{"id":32012,"date":"2013-07-25T16:48:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T16:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=32012"},"modified":"2013-12-14T00:13:06","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T00:13:06","slug":"welborn","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=32012","title":{"rendered":"“I\u2019m not drinking it!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent pet peeve of mine is the phrase \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid.\u201d It\u2019s a reference to the Jonestown Massacre, but it\u2019s used without emotion, like it\u2019s about being at a picnic. After listening to an NPR report on Jonestown<\/a> a few months ago, I will never again let someone near me use the phrase without opprobrium.<\/p>\n

The Jonestown Massacre happened in November 1978, less than 30 years ago. More than 900 people \u2013 a third of them children \u2013 died or were killed. You\u2019d think it would loom larger in the American psyche than it seems to.<\/p>\n

My mother always spoke about it with reverence and sadness, since before Jim Jones brought his followers to Africa and became a concern to the U.S. government, he had been a voice for racial harmony in the country.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, 70% of his followers (and those that died at Jonestown) were black, even though he was white.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s why it\u2019s easy for people to make fun of the tragedy \u2013 it was mainly black people<\/i> that died. No one makes fun of the Waco tragedy<\/a>, where only 74 people died. As a matter of fact, I think that this attitude is probably closely connected to that which caused people to be trapped in the Super Dome for a week among sewage and death, without the federal government intervening. Or why, after our government has called the violence in Darfur<\/a> a \u201cgenocide,\u201d we still don\u2019t have the political will to help.<\/p>\n

Listen to the NPR documentaries on Jim Jones and his followers<\/a>. When it comes to the part where a survivor talks about seeing his wife pour the deadly drink into their crying 3-year-old son, and watching them both die, convulsing and foaming at the mouth \u2013 you will never again stand silent when someone minimizes the tragedy by using that phrase.<\/p>\n

(This article is adapted from a longer piece by Mr. Welborn on his blog, and is reprinted with permission. He may be reached through at welborn@mac.com<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent pet peeve of mine is the phrase \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid.\u201d It\u2019s a reference to the Jonestown Massacre, but it\u2019s used without emotion, like it\u2019s about being at a picnic. After listening to an NPR report on Jonestown a few months ago, I will never again let someone near me use the phrase without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":31960,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-32012","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32012"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52241,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32012\/revisions\/52241"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}