I find myself starved for good behavior, something to remind me of the nobility humankind is capable of when it listens to its civilized integrity.
The NBA has furnished that solace to my famished outlook today.
Here are highly paid, exceptionally privileged individuals who need not concern themselves with the plight of those less fortunate or more beleaguered than they.
No one would fault the athletes of the NBA (certainly not their avid fans) for dispensing with the inconvenience of considering the injustice run rampant in our country. After all, we are in the midst of a national crisis here in the United States the likes of which none of us have experienced in our lifetimes.
These athletes live in a bubble, metaphorically and literally. They are given the best situation conceivable to continue on with their professional lives, as untouched as physically possible by the grim realities of more "average" citizens.
In spite of their cosseted existence which is intentionally set apart from those less fortunate, they have determined that integrity requires them to leave their bubble of self-interest in order to speak out against the injustice and insanity prevailing in our government and society.
Playground dunk in Paris, France
Perhaps they realize implicitly the truth born out by thousands of years of history of human civilization summarized concisely in the statement of former Vice President Hubert Humphrey in November, 1977 in Washington, D.C.:
“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
It is my hope that all those Americans who today view the extreme struggles of fellow Americans as not warranting their foremost attention and concern will somehow learn to realize the insipid ignorance and terrible risk of their illogical indifference.
As an American, I would like to thank the NBA for its refusal to be indifferent.
