#Jabs

Recently there has been a big story here in Minnesota about the hockey player Jack Jablonski a sixteen year old with an awful story. A little while ago Jack was illegally checked into the boards during a hockey game that severed his spinal column and he is now paralyzed from the neck down despite a recent surgery that took place yesterday. I truly feel so sad for Jack, his family, and all those close to him I can’t think of many things much worse than what Jack is going through. Our school, and many others, wore white today in recognition of him, and a lot of people have changed their profile pictures to a picture of his hockey number and a caption saying that _____ is praying for Jack. Here is an article on his status: JABS. Along with that there have also been several arguments today on and off Facebook regarding this matter.

Before I continue I want this to be loud and clear: I am not down playing the awfulness of Jack’s tragedy, and I don’t mean any insult to him/his supporters.

With that said, this issue has brought up a lot of controversy regarding the coverage of Jack’s accident. The amount of support shown for Jack has never been seen before at this scale. Many people have gone out of their way to show their support for Jack that hasn’t been seen by anyone in our high school, and other high schools. People are continuously posting about it on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Multiple schools have done the white out today.  Finally, students have called each other insensitive for not wearing white or changing their profile picture to fit the current situation.

Here is where the argument lies. This week a 3 year old was shot in Minneapolis, no one is changing their profile picture for him. Last year one of our own classmates (a year older and was black) was shot to death, we didn’t do a white out for him. Some of our classmates see that there is a problem that it seems that we are only caring for Jack or we seem to care less about others.

I see some validity in this point. I think that something that these people allude to is that Jack is a kid that many of us high schoolers can relate to, which explains the magnitude of the reaction. I believe that everyone deserves recognition if something so tragic happens to someone.

When things get really political/argumentative I prefer to not take sides, because I don’t see the sense in fighting. I think it is awful that Jack got hurt. I am participating in the white out and am keeping Jack in my prayers. I hope that Jack gets better; his doctor said that depending on how he reacts to his surgery he may gain more of an ability to move.

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