A note on my recent post about wearing a super dope cut-off (which my dad bought for me, and he has a matching one. Ball. Ing.) to the gym following the death of Osama:
I didn’t mean to trivialize it, and I certainly did not mean to offend. I think my overzealous affection for interweb memez (because I knew there were gonna be some good ones surfacing) shadowed my better judgment. Also, I was mostly just excited for my dad and how he would react to the news. If you know *ANYTHING* about my dad at all, you need to know that he is an effin’ PATRIOT. Or at least he wishes he was. My father is a pretty laid back guy, but he absolutely loves three things in this world: 1a. Television shows that rednecks would enjoy, 1b. Fights in any and all sports, 2. Long John Silver’s, and 3. AMERICA. Man bleeds red, white, and blue. Told him I was gonna get an eagle tattoo across my chest and back and he offered to pay for it, real talk. Is contemplating “USA EGLE” as his next vanity plate. Has put down “AMERICAN” in the “Other” box as his ethnicity on many a form instead of “Asian”.
[In case you are wondering, he has been wearing a different patriotic shirt under his work shirt every day since Sunday night (he works nights/early mornings, so he got his celebrationz on early in the game). He let me pick one out for him, too!]
I honestly have no strong opinions one way or the other on the killing of Osama bin Laden. I’m mostly happy for the families of those affected by the terrorist attacks, but honestly feel quite ambivalent about his actual death. I think that everyone was affected in different ways on Sept. 11, and everyone reacted to that tragedy differently. Similarly, people have and will react to the killing of Osama in different ways. Among the millions of different reactions, there are those who say they hope he burns in hell, there are those who say it’s not right to celebrate the death of any human being no matter how wicked he/she was, and there are those who feel relief. I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to tell people what the “correct” or “right” response to this event is, and I certainly don’t think it’s anyone’s place to tell people that they’re not entitled to react, feel, and think as they please. (Frankly, I think it’s kinda self-righteous to tell people that their reactions are callous, inhumane, uneducated, wrong, or whatever the cuss they’ve been saying. Dang, can you let other people rock? I think Chester Frazier is a clown for saying that the Bulls “can’t beat the Hawks”, but he’s entitled to that opinion and to be honest, we gave him pretty good reason to believe that on Monday. So whatevskis.)
In case you are wondering, no, I did not get flooded with hate mail, I just realized in retrospect that I made lols of a serious situation and it could be offensive. I also did not want people to think that I was advocating violence of any sort by putting my guns on full display, so uhhhhhhh…
(/toolness and douchebaggery)
Anyway, just thought I’d share this article.
