There was a moment of silence before the Celtics put the Bucks on a shelf in Boston yesterday, because once more a bunch of people got shot by fools and lunatics over the weekend.
Twenty-one took a bullet, although no one died, Friday night outside the arena Milwaukee where the Celtics were winning Game 6 against the Bucks. The next day, 13 more were shot, and 10 were killed, when a white supremacy terrorist drove 3 1/2 hours to shoot black people in a Buffalo supermarket.
Hell of a weekend in this shooting gallery we call America. Price we pay for freedom, and all that.
Me, I just wonder when these moments of silence will become as much a pregame standard at our sporting events as the national anthem. And now tonight's moment of silence for the victims in Waxahachie ... Hog Waller ... Ferndale ...
That sort of thing.
Might as well start doing it now and beat the rush, I figure.
I say this because the country we were over the weekend is apparently the country we want to be, where a constitutional amendment gets warped beyond recognition and people die damn near every day because of it. What happened over the weekend in Milwaukee and Buffalo was only marginally abnormal, after all. Mostly it was just Tuesday.
In Milwaukee, there were three separate shootings/gun battles, and two of them were the shootout at the OK Corral. Lots of firearms spraying lots of bullets everywhere, mere blocks from Fiserv Forum. How nice.
And Buffalo?
That was the handiwork of a twisted white boy, all jacked up on the paranoia so eagerly stoked by fear-mongering knobs on TV and politicians who openly traffic in white supremacist themes. All that "replacement theory" nonsense, for instance?
Why, that's just traditional Klan doctrine dressed up in its Sunday best. Defending the white race from being overwhelmed by some great "invading" Other? Hell, the Klan's been playing variations on that since Nathan Bedford Forrest first got 'em together. It's one of their central tenets.
And over the weekend, it got 10 people shot to death.
Because words matter, see, especially if you're a public figure with a pubic platform. And when you use that platform as recklessly as some politicians or talking heads do -- especially in a country where lethal weapons are as available as candy bars -- people die. Screech about phantom threats loudly enough, after all, and someone somewhere is going to take you seriously.
In any event, here we are again, with our moments of silence and our pro forma thoughts and prayers. And I can't help thinking about one item in the news stories about the Milwaukee shootings, mentioned merely in passing.
It was a note about how none of the shootings happened in the Deer District, an outdoor area of bars and restaurants adjacent to the arena where fans traditionally gather for watch parties. And where they have to pass through metal detectors to gain entrance.
Metal detectors for a watch party.
America, man. America.
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