Freedom Allows Evil To Flourish
I ‘ve always wondered about America, as have most American Indians. From our vantage points on the Indian reservations, there are times when we have looked at this country through the eyes of people who do not belong.
Last week I wondered even more. On Sunday, a national day of mourning was observed in Oklahoma City. We all know by now, unless we’ve been living in a cave, about the truck bomb that took the lives of so many.
But my local daily newspaper had already relegated the Oklahoma disaster to page 10. No mention was made about Sunday being a day of mourning.
That Sunday, on ABC, CBS, and NBC, one could find two golf tournaments and a professional basketball game. The three national networks did not consider the horrible tragedy in Oklahoma, nor the day of mourning, to be newsworthy enough to get sports events off the air for a few hours, to join the rest of America in grieving for the loss of so many innocents.
I was appalled at the commercialism that has replaced the sense of priority in America today.
What does that tell us about this nation?
The worst act of terrorism in the history of America had just occurred.
African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and European Americans all came together in Oklahoma City to mourn the needless loss of life and to reflect upon what is happening to the moral fiber of this country.
The national television media turns its back on them. Where in the hell are our priorities?
If I am typical in the least, I am sick of the O.J. Simpson trial. I am sick of the national media trying to compete with the supermarket tabloids. Have we so saturated ourselves with the mundane and the sensationalistic that we have lost sight of what the media is supposed to be in America?
Are we becoming so blase that only the most voyeuristic news articles titillate us? It appears to me that seeking out the most personal facts about politicians and celebrities is the fodder that fuels the news. Oh, I know most news editors will say they are only giving the people what they want. This is, indeed, a cop-out.
It says very little of respect for readers. If we assume that all of them are only interested in stories on the royalty of England, O.J. Simpson, or the latest trysts of Sharon Stone, we have indeed lost all respect for the very people who keep us in business.
There is an evil in America that has come to the forefront. Talk radio and television have opened the flood gates to that evil.
It is no longer out of the ordinary to hear racial epithets, sexual vulgarizations or to hear and see people who have been convicted of heinous crimes against humanity appearing as guests.
There appears to be no limit to where this media characterization will go. Respect, honor and common decency are no longer a part of the equation. It seems only those with the most shock value are spouting their abnormalities for all to see and hear, causing these distinctions to become the norm. When are we going to have a Nielsen rating for common decency?
Along with millions of other Americans, my family shared the grief of those who lost loved ones in Oklahoma City. We shed tears along with the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas, and the friends and neighbors of those who bore the brunt of this national outrage.
Why didn’t the major networks cut off their fun and games to allow their viewers to mourn with the rest of America? If not for the Cable News Network, this day of mourning would have been taken from us also.
America has done many bad things in its rise to power, but it has also done many good things. And yet, I can’t help but feel that the evil creeping across this nation is ripping at the very roots of civilization. This evil has found its way to the Indian reservations where instant gratification through drugs, alcohol and crime are getting to be as common as in the inner cities of America.
America lost its War on Poverty. It is losing its war on drugs. It is losing its war on crime. But it must not lose the war against the evil that is at the root of all these problems.
The evil comes in many forms. It is because we are a nation of freedom that it is allowed to exist and flourish. In order to kill this evil, we would have to surrender some of the freedoms we now enjoy.
Just as some Indian nations must turn back to their aboriginal spirituality, culture and traditions in order to destroy the evil that is about to destroy them, maybe America must do likewise.
We are, I believe, at the crossroads in our history.
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