Humanity
There was another shooting today.
It’s just this thing we do here in the United States.
You might expect this in, you know, a developing nation, a nation torn by warfare and civil strife, or… the United States.
Currently the little news I’ve been given access to (Sir declared no screen time for the majority of the day) is celebrating how both sides of the aisle (Democrats and Republicans) and even the current president have been calling for unity, remembering our shared humanity, etc.
Great, right? Â Nothing like tragedy to bring us all together.
Unless it’s three people attacked, and two murdered defending Muslim girls, right?
Unless it’s a (black) woman raped and killed, or a mentally ill (black) man starved and denied water until he literally dies of dehydration in U.S. prisons.
Unless the victims are gay people and the shooter is brown.
Where was the call to our humanity then?
We only care, or our leaders, apparently, when it is conservative, white, men who are targeted… by a white man.
What?  No race or religion to scapegoat the attacker?  The victims actually matter this time so our leaders speak out?
And… I’m so angry.
I’m angry that I’m so angry.
This is tragic. Â People were hurt, may be killed. Â This shouldn’t happen. Â Shouldn’t keep happening. Â We shouldn’t be a country of mass shootings. Â This shouldn’t be our identity. Â This shouldn’t be our lives. Â And I’m so angry that it is.
And I’m so angry that in the wake of it, instead of saying, “Oh, my God, how? Â Why? Â How can this end?” so many are saying, “You’re next!” on both sides of the political divide.
I’m so angry that people were shot and I can’t even appreciate the sentiments of unity because they contrast so sharply against the silence, and the bigotry of some of these same leaders when the victims weren’t white, conservative, straight, male. Â They make it so fucking blatantly obvious who actually matters in this country and in that, who doesn’t.
I’m angry that I can no longer grieve for our humanity, because I’m too angry… Â My own humanity is being taken, drop by drop, and I am becoming all that I rail against. Â Angry in the wake of tragedy…
We are a collective failure.
We have failed at humanity.
We have failed when we have created a world in which so many feel their only recourse is shooting.
We have failed when we have created a world in which our response to mass violence is scapegoating and threats.
We have failed when we have created a world in which we have a president who only speaks out when the victims are white… conservative… straight… men…
We have failed when… when I hear this news and my first thought is, “Please let the shooter be white…”
We have failed when we care more about guns than lives.
We have failed when we have created a world of such…fear…self-absorption…unmet need… that this is the result.
This president.
These representatives.
This culture of deadly solution-making.
This normalization of killing.
Unless they are white, conservative, men…
Unless the victims matter.
