As I listened to the caller profess that something actually good came out of the beating that a recent celebrity took, I became more and more angry. At the caller. At the patronizing radio host who provided no discernible refutation of the caller's statements with "Uh-huh" "Right. I heard that on Oprah with Tyra" and ended with 'It's rough out there I know. But I love you and you have yourself a great weekend all right?"
Caller: 'I just wanted to call in and say that I think something good actually came out of the whole XXXXX and XXXXX thing.
"You know because it's just going to raise awareness that women need to speak up when they have been abused. That they shouldn't feel afraid to go to police. That getting hit shouldn't just be taken for granted."
All semi-valid points. He continues.
"Because you know it's always going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it"
Huh?
To the first point, hmm. Did OJ beating and killing his wife not raise awareness? How about what Ike did to Tina? Didn't that raise awareness? Bing to his wife? Jason Kidd? Yanni? Brian Giles? Wareen Moon? Dave Deurson? Why does it take sticking your hand in another fire to see if its going to burn a good thing? Can't people be educated on things that have happened already to know enough?
I imagine this same person would have been on the radio in 1946 saying""Well there were some good things that came out of the concentration camps..."
Retrospective revisionism is the ultimate cop out. You get to act like you care and profess to change the future going forward when you aren't actually doing anything. It didn't happen to you. You aren't actively working with any groups to prevent it in the future and will likely be back on the radio talking about the same topic when it happens again.
To the second, if it's always going to happen, then what do we need to raise awareness about? If it's always going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it, then it's a fait accompli and you shouldn't be on the radio acting like there is.
Speaking of raising awareness. Let's talk about the Susan G. Komen Three day cancer walk.
These walks have been going on for 25 years and yet, and yet they do nothing. They perpetuate a monetary cycle to provide people with jobs. They generate publicity for the foundation but not the disease. People with cancer are still dying. You want to raise awareness that yes Cancer is a disease. Yes we know it's a disease. Next point. Well, we are raising money to find a cure for Cancer. OK, you have had 25 years of raising money to find a cure for cancer and nothing has happened. Still no cure for cancer. People are still dying of cancer. Provide me some statistical proof that the money being raised is actually helping to stop the spread of cancer. What I see is money going to reactive procedures that don't address the central point - Stopping the disease permanently. Because then they would be out of a job. Where does the money go? Screening to see if you might have it. Not stopping the disease. Treatment of someone who has the disease. Again reactive. Not stopping it from happening in the first place. Education about the disease. So you want to raise money to tell people about something they could learn on their own from the library or Internet or any other source?
Polio was cured. Typhoid pretty much wiped out. Take the hype and publicity and amount of money spent on the walks and send 100% of it to research. Do that for two years and see if that gets you closer to a cure for Cancer. Because that is the ultimate goal, right? Right?
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