{"id":1151,"date":"2009-11-17T09:33:17","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T14:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/blog\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2022-01-18T14:32:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T22:32:32","slug":"shaniya-davis-and-the-world-we-live-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/?p=1151","title":{"rendered":"Shaniya Davis and the world we live in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that Shaniya Davis’ body has been found<\/a>, the chorus of “what is this world coming to?” has begun. \u00a0Before you sing your part, I’ve got a quick story from my last trip to Atlanta.
\nI was in the barber shop, watching another rousing edition of the evening news. \u00a0I say that because Atlanta has, without question, the most depressing evening news I’ve ever seen. \u00a0It’s the big reason I’ve watched very little local news since my freshman year of college (leading to more than a few awkward conversations with local news personalities who don’t understand how I could possibly not know who the hell they are). \u00a0I do remember that great story the day the dudes tried to set it off at Chuck E. Cheese in ’97, and thinking how mad they would have been had they got home to find they jacked up a dozen sacks of tokens. \u00a0Other than that? \u00a0Not worth it.
\nHome invasion here. \u00a0Murder there. \u00a0You name it — if it would mess up your mood, it was on in the first 15 minutes.
\nNow, this was the day of the shootings at Fort Hood…and the Atlanta news still<\/em> beat that in terms of depression.
\nSo I sat in the chair, and I said to the barber, “it seems like every time I come back here, things get wilder and wilder.”
\nI’ll never forget his response.
\n“No it’s not. \u00a0Only thing wilder is the news.”
\nHe’s right, in large measure. \u00a0The crime rate isn’t that much different than it was before. \u00a0I have to admit that part of the reason Atlanta seems wilder to me now is that poor people that used to jack each other have started breaking into houses in my parents’ neighborhood. \u00a0That’s got a way of making things seem a lot worse.
\nThere are some horrible things going on right now. \u00a0Know why? \u00a0Because they’re a continuation of the horrible things that have happened forever and ever and ever. \u00a0The saddest thing about what happened to Shaniya Davis is that this isn’t new. \u00a0This isn’t something to make us take inventory of modernity. \u00a0Remember — yesterday’s victims are tomorrow’s predators. \u00a0This is a cycle, not a shift.
\nDon’t be a fool for the 5 o’clock news. \u00a0Only thing good about the good old days is that they’re old. \u00a0This was another terrible thing to happen in a world that’s got a terrible side to it. We just know a lot more about that side than we used to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that Shaniya Davis’ body has been found, the chorus of “what is this world coming to?” has begun. \u00a0Before you sing your part, I’ve got a quick story from my last trip to Atlanta. I was in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[96],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-boblogs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}