Sunday, August 17, 2014

RIP, Robin Williams!

If I see one more of my facebook friends writes how much s/he already misses Robin Williams, I’ll, I’ll, send her/him a game request.  Any game except Candy Crush of course, because that’s fun.  But I’ll send some weird, random game like Snail Bob…..all seven versions.  Truth be told, I have no idea what that game is.  I just searched facebook for the dumbest looking game, and voilà.  But I just feel so irritated right now.

Look, I feel badly for Robin Williams’ family and for his real friends.  And I get it, many facebook users were big fans of his.  But I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how people can miss someone that they weren’t even thinking about a day before, or never even met, much less had one conversation with.  And I realize that the media frenzy will be obsessed with him for a while; but for ordinary folks, someone really needs to enlighten me. 

And don’t get me wrong, I appreciated his talent.  He piqued my interest with The World According to Garp.  He tickled my funny bone in Moscow on the Hudson.  And by the time I saw Good Morning, Vietnam, I concluded that he was a bonafide movie star worth the accolade.  Of course we all loved Mrs. Doubtfire; and when he spooked me in One Hour Photo, I realized the man was not only a comic, but he had some real acting chops.  But a friend he never was, and never would be!

I feel like the media tell us, or try to tell us what we should be concerned about, on whom we should focus.  The media have a way of making us sympathize with one person over another, even though they are met with the same fate.  John Smith suffers from depression.  He suffers from low self-esteem.  He doesn’t think he is good enough.  He doesn’t love himself.  John Smith is your neighbor and one day, his illness gets the better of him, and John Smith kills himself.  It bothers you for a second or two, but you move on with your life because it doesn’t affect you.  You never even said more than two words to him.  But for some reason, losing Robin Williams has you in a bad way.  You are in denial that somebody that funny, that congenial, that great of an actor can be experiencing the same issues as John Smith.  How can Robin Williams be a mere mortal like John Smith?

And I get it.  We see these people on TV, and we feel like we know them.  We see them as friends, as family.  I get it.  But when will we start seeing our neighbors as friends, our family as family?  When will we exert the same amount of energy for our fellow men that we do for celebrities?  We shouldn’t wait for a celebrity to put a face on an issue for it to be an issue worth following or an issue worth showing some concern.

Then, the day after Robin Williams’ death, as I tried to avert celebrity news, I ended up listening to some woman appealing to President Obama to kindly assist the children stuck at the US-Mexico border.  I’m all for helping these unfortunate children, but I could not believe my ears.  This lady mentioned that these children were being accosted by gang members to sell drugs.  Where else have I heard that happening to innocent children?  Where else have children tried to stay off the streets but are bullied into being drug dealers and gangbangers?  Where else are children shot and killed on the way to school, on the way to visit Nana, on the way to the grocery store?

Some days, I honestly feel like I’m living in an alternate universe.  Everyone has to be so politically correct.  People can’t say what’s really on their minds anymore.  Stephen A. Smith cannot say that women should not provoke men into hitting them or hitting them back before his statement is twisted to mean that he blames the victims.  People cannot say that America is biased towards Israel before they are being accused of being Anti-Israel.  No one can say that peace will never come between the Israelis and Palestinians because they are fighting over family land; but I will.  I have never met a family feud over land that was ever resolved.  And hundreds of years of feuding will never alleviate said problem.  So, maybe stop pumping money into that dead horse!

Then the other day, someone remarked about Robin Williams’ untimely death, and I lost it.  Can you please allow me to give you some facts, well some facts from my perspective?  No one dies before his time.  Any time someone dies, it’s time.  Period!!!


So I do hope that Robin Williams rests in peace, but what I hope for more is that we live in a world where we will be just as sympathetic to John Smith as we are to Robin Williams, where Trayvon Martin will not be more of a household name than Jordan Davis, where Hadiya Pendleton’s demise will not be grieved more than Porshe Foster’s, because perspectively speaking, each one of us is important to someone, and all life should be treated equally.

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