Zaevion Dobson Is Dead ... Why Aren't We Hearing About It?

Most mornings, Carlos and I have breakfast while watching Good Morning America … or one of those shows … on the tiny flatscreen atop the refrigerator.

Yesterday, the big story was Steve Harvey naming the wrong winner of the Miss Universe pageant. It was good for a giggle; it was good for some jokes on Facebook and Twitter. That was it.

But this morning the story was still there, along with a list of conspiracy theories as to how, and why, Harvey had misread the card with the winner’s name on it. It was all so shocking …

Shocking, to me, because this was still “news.” I mean, it seems we go from one day talking about downed jets and mass shootings and terrorist plots blowhard politicians to a two day news cycle about an error in a beauty contest?

As I sat at the table railing about that to Carlos, I asked about the news story we hadn’t heard this week, on any news channel that I had seen … the story of Zaevion Dobson.

Don’t know who he is? Well, that’s because Miss Colombia, and the entire country it seems, rate the top of the news list in America.

Zaevion Dobson was … was, so you know where this is headed … a high school football player from Knoxville who was killed last week in yet another random shooting spree in this country.

Zaevion Dobson was fifteen. Zaevion Dobson died because, as three men with ties to gangs, began shooting at schoolchildren last week, children out celebrating the upcoming holiday, Zaevion Dobson jumped on top of three girls to save them from being shot and he died in the process.

But by all means, let’s ask Perez Hilton what he thinks about MissUniverseGate.

One little girl, probably talking to her friends one minute about what she wanted for Christmas, suddenly found herself underneath Zaevion Dobson as the bullets flew. And, when it was all over, Zaevion Dobson was dead. Now Zaevion’s mother, Zenobia Dobson, will bury her son the day after Christmas.

And where’s the outrage? Sure, we have a lot going on this country; a woman’s crown was removed after two minutes because of an error, but where’s the outrage?

No one is talking. Is it because Zaevion Dobson is just another dead black kid, murdered as a result of gun violence? Or, is it because we are now so desensitized to murder in the streets that we just cannot be bothered to talk, or even care, about it?

And I have yet to hear one single political candidate for the presidency, on either side, mention Zaevion Dobson‘s name perhaps because his murder wasn’t an act of terror and so there are no poll points to be gained.

But try telling Zenobia Dobson that it wasn’t a terrorist who murdered her boy. Ask her where the terrorists live and she might say ‘Around the corner.’ Ask her what she would want this Christmas and you know she’d say she wants her son back, alive and safe, and tearing open a Christmas gift this Friday morning

But we don’t care about the Zaevion Dobsons of the world because a beauty queen lost her crown.

Ain’t that America?

Zaevion Dobson died saving the lives of three friends.

Zaevion Dobson has his whole life ahead of him.

Zaevion Dobson deserves to be talked about.

Something needs to be done.

Slate

Wait A Sec ..... THIS Is Tennessee, Too

Brian Moran, a Knoxville, Tennessee police officer wasn't working last Tuesday, so he decided to attend a City council meeting, where there was going to be a debate over adding ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity in hiring city employees.

And Moran came armed with passages from Leviticus.

Oh, no, not Those passages. Moran, who was brought up in the Baptist Church, says, “I’m here for human rights. I’ve been doing my research. And if somebody’d brought up Leviticus, I was going to hit them with these.”

He flashed a list of Bible verses enumerating human acts that are sanctioned—burning a bull on an outdoor altar as a sacrifice, selling a daughter into slavery, owning slaves as long as they’re not from neighboring states.

“But I didn’t need to do it,” he said.

And he didn't need to do it, because the Knoxville City Council voted unanimously, and without discussion, to approve that ordinance to prohibit discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity in hiring.

This means, and i quote from the article, "that the legislative body of this scruffy little burg on the reddest end of the state the punditocracy has dubbed 'Talibanessee' is halfway to adopting an anti-discrimination ordinance."

All that's left is for it to pass on second reading tomorrow.

And, as often happens, Paul Berney, one of the most active supporters of the non-discrimination ordinance is a first cousin to state Senator Stacey "Don't Say Gay" Campfield, who is notorious for his gay-bashing proposals, and his inane ramblings on the origin of AIDS: "[S]ome guy screwing a monkey."

Cousins. One smart, one Stacey Campfield.

Berney isn't sure if Campfield knows how hard he's worked for this new anti-discrimination policy and, frankly, doesn't care much: "I don’t know [what he’ll say]. My family’s Catholic, and like Stacey I have a lot of love and respect for the church … What I was taught was that the church looks at sex not between a husband and a wife as a sin. Masturbation is a sin; sex outside marriage is a sin. If we’re going to deny people privileges and rights based on homosexuality, maybe we ought to look at all that other stuff, if we’re going to legislate morality. Bottom line, I don’t think it’s for the government to decide. As a taxpayer, I want the most qualified person doing the job, period. I don’t care what they do on their own time.”

Wow. Maybe Stacey Campfield ought to spend a little more time with his relatives, and little less time worried about The Gays. He might actually learn something useful.

Way to go, Knoxville. Way to tell the rest of Tennessee that you won't play that game.

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