Nelson Mandela
I must admit that I didn't have much of a grasp on the life of Nelson Mandela back about 20 years ago.
Yeah, he'd stood in the face of blatant racism.
Sure, he'd been sent off to prison and had toiled there rather than compromise his beliefs.
Certainly he made a bunch of really brilliant comments about living right.
But I was busy back then.
I spent way more time playing sports and drinking beer.
I had no idea who Nelson Mandela really was.
Thankfully, living in the information age we can go back and catch up really quickly. We don't have to go down to the local library and page through the slides or the encyclopedia.
Hell, it's on our phone now if we need it.
"That Mandela dude died," Jake said to me last week as the breaking news hit the world. "What did he do?"
The drinking and the heavy sports playing had ended in plenty of time for me to be able to tell him.
I explained a bit about South Africa and the way he stood tall once he was out of prison. I spoke of his standing as a world leader and how respected he was.
Jake lost interest about three minutes in.
"Yeah, says he died here," he said. "He was 95. It couldn't have been a great shock."
I suppose not.
Yet I went even deeper into reading things about the man. The news outlets were ready. There were posts set to break down the 10 best things he ever said. There were photos of him as a young man, a middle-aged man and an elderly man. There were pages and pages of kind words being said.
Yet I was waiting for it.
And sure enough social media did it for me.
They turned his death into a GOP-Democratic argument.
First there was a guy saying that Ronald Reagan dissed him.
Then I saw a couple of items about how Obama would pretend he'd said what Mandela had once said.
It pissed me off.
"Can't we honor the guy without turning everything into a petty gripe about who did what to whom?"
(I was branded a liberal peace-freak for that).
A few hours later Jake came out of his bedroom holding his phone and looking down.
(I swear that's what I see of my kids most of the time).
"That Mandela dude was a cool guy," he said.
He didn't elaborate.
That was fine with me.
In a world where their attention is diverted every three minutes I was glad that he'd looked into it a little and didn't try to shoehorn his own agenda into it.
RIP to a great man.
Yeah, he'd stood in the face of blatant racism.
Sure, he'd been sent off to prison and had toiled there rather than compromise his beliefs.
Certainly he made a bunch of really brilliant comments about living right.
But I was busy back then.
I spent way more time playing sports and drinking beer.
I had no idea who Nelson Mandela really was.
Thankfully, living in the information age we can go back and catch up really quickly. We don't have to go down to the local library and page through the slides or the encyclopedia.
Hell, it's on our phone now if we need it.
"That Mandela dude died," Jake said to me last week as the breaking news hit the world. "What did he do?"
The drinking and the heavy sports playing had ended in plenty of time for me to be able to tell him.
I explained a bit about South Africa and the way he stood tall once he was out of prison. I spoke of his standing as a world leader and how respected he was.
Jake lost interest about three minutes in.
"Yeah, says he died here," he said. "He was 95. It couldn't have been a great shock."
I suppose not.
Yet I went even deeper into reading things about the man. The news outlets were ready. There were posts set to break down the 10 best things he ever said. There were photos of him as a young man, a middle-aged man and an elderly man. There were pages and pages of kind words being said.
Yet I was waiting for it.
And sure enough social media did it for me.
They turned his death into a GOP-Democratic argument.
First there was a guy saying that Ronald Reagan dissed him.
Then I saw a couple of items about how Obama would pretend he'd said what Mandela had once said.
It pissed me off.
"Can't we honor the guy without turning everything into a petty gripe about who did what to whom?"
(I was branded a liberal peace-freak for that).
A few hours later Jake came out of his bedroom holding his phone and looking down.
(I swear that's what I see of my kids most of the time).
"That Mandela dude was a cool guy," he said.
He didn't elaborate.
That was fine with me.
In a world where their attention is diverted every three minutes I was glad that he'd looked into it a little and didn't try to shoehorn his own agenda into it.
RIP to a great man.
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