I distinctly remember an easy-reader book I used to like that told brief histories of the most recent First Kids. Inexplicably, Caroline and Jack were my favorite above all else. Although maybe not so inexplicable. Caroline’s peacoat made me stare, the portrait of the family kept my attention with the fashion and the good looks. That book failed to mention that the perfect family I had chosen as my favorites would be blasted open within a few years of the ages those kids were depicted as.
I grew up not being very aware of globally significant deaths. This was intentional on my mother’s part, not seeing the need in telling me all about these horrors before I was old enough to deal with it. But learning about the Kennedy assassination was never structured for me. It certainly will in the future, but it apparently hadn’t made it into my history books yet, and teachers left that part out when talking about our fine white selection of past presidents. I have to admit that this past week has given me more information about Kennedy than I have encountered in the last seventeen years of my life.
The fascination with this incident is conversely fascinating to me. It almost has become obsession over the obsession, turning Kennedy into a mysterious and godlike figure, and talking about it in heated online debates.
It seems to my quickly-learning brain that the real draw of the assassination is that it has become such a story. Some people see the most obvious story. Others see a second one deep below the surface. Still more probably come up with their own stories just to stir the pot a little. The obscure narrative makes our brains go haywire with emotions of excitement and sorrow and dread. It is the absolute novelty of the event that we have created that has given it the draw it has attained.
I have no clear idea of how much any of you know about the JFK assassination and the paranoia (valid and less-than-valid) surrounding it. It seems to me like this stuff has permeated so much of popular culture, it's just kind of "in the air." But I'm struck that it wasn't even included in your early American history education at all. I understand if 5th graders aren't grappling with the CIA's involvement in plots against Castro's life, but the fact of the assassination itself was such a massive event in popular culture (I grew up with the cliche "where were you when you learned JFK was shot?" as a commonplace feature of conversation among adults), I always assume you guys know a lot of the basics.
ReplyDeleteI'm doubly glad I assigned that Frontline documentary now!