board view Burnette
Freedom, the virus, the holiday
For many people in our community, this coming weekend will involve grills blazing, hot dogs and hamburgers sizzling and families gathering to celebrate Independence Day. As these celebrations take place, a word that stands in the background is freedom.
Freedom is a word that I have taken for granted for much of my life, unlike my dad who served in the United States Army. Honestly, for a West Knoxville kid, freedom never felt like a big concern.
However, once the COVID-19 lockdown hit in March of this year, the concept of freedom seemed a lot more relevant. There were no extracurricular activities for the family, just the grocery store and Zoom meetings for work. I get it, these are “first world problems,” and I know many in our community have been hit hard. Whether it was sickness, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or something else, this has not been an easy time for the Farragut community.
For many of us, there is something very odd and uncomfortable about being told where you can and can’t go. I understand the concerns of our health officials and, like you, I want to do my best to help “flatten the curve” for the sake of my neighbors. But it certainly makes you appreciate the freedoms and privileges we normally take for granted.
Add to all this the killing of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the unrest that continues to unfold, and yet again we’ve been forced to think about the concept of freedom. The video of these horrific events will shake you to your core and make you think about freedom (or the lack thereof) from a new perspective. These events and their aftermath have undoubtedly affected the people in Farragut in different ways. Not everyone has experienced (or is experiencing) freedom in the same way many of us experience it.
As a father of five, two of whom are African-American, this issue hits very close to home. Life is very different for my African-American kids than it is for my biological kids, and not usually in a positive way. While this can be an uncomfortable topic for some, it’s a conversation that we need to have, and it needs to be done in love.
All that to say, I know we will experience freedom in a variety of ways heading into this July 4 holiday, particularly in light of recent events.
But my hope and desire is for Farragut to be a place where the freedoms we enjoy will cause us to want to look out for our neighbors — regardless of their race, color, economic status, political affiliation, etc.— and to long for them to be treated as we ourselves want to be treated. It’s been said “great things in life are on the other side of a difficult conversation.” That’s true, and I would submit this is a conversation worth having.
