Hours after news broke Thursday of the deadly shooting rampage at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, someone within my social network of friends on Facebook posted a status update decrying the lack of alertness from her news feed concerning the newsworthy tragedy.
“I bet if Michael Jackson had been shot there, it would be the universal status update,” her post lamented.
I’d like to believe I’m pretty tapped into the news (despite not owning a television), but I must admit that even with Facebook, Twitter and the ubiquitousness of portable Internet connectivity, I didn’t hear about Fort Hood until 11 people were confirmed dead and the shooter was thought to be long gone.
I guess it’s my fault for not tuning into CNN, checking MSN.com or going straight to any real news source for my daily intake of important events. But I doubt many of you did, either.
I took it for granted that, in the event of a catastrophe, someone would let me know via a text message or a status update. Heck, at the very least, I figured someone would tell me in person.
It’s worked before. When Kanye West pulled his “I’m happy for you” shenanigans at the Video Music Awards, I knew that Taylor Swift had been slighted immediately. I wasn’t watching the awards show, but thanks to an explosion of Facebook updates, it was clear Mr. West had done something stupid on live television again.
Two weeks ago, I heard of the suicide on campus not because I subscribe to the emergency text-messaging service but because several of my friends were and rushed to tell me about it. ASU was chattering nonstop about the sudden tragedy until we collectively found out the victim was a 59-year-old graduate student. Suddenly, the excitement and relevance of the story seemed to dissipate on campus, because it was no longer a compelling story to most traditional students four decades younger than the man who took his own life.
This is what happens when we put our faith in our peers when it comes to information sharing.
Worse, the reputable news corporations respond to our apathy of important events by choosing not to cover them as extensively as they know they should. This is why the wars no longer get much coverage and why Fort Hood has already becoming a drifting memory. And why Michael Jackson was a regular topic on Larry King Live for months.
The Jackson comparison speaks volumes. How many people in America went to bed that night unaware the King of Pop had unceremoniously departed from this world?
A national conversation swirled around the nature of Jackson’s death, the future of his estate, the fate of his children and his legacy — either as something between a cultural icon and a race-unifying messiah or a psychologically tormented egomaniac.
And at the end of it, after the nationally televised funeral, the hurried blockbuster docudrama and a resurgence of his music among a younger generation, none of it really mattered. Jackson’s death didn’t reveal anything new or important about our world, have political or societal implications or shed light on anything meaningful at all. His death reflected our obsession with celebrities, but we already knew about that.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan may prove to reflect our apathy when it comes to news that isn’t instantly relatable. Jackson’s death was tangible because his songs made us dance, and the suicide on campus made us pause (briefly) because we share in the often-stressful experiences of being a college student.
Yet when an Army psychiatrist goes on a shooting spree at the largest active-duty armored post in the country, we barely make a peep.
Why aren’t we talking about it? Forget the status updates and Tweets because those are just noise — there is no meaningful, open dialog reflecting on the violence at Fort Hood. Where is the national conversation that we all participated in after Columbine and 9/11? Have shooting sprees become unworthy of our spastic attention?
It’s not that there isn’t anything worth discussing. Hasan was a psychiatrist — a profession we hope to be occupied by the most emotionally stable of people. There have been (now mostly dispelled) whispers of the event being a coordinated terrorism plot. Apparently, Hasan gave ample warning signs that something wasn’t right in his life — warning signs that again were overlooked or entirely ignored.
And then there are the ties to the wars. Hasan reportedly was due for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, something he worked hard to avoid.
With a historical appreciation of post-traumatic stress disorder, we rarely, if ever, speak of pre-traumatic stress disorder.
According to National Public Radio’s Tom Gjelten, pre-deployment suicides account for 35 percent of all Army suicides — the same percentage that occurs post-deployment. Would now be a good time to start that conversation?
As details continue to trickle out, it appears Hasan was a devout Muslim who was regularly teased for his religion and ethnicity. Eight years after 9/11, America still a fears and misunderstands Islam.
But we’re still not discussing our problems of cultural phobia.
We don’t live on a military base, and most of us will never have to fear the atrocities of war, but just because Fort Hood is distant from us both in miles and mind doesn’t mean it’s not something that deserves our attention.
In the wake of a Muslim Army psychiatrist’s deadly rampage on a military base in Texas, we’re remaining silent when there’s so much that needs to be discussed.
At the very least, shouldn’t we be talking about how no one cares?
Dustin is reflecting on Fort Hood. Start a conversation by sending him an e-mail at dustin.volz@asu.edu.
