the thinnest pretext

Shortly after everyone heard that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by the US and all the stations were showing two crowds of celebrating young people at the White House and in NYC at ground zero, this meme started to make its way around the internet. Purporting to be a quote from MLK, it's a mashup of a line from a woman writing on Facebook and a snippet from a 1957 sermon by King. When it started getting sent around, the quotes got dropped out so that it read like this:

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

And it went viral.

And it's annoying me along with the number of people who've jumped to their keyboards to use the death of Bin Laden to whinge about the crassness of American culture, to point out that there's still a couple of wars on, to pile on Obama, to chastise the people shouting U-S-A, U-S-A on Sunday night.

A couple of things are bugging me. First, as far as I've been able to tell, there wasn't mass rejoicing in the streets. Although it may be crude to rejoice at someone's death, as I look at the people in the pictures, I see young people whose lives have largely been led in the shadow of 9/11 and the great changes that day brought to our country (not for the better). Osama Bin Laden has been this looming bad guy for nearly a decade and they're like the Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz (movie version) singing, "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead." Because that's what he's been, our national bad dream and bogey man.

Second, I'll be honest. I'm glad he's dead. Regardless of the forces made this son of privilege the determined enemy of the West, I think the world is a better place without him. That's not rejoicing, but I'd be lying to say that I'm sorry.

Thirdly, making this event the hook to every other agenda and issue in the US. This country has huge problems and having one man dead doesn't change that one bit. But his death is about his death and maybe about the "war on terror" and the two wars that brought about. It's not about the economy. It's not about the budget. It's not even about the friggin' election.

Fourthly and finally, it's that faux quote. I can't fault the woman who first wrote the post. She said what she was feeling and supported it using a quote of a man she admired. The people who've been sending it around ever since are not writing their own feelings. They're cutting and pasting this appeal to authority. The implication, as I read it, is since King said it, it has more weight than a random individual on FB. And that just bothers me. A friend of mine wrote that she's disturbed at the celebration of the death of someone who was once an innocent baby. Now, I'm not convinced by that, but at least it's her thought, not someone else's. It's not trying to acquire value, realness, or gravitas by invoking someone that people respect.

Jeez.

There's another point I can feel building up about death and how not every death affects all of us. Most don't, John Donne, notwithstanding, but for me to write that here and now is well, a thinner pretext yet.