Wednesday, November 07, 2012

CONTEMPLATIVE

I remember when my grandfather was campaigning for Sheriff of his county. I was pretty young, so a lot of it was way above my head.

Back then, election returns were broadcast on the radio. When I was really small and didn't understand how it worked, I would cheer each time I heard his name on the radio. I thought it meant he won.

Fast forward a few years later to 1994, the year he lost his seat. I was nine. I'll never forget listening to the returns that night. Once the race was called, his opponent's supporters that were at the courthouse broke out into "Whoomp! (There It Is)."

...

Queen Beyoncé moved down a few notches when I woke up this morning and found she'd updated her blog to include this:

Take that? Was it that kind of contest? Was this whole thing about getting your candidate to win, or about getting the other one to lose?

...

When did social media become the courthouse, with "Whoomp! (There It Is)" echoing over the airwaves after each election? When did this level of braggadocio become the norm? Are we celebrating our own success, or reveling in someone else's failure? When did it become okay for a grown mother of two to comment not on a man's character, but make fun of how big his ears are? Isn't that the same bullying we're trying to teach our kids NOT to do? When did any of it become okay? When did our country turn into this? And how do we get it back?

3 comments:

  1. I'm not surprised by what Beyonce wrote...seems just like something she would do.

    I agree with all of your last paragraph! So sad to see this country while at it's best (ie democracy) it is also at it's worst (petty celebrations and lots of greed)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beyonce makes me barf!

    ReplyDelete

Oh goody!

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