I’m a bettin’ woman, so my bet is on the young people who are in motion based upon the latest mass shooting. This could finally be the time that some reform in gun laws gets traction. No matter how small that change is, it will be the action that cracks the door for more and bigger actions. The students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have lit a prairie fire.
I thought surely there’d be some action by Congress when one of their own (U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Gifford) was a target of gun violence in 2011. I knew we had hit rock bottom when young children at Sandy Hook Elementary School became casualties the following year and watched with disgust as the NRA doubled-down.
Here we are again, locked in a now predictable cycle: mass shooting, outrage and grief, aggressive push for reforms, pushback by the National Rifle Association, retreat until the next tragedy strikes.
We have accepted this reality because as we have refused to get to the roots of our violence problem. Instead, we choose to arm ourselves to deal with anticipated, inevitable violence that is happening all around us on so many levels. Face it: We are a violent nation.
It’s not just about the growing and more deadly massacres carried out by mainly white males with automatic weapons. I’m talking about police violence, military violence, state executions, domestic violence, sexual violence, gender violence, racial violence, religious violence, intra-race community violence. There’s bullying by all ages. There’s the mayhem and destruction caused by policy and legislation.
Violence is most thought of in terms of physical violence, but it’s also verbal, psychological, cultural and social. We. Are. A. Violent. Nation.
Let’s not get too hung up with issues like access to mental health services; everyone who does physical harm to someone is not necessary mentally ill. This is about our collective propensity towards violence.
If we really start to get to the root of U.S. violence, we will see that capitalism relies heavily on working class people blaming the “other” while the One Percenters watch in delight all the way to the banks. Who gets the good-paying jobs, who gets the harshest prison sentence, who gets the substandard house in a hyper-segregated neighborhood, who gets access to quality education – all these indicators that affect quality of life are daily, controlled battles designed to keep us stressed while a growing oligarchy dismantles any semblance of democratic structures and processes.
So, look over your shoulders, adults with power to make changes but who care more about money than the lives of young people. History has showed us time and time again that the impatience of the youth for injustice and inhumanity often accelerate the slow wheels of change.
These are not actors; they are citizens and future voters. To the Marco Rubios and Roy Blunts of the world, they are coming after your seat. You are standing in the way of young people who are fighting for their very lives.
