A couple of weeks ago, the drummer from the band Rush, Neil
Peart, died of cancer. This is very sad, and on social media everyone was
saying how sad it was. Nobody posted anything like, “These other non-famous
people died of cancer the same day, so if you’re a good person, you’ll share
this to remember them,” and you would think a person was nuts if they did.
Because of course it is also sad that other people you don’t know died of
cancer, but you are mourning the person you do know (or at least know of, in
the case of a celebrity). It feels like minimizing people’s grief and Neil Peart's life to bring up
other deaths.
So then, why is it that when Kobe Bryant was killed in a
helicopter crash this weekend, my social media feed was full of pictures of
white people who had also died that day, saying if I was a good person I would
share their photos to show they had died too? It was maybe a little bit
understandable when it was the other people in the helicopter with him, but a
cop who died the same day on duty? Come on! The people who post this probably
figure you aren’t going to say, “What are you doing?” because all these deaths
are tragic, but it seems just as wildly inappropriate as if they had been doing
it regarding Neil Peart. I don’t know the people who died in the crash, or the
cop, but I know of Kobe. I also noticed that nobody said, “Remember his
daughter who died too!” Because she’s also black. It just seemed extremely
noticeable that they were basically saying, “Instead of remembering some rich
black guy, focus on the deaths that matter – white people!” It felt like they
were minimizing Kobe’s death, and that to me is racism. This is exactly the
kind of thing that makes people have to remind us all that black deaths matter
as much as white ones.
Famous Hat
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