It’s easy to miss the point and to overlook what should matter most, which probably is why we do it so often.
On Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players in NBA history, died in a helicopter crash in California.
For the rest of that week, there was a constant flow of stories about Bryant in print, on television and online.
Bryant retired after a 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, with 33,643 points, fourth in NBA history, was the league MVP in 2006-07, had two MVP awards for the NBA finals, and helped the Lakers win five league championships.
The tragedy of the helicopter crash that took Bryant’s life was compounded by deaths of eight others on the flight: Gianna Bryant, Kobe’s 13-year-old daughter; Alyssa Altobelli, 14, and her parents John and Keri; Christina Mauser; Payton Chester, 13, and her mother Sarah; and pilot Ara Zobayan.
They were on their way to a girls’ basketball tournament at Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy. Mauser was a Mamba Academy coach, Gianna Bryant, Altobelli and Chester were Mamba players.
Several days earlier and a continent away, another death occurred. It generated much less notice.
The obituary of Leila Janah was posted on the New York Times web site on Jan. 30, and in print, on page B-14, on Jan. 31. Janah died on Jan. 24 in Manhattan.
She was 37 and a victim of epithelioid sarcoma, a rare cancer of soft tissue. She was a Harvard graduate, the daughter of immigrants from India and a social entrepreneur.
In her too-short life, Janah created two companies that employ more than 11,000 workers in Africa and India, workers who had been living in poverty before Janah’s companies hired them and continues to pay them a living wage.
On her way to the office where she was working as a management consultant, Janah had witnessed India’s abject poverty. When she reached the office, she was struck that the workers were middle class and none of the people she had passed on the way were employees. She set out to change that.
Janah started two companies, Samasource and LXMI. Samasource does digital work for some of the largest companies in the world. LXMI is a high-end cosmetics company that hires women to gather ingredients in the Nile River Valley and India.
When the workers’ families are included, the Times estimated, the lives of 50,000 people have been affected by Janah’s ability to bring her vision to life.
This is not to criticize Bryant, not to say his life was basketball and nothing more.
Bryant was more aware of the world outside of basketball than many of his contemporaries. He spoke Italian. He was a doting father and wanted his daughters to realize there was more to life than a game. He won an Academy Award for his contributions to the animated short film “Dear Basketball” based on a poem he wrote about his final season in the NBA.
His potential to make a difference as a coach, a creative artist or businessman was vast. His death left a void that is not easily filled.
But this is to ask why Bryant received such acclaim for playing basketball so well, which was a benefit to himself, his teammates, the owners of the Lakers and the NBA while Janah’s death was noted comparatively briefly a week after her death.
Bryant hardly is the first to be memorialized nationally and internationally while others who made significant contributions pass in relative obscurity.
We offer expansive coverage of athletes, celebrities and people famous for being famous. We push the stories of people who make a huge difference in the lives in huge numbers of people to the fringes of the news.
Bryant’s life and career have been remembered this week. There have been heartfelt and sincere memories in print, online and on national television.
You also could find stories about Janah this week. All you had to do was enter her name in an online search engine . . . to read the stories published a year ago.
It’s easy to find glowing words about the rich, the famous and the glamorous. It’s more difficult to find reminders of those who do the hard work of making lives, and the world, a better place.
If we want the world to become a better place, that perspective needs to change.
January 30, 2021 at 01:29AM
https://richmond.com/sports/professional/woody-its-easy-to-overlook-what-matters-the-most/article_f3ccb17d-03c2-5213-8970-7e7af6bd4dd4.html
Woody: It's easy to overlook what matters the most - Richmond.com
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