President Obama has been taking flak for declining to refer to radical Islamic terrorists by that name.
He’s playing a curious game of omission that puzzles some of us.
Accordingly, I’ve decided to play my own similar game. I’m no longer going to refer to mass murderers by their names.
I’m not alone in this symbolic decision. Some media outlets have done so already. I’m all for that decision.
There’ve been so many of them now, going back, I suppose, to the 1966 murder from the top of the Texas Tower at the University of Texas-Austin. I’ve referred to that killer by name many times in the past. I won’t do so here — or ever again. He was killed by police officers.
Since then, well, we’ve had a number of them. The recent string of mass murders began with the Columbine High School massacre. It’s been a non-stop string of them ever since.
I will acknowledge having in the past referred to the two shooters at Columbine, to the madman at Newtown, Conn., to the (officially) alleged shooter in Charleston, S.C., and to the monster who killed those people in Orlando, Fla., by name already. Yes, there have been others. Too many others, to be sure.
My declaration came after the Orlando shooting, though.
When the Charleston suspect goes on trial, it will be difficult to refrain from identifying him by name, but I’ll give it a go. Maybe I’ll just refer to him as “the defendant.” Does that work?
The guy who shot those Dallas police officers to death this past week now deserves to be cast into oblivion. He’s dead, too, along with most of the aforementioned gunmen.
To mention their names is to call attention away — if only for an instant — from the victims of their heinous actions.
So, to assuage my own feelings, I hereby pledge to refrain from mentioning these monsters’ names out loud.
Will it take our minds off the evil acts they committed? Hardly. We all know what they did and we feel no less pain over the tragic loss of life by refusing to mention their names.
There. I feel better already.
