One of the most regular running jokes in my family, for many years now, is that I don’t play Wii Boxing because I think it’s too violent. We make a joke of my tender conscience, but I really do wince when a little Mii’s head snaps back. I can’t play for more than a couple of minutes. I pause the game; I switch to golf, or tennis, or frisbee. My discomfort is genuine, and deeper than any reasonable standard would deem appropriate, and (to me, anyway) not funny at all. The roots of it sink deep into my life; follow those roots 40 years deep — give or take a few days — and eventually you’ll find yourself in front of a little black-and-white television set, in Birmingham, Alabama, on the first day of October 1975. Three days earlier I had turned seventeen.