Tuesday, April 27, 2010

injustice

What does it mean to you? Inequality, unfairness, meanness, pain. To me, its directly related to assumptions. Assuming I'm a bad kid. Assuming I'm going to do things that I'm not. Assuming that my loss isn't as important because my friend was on drugs or hangs out with the wrong crowd. Assuming I don't hurt.
Two weeks ago, I lost a close friend in a car accident. My school provided a safe place to go during the days following the accident. They provided counselors and big sheets of white paper to write our memories down. You could go when you wanted and stay for as long as you wanted. They also hosted a candlelight vigil the night after it happened. And an organized balloon release with yellow and white balloons. All of the activities provided a sense of security and release.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciated everything everyone did during those days. But i couldn't help wondering why this is the first that anything has been done like it. Salinas is notorious for its crime rate. And it definitely trickles down to the highschool level. Students, kids, sons, daughters, friends, brothers, sisters have been killed before and there's never been anything like this.
The most recent example, is that of Adam Arias. Adam died New Years Day in a car crash. He and the driver had been drinking or doing drugs. Granted he did graduate already, that might have been why there was no services at the school. Yet his younger sister and his friends still attended the school. Either way, there was nothing said at school about the accident. Nothing on the announcements, no safe place for his sister or friends, no candlelight vigil at the school. Nothing.
I started thinking why this was. And why my friend was the first time the school had provided anything. The conclusion I came to involved the people who had died and how they had died. The people that died innocently, received services. Those who died non-innocently, did not. By non-innocently, I mean drugs, gang- related shooting , alcohol.
This makes me wonder if a persons life should be determined by how they die or what kind of person they were. Why should anyone have the right to decide what kind of respect should be paid to a person that passes away.

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