Is there an issue?
Elizabeth Foley writes about the woman who fell to her death from the Tenth Street Garage last week, and points out that none of her professors mentioned it in class.
Which made me feel a little embarassed, to be honest. I thought this comment deserved some personal examination. Here's what I think:
Had I heard about it? Yes, but really all I knew about it was the headline; the simple fact that it had happened. I didn't know the woman's name, or whether she had any connection to SJSU. I have to admit I didn't actually read any of the news stories about it. Was it reported in the Mercury News as well as the Spartan Daily? I got the impression, though, from what I heard, that they weren't sure whether it was an accident or a suicide. In other words, there were very few facts to report, other than the fact that the woman was dead.
So, cold though this may sound, to be honest I didn't have enough information to care. Sure, it's tragic, but people die every day. Sure, it's scary that it happened so close to us, but I think what really makes it scary is what we don't know. Was she murdered? Was there some negligence involved, that caused her to fall accidentally? If so, then we might be scared because if it happened to her, it could happen to us.
Remember last week we discussed what makes an issue an issue? Well, it seems to me there's no issue here. If the garage has shoddy lighting, allowing murderers to lurk in the corners and attack unsuspecting women, then there's an issue that deserves discussion, argument, even lobbying for change. If there was, say, an unsafe or unmarked construction area, and the woman tripped and fell over the side, again, there's an issue. If the woman was mentally disturbed and committed suicide due to a lack of community support facilities that might have prevented it, again, there's an issue.
But it seems to me — and again, I admit I don't know all the details, so I could be wrong about this — that there is no issue here, and that that's why people aren't discussing it.
What do you think?
1 comment:
Elizabeth, please don't feel guilty for making me feel guilty. I mean that sincerely. You made an excellent point in your blog post, and it affected me enough that I felt compelled to blog about it too.
Between the two of us (and whoever else might join in) we are illustrating a very important aspect of blogging: it's a conversation.
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