my draft speech asked, why?
This is Good Friday - a day where one particular death is remembered in sure anticipation of Gospel three days hence. Unfortunately the worldly news this Good Friday revolves around another senseless killing which took place in Frisco, Texas on April 2. It promises no good in either three days, or - if prior events are any indication - at any time in the future.
The killer, himself admitted to police in the immediate aftermath, before even being questioned, “I’m not alleged, I did it”. Two witnesses report that after being told by a white boy that he was under the wrong tent (for the dead boy’s track team), the killer provoked the now dead teen with “touch me and see what happens”. The victim did so - touched the perp - and was immediately stabbed in the heart.
No matter the facts, the predictable american (sic) narrative replays, eternally. I write only because I recalled my same level of terminal despair of 1962. It is on a day I reflect on mortality, regardless. That, plus the predictable hagiography of a “good student” who never before harmed a fly, who now claims he was “defending himself” against an unarmed boy. Interestingly, the father of the dead boy publicly forgave the killer (out on reduced bail). He dared to appear at a public event hosted by a renowned felon, on behalf of the killer, and was bodily removed by police for remaining silent. The felon then instructed the benighted public that this man’s mere presence was “disrespectful”. The father’s home was “swatted” shortly thereafter.
“Progressives” have made our present considerably worse than 1962 (difficult as it is), when it comes to senseless killings - than in those times referenced by my draft salutatory. That’s because we now inhabit a land where we are so predictably told - over and over - that no black can do any wrong and no white can do any right. The role of victim and perpetrator reverse effortlessly before microphones and in posts. Can anything else be expected In a land where a supreme court justice does not know what a woman is?
I can see no hope for restoration of a civil society in the US, even if it survives as a political entity - i.e., without WWIII, a debt-fueled collapse, hyper-inflation, or good-ole civil war redux. Maybe I’ll feel differently on the third day.