Asking The Wrong Questions About Steve McNair
I liked Steve McNair. I saw him play several times and he was an exciting quarterback. He was in Hoots last year to see his nephews practice at a game. I knew he was in town, didn’t bother him because, well, I don’t like to be bothered myself. He was there to see his nephews and we stayed away so he could do that but it was the talk of the town.
I was like others who were shocked that he was murdered this weekend. I guess my brain was just as interested on the whys of his death as much as anyone. Once again, Twitter was on fire about what was going on and wondering about why this man was shot to death.
I’ve covered several murder trials (here in Hoots, we just don’t have that many quite frankly) and I have learned one thing. You have to let the police do their jobs in investigating every crime scene. I was always very careful not to get in the way at these things. Actually, murder/car wreck scenes are messy and my favorite thing to do was to cover the trials that followed a criminal investigation.
I know that it may not be popular to say in a world where instant communication is demanded by a hungry public, but I think cops just need to be allowed to do their jobs.
With that said, the National Lampoon website, of all places, takes a serious moment and asks a very good question.
Millions of football fans in and outside of Nashville want to know why McNair was murdered this weekend. It is indeed the most important question, as is often stressed in this blog. And indeed the answer should be made public to bring his murderers to justice. But that isn’t the juicy part of the story is it? The media is instead asking loudly why Steve McNair was in an apartment with a 20 year old woman who isn’t his wife?
The real question is, why do we need to know?
News these days is about the “sexy” bits. Was Michael Jackson on drugs, were Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal together when she died or we were even bombarded about Ed McMahon’s financial troubles were dissected after he passed away.
I saw these items discussed a great deal over the past two weeks
When policy is being debated on, let’s say on a school project, we find that we don’t hear about that like we do about the latest spat between Jon and Kate.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint about this stuff either. I want to know the whys too but I don’t really care about McNair being with a woman who isn’t his wife. (I do want to know, however, if Mark Sanford used taxpayers money to go see his booty call in Argentina. We work hard for that cash and that’s my interest in that case. I see elected officials differently than I do celebrities for that reason alone.)
We live in interesting times when it comes to our fascination for celebrity news. I am often morose about these things, but I do know that we tend to look at the emotional parts of this case instead of the fact that a man was murdered. If she killed him or if someone else did, it really comes down to the crime committed.
Now if you want to see an ongoing look about other under reported crimes in Nashville, especially in the Salem/Germantown area, go see S-TownMike.
Those folks have families mourning too, you know, they just weren’t famous.
Millions of football fans in and outside of Nashville want to know why McNair was murdered this weekend…
Someone said to me this morning, “if Steve McNair had been home with his wife and 4 sons that night, he wouldn’t have been murdered.” If we’re looking for answers to the “why” question, that’s as good a place as any to start.
I’m NOT saying he deserved what happened to him, no one deserves that. Unfortunately, we live in a society where there is easy access to guns and people too often resolve conflicts with violence. It is the particular sickness of American society.
When something tragic happens to a celebrity it can be a good learning opportunity for us all, if we choose to take it. To often we don’t. Perhaps the tragedies in S-Town Mike’s neighborhood are learning opportunities for the people who knew and loved those victims, too. They should be.
I’m afraid we never seem to learn the main lesson that crimes against the famous and ordinary alike should teach us: that we are here to love one another, love your neighbor as yourself, and treat every living thing with respect.
But what do we expect? Our government wages wars and tortures in our name; our corporations harm the environment and oppress the poor so we can have lives of wealth and ease. Our state government clears the way for people to arm themselves as if walking into a war zone just to go out to dinner.
So, this is inevitable and even predictable. As it is in the macrocosm, so it is in the microcosm. It is the pattern of the universe, repeated in our personal lives, our communities, our states, our nation, our world.
And I guess that is all I have to say about it.
Well said, So. Beale. Great analysis.
Nice, Newsy. I agree completely.
I respectfully disagree with the person So. Beale quoted–it’s entirely possible the man still would have been murdered if he’d been at home. At this point, we still don’t know that the girlfriend pulled the trigger. We don’t know why he was shot. It’s possible–whether the GF was the murderer or not–that the killer could have committed the same crime in a different location.
Frankly, anyone who first asks why the man was with a 20-year-old isn’t very bright. That’s very clear. My question was and is, “why are they dead?”. Not that it affects me; I am just curious. Because, well it is sensational. I’d be wondering the same thing about any two people in this situation in the city where I live, though.
News reports are characterizing Sahel Kazemi as McNair’s girlfriend, and that was the most probable scenario from the get-go (since she was driving a luxury vehicle registered to him), but it’s still a good idea to withhold final judgement pending a factual basis for it.
There are other reasons besides sex on the side he might have been seeing her. They seem unlikely in this case (less likely all the time), but that doesn’t make them impossible. I have female friends who are 20 years younger than I am, and I’m not hitting on any of them.
Here’s the thing — when I first heard the news via Twitter the first thing I thought is “that woman is not his wife.” — the reason I thought this is because a few years back, I was sitting in a bar with a friend. The friend frequents said bar about once or twice a week, knows the staff and the regulars.
As we sat there, my companion pointed at a young, blonde girl and said “see her?” Me: “yes?” – My friend: “That’s McNair’s girlfriend.” Me: “he’s married…” My friend: “yeah, he is…”
Now I don’t know if any other pretty young waitresses besides these two were in McNair’s little black book, but these two were & it sounds like a pattern to me: find a young impressionable girl, shower her with money and expensive gifts, blah blah blah…
Sooner or later, if one keeps looking for trouble, a person eventually finds it.