On Friday, my wife and I walked from our house near downtown
Indianapolis to the Super Bowl village. The game was more than a week away, but
the whole area was already crowded. It appeared that every pavilion and tent
within 500 miles was either already set up or currently being assembled in the
streets and parking lots of downtown Indianapolis.
There are giant Super Bowl sculptures, at least three
stages, dozens of outdoor bars, a zip line down the middle of Capitol Avenue,
and half a dozen buildings wrapped in enormous Microsoft Kinect ads. Here’s a
shot of Monument Circle:
As I walked around this temporary amusement park, I got more
and more depressed. Why? For every scene like this:
There’s also one like this:
Now, I know that only a minority of the people holding signs
are actually
homeless or hungry. And giving money to panhandlers only exacerbates the
problem. But the dichotomy between the glittering temporary bars and stages for
Super Bowl XLVI and the panhandlers points up a real problem in our society—one
that calls The Hunger Games to my
mind.
Are the fashionable spectacles of the Super Bowl Village really
that different from the glitz and glamor of the Capitol District? And while we
don’t have any place labeled District 12, you could easily form one among the
population of Indianapolis. Consider this:
167,000
residents of Indianapolis live below the federal poverty line
63,000 of
them are children
34,000
residents will go hungry at some point this year.
3,000 will
be homeless at some point this year.
About 50 homeless
people in Indianapolis will die of exposure this winter.
And consider
these stats:
Lucas Oil Stadium cost $750,000,000, of which $650,000,000 was public tax money.
The Super
Bowl will cost at least $29,000,000 ($25,000,000 from private donors and $4,000,000 from the Capitol Improvement Board, which is publicly funded.)
No, we don’t
kill 23 kids per year for our entertainment. Football only kills about four people each year, making it a relatively safe sport (gymnastics, cheerleading, and
downhill skiing are far more dangerous.) But as I walked through the Super Bowl
Village on Friday, I had the feeling that I was bearing witness to an
inevitable slide—America becoming Panem.
What do you
think? Please convince me I’m wrong in the comments. I’m getting depressed all
over again.
I used to work downtown Indy when I lived up there. The one thing I disliked was seeing the homeless on the corners. But, what I liked seeing was the volunteers going around with a wagon at lunchtime and passing out lunches. They did this daily and it was a wonderful feeling knowing people cared.
ReplyDeleteWhile we have divisions in our society, I'm not sure that will ever change. It's the choices we make that matters.
Wow. When you put it that way...it's not difficult to see the similarity. I know that's not what you wanted to hear.
ReplyDeleteI can think of one huge difference--we can choose to make a difference if we want to. My church's youth group (along with thousands of others around the country) will focus attention on helping the the hungry next Sunday with the Souper Bowl of Caring. If fact, they are working on their own commercial that will show just how many lives could be saved for the cost of one Superbowl commercial. We'll follow that up with the 30-Hour Famine sponsored by World Vision--where we will experience hunger and raise more money to feed hungry people.
ReplyDeleteSure, we're Panem. And it's depressing. However, it does take certain individuals to break away from the hive to point out some important truths. Like you've just done.
ReplyDeleteI see good happening every day, and some of that is to do with how I choose to live...as sustainably as possible. I choose awareness over ignorance. It doesn't depress me, but focuses me.
If we are trusting in society as a whole to fix this trend, then we are in big trouble. Real change comes from individuals doing what God created us to do--love people more than we love ourselves.
ReplyDeleteSomeday read "I Will Bear Witness 1933-1941" a diary of the Nazi Years by Victor Klemperer. At one point he describes the emphasis surrounding the athletes of the Olympics and how so much money was spent on bringing the games to Germany in '36. It is frightening to see how the US is placing such an excessive value on sports and to compare the plight of the common people in Germany then and the condition of the poor in America now.
ReplyDelete@Miranda -- do you know who was doing the lunch cart downtown? I'd love to volunteer for them. It may have ended, I've never seen it and I walk downtown 3-4 times per week. I used to volunteer for the soup kitchen at Roberts, too, but that's closed down. And they no longer allow pop-up soup kitchens on the military mall.
ReplyDeleteTo everyone who commented about the power of individuals caring and charity: yes, I agree. But shouldn't we rely on individual caring and charity to build frivolous things, like sports stadiums, and ask government instead to guarantee those things it has promised to, namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? A hungry child is not able to pursue happiness. Nor is the promise of life worth much to a guy frozen to the street he slept on.
ReplyDelete@Mike's last comment, I agree with you, but sadly, there are many in our nation who rush to label that type of government intervention as socialism and fear a Communist society. I voted in 2008 for a president who would reform healthcare; I shouldn't have been surprised at the backlash but it was disheartening. I wish our government would work together to make the healthcare bill stornger and more viable rather than each party tearing each other apart. It makes me sick that some (not all) republicans want it to fail because it's Obama-initiated.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of people in our nation who really, really, really don't like to be told where their tax money should go. Even if it's to help feed hungry children. They don't want their lives being taxed and they want to control where the money goes. I wish it was different, but my only solace is there ARE people doing the good work of serving others regardless of our squabbling government.
Well, my husband is a social worker, so this is pretty much the daily topic of conversation at our house. It can be almost unbearable to think of the situations of some in this country.
ReplyDeleteExpand this thought process onto a global scale, and it gets a bit numbing.
But I still don't think America is becoming Panem. The world is not becoming Panem. We might have a long way to go, but there are people out there working very hard to help. There are solutions, even to the biggest problems. And there's a reason we have so many apt metaphors for tackling huge problems one step at a time - because we are capable, and we don't give up.