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Thursday, March 28, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

Thoughts about the Boston tragedy

I hadn’t talked to my mom in a while, and she, being the good mom she is, checked in with me. After a bit of a back and forth, the conversation ended with “glad to know that you’re OK.”

I don’t know if “OK” is the right word for now. Not after the 2013 Boston Marathon.

We’ve experienced tragedies before, but this one seemed to strike deeper.

Part of it was that this was in Boston. Not New York City, the ethnic melting pot that symbolizes America’s diversity. It wasn’t Washington, D.C., our capital and governmental base of operations. In the words of John Tlumacki, the photographer who took what will probably end up as the iconic image of this tragedy displaying three officers mobilizing as a runner was on the ground, “I think it’s haunting to see: this is Boston, this is Liberty. All of this happening with all the flags of the nations. Here are people — a pile of injured people — just laying in front of these flags.”

It didn’t just hit our tradition of 117 marathons, though. It hit us in sports, one of our refuges from the real world. We use these events to get away from the doom and gloom of everyday life. Sporting events across Boston were canceled in response.

Statistically, three deaths and 183 hospitalizations is tame compared to the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing (168 dead, hundreds more injured), but that is neither here nor there. Comparing tragedies just seems crass and disrespectful right now.

But we’re going to.

And at the same time we’ll politicize this, just like all the other tragedies.

Some of us already have. For all we know, it may have been politicized from the start. Once the story about the story completes its course, we’ll file it away, using bits and snippets from it to bolster whatever side of a debate we’re on.

I always end up coming back to the idea it was a sporting event. The main phrase that has been running through my head the past few days is “it’s not supposed to happen here. Not to us,” as if our sports are sacred. I probably got that idea from growing up in the South, where college football is just as much a religion as any traditional denomination is.

That’s what attacks like these are supposed to do, though.

They shake our beliefs and challenge our convictions. We hesitate and allow doubt to creep in.

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So what now?

Obviously the answer is “move on,” but how do we go about it? We insult those killed and injured if we don’t change security levels, but we risk losing the escape if there are constant reminders of the big bad world.

Maybe we should just end our collective suspension of disbelief. All of the concussion issues have started that process when it comes to football. It might just be a matter of time until that extends to all of our sports.

Then I look at the Olympic Games. I look at international soccer. They’ve gone through extremist attacks. The Olympics and the World Cup are the two biggest sporting draws today despite the risks such large events pose.

We’ll get past this, and we’ll become better citizens, fans and people, whether it’s because of or in spite of this ordeal.

Any other result is the most disrespectful outcome of all.

Logan Ladnyk is a journalism junior at UF. His columns normally run on Fridays. You can contact him via opinions@alligator.org.

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