Every Cuban-American family I knew growing up in South Florida kept a bottle of champagne waiting for the day Fidel Castro died. Nobody talked about it as a celebration of a death. It was a celebration of an end to suffering, of the day the waiting could finally stop.
Senator Lindsey Graham has died, unexpectedly. With all politically attuned eyes on Mitch McConnell’s health, his death felt like some kind of mortal bait-and-switch. And within hours, my feeds filled with creators I respect reacting in ways that ranged from somber restraint to open glee. Some of the same people who had jokes ready for McConnell went quiet. Some found new jokes fast.
Which raises a question: should we celebrate the death of our perceived enemies?
I have three thoughts, and they don’t fully agree with each other. I’d love to know what you think.
Not a good look
Dancing on graves in public never ages well. When we do it, we believe it’s about the person who’s gone. In reality it functions as a reveal of our own character.
That’s my instinct, anyway. But I typed that and immediately thought about the champagne. Nobody looks at an exile family toasting the end of the man who took their country and thinks, what a character flaw. So the rule I just stated can’t be the whole rule.
The self-censor
I have the mind of a comedian. I see the funny in everything, including things I have no business finding funny, and some days it takes strength to rein it in.
So I recognize what a lot of social media posts actually are. People aren’t issuing moral verdicts on a life. They’re sharing the thing that popped into their head that they thought was funny or clever, without much consideration of anything else. I know because I had three of those thoughts before I finished reading the headline. I just didn’t post them.
I’m not sure the difference between them and me is virtue. It might just be brand discipline. That’s an uncomfortable admission, and I’m leaving it in.
A language of the unheard
Dr. King, arguing for nonviolence in “The Other America”, said that a riot is the language of the unheard. I want to be careful here, because that line gets stretched to cover everything, and a snarky post is obviously nothing like a riot. I’m borrowing only the logic.
When people erupt in ways that look counterproductive from the outside, the eruption usually has a history. Some of what looks like verbal violence, or mocking an otherwise somber occasion, is an emotional release with a load of pain behind it. I don’t know what a stranger is releasing when they post the joke I would have judged. Graham’s record touched real lives in ways I can’t inventory from my kitchen counter. So even when I think a reaction is in poor taste, I don’t stand between a person and their catharsis.
What I’ll do
My first instinct says restraint reveals character. My third says withholding judgment reveals character too. Both can’t govern every case, and I think the champagne is what separates them.
The champagne was never about mocking a dead man. It was about the living, about a community marking the end of something that had been done to them. Mockery points at the deceased and asks the room to laugh. Release points at a wound and lets it finally close. From the outside, the two can look identical. From the inside they are not.
I may yet post a joke or two, and I certainly won’t be scolding anyone who does the same. But every time I feel that flash of glee or grief at someone’s passing, 'I’ll ask what the feeling is actually about. If the answer is a wound, I’ll honor it. If the answer is an audience, I’ll sit still.
I’m curious to know your thoughts.
