Imagine if every time there was a mass shooting, the parents of the victims were allowed to go on the news and address the nation for an hour.
I want an open feed. I want no censorship. I want no “journalists” clogging or redirecting the conversation. Just let the parents speak. Let them share their truth. Let them share their pain in public where the nation can’t ignore it.
Maybe then the voting public would be sufficiently informed. Maybe then they’d stop making such ignorant decisions. Maybe then they’d stop sharing those stupid and offensive memes.
I think that’s a pretty reasonable thing to ask. If you live in a country that defiantly refuses to do anything about the various mechanisms of violence directed at our children, the people who fall victim to those mechanisms should be allowed to discuss the heart-rending agony that inevitably results.
But instead, we get sanitized news anchors with perfect makeup sitting behind desks. We push parents who have lost their children into closed rooms, shut the door, and tell them to come out never.
Our mechanism of oppression steadfastly protects the nonsensical beliefs that can lead only to tragic loss.
We have the power to change that. All we have to do is speak.
Let’s stop playing dice with the lives of our loved ones
We shouldn’t stand for it when politicians push grieving parents into a corner and force them into silence. I think they’ve earned a right to share their opinion.
Are we afraid these parents are going to “hurt somebody’s feelings?” I thought our country didn’t care about feelings. Who are they trying to protect?
Why do we care about the feelings of mass murderers but not children?
Remember that the reality of people who have suffered tragedy might soon become YOUR reality. You should prepare for it because nothing is being done to stop it.
Nothing.
If it ever happens to me…
Everybody in the United States seems content to leave the lives of their children up to chance. Maybe part of the problem is that the general population is “spared” from viewing the horrors that arise as a result of our complacency.
Cameras are never allowed to broadcast what they find in schools after a mass shooting. If my body was ever ripped apart by the bullets fired from a weapon of war, I’d want our society to have to see it.
I’d want my loved ones to print out poster-sized, full-color images of my mangled remains and force people to look at the images. “Look at this! You were the ones that wanted these weapons readily available to the public. Look! Look at what you did!”
We should also make people see the agony inflicted on women who are denied access to life-saving reproductive healthcare.
People want to live a sanitized existence where they disregard the horrors of reality. They need to grow up. There is blood in life. Surgeries are traumatic. There’s nothing glorious about war. The difference is that medical procedures save lives, and bullets only take them away.
The other side does not hesitate to use the sight of blood to attempt to fabricate a defense of their position. The difference is that they only show a misleading fragment of the narrative to manipulate the public into adopting their beliefs. We have to answer them with the whole story.
If I have to live with the constant threat of agonizing death, you should have to live with the threat of having to see what that death looks like.
They can’t look away. They are the ones who brought this horror upon us all.
America protects the ignorant and the irrational
I don’t feel people are entitled to their ignorance. Maybe people in our country would make more responsible decisions if they were forced to recognize the consequences of their choices.
Instead, we bail out irresponsible people and let entitled jerks live a life of unblemished privilege.
The way it stands now, you’re considered “hysterical” if you speak out after a senseless tragedy. People get uncomfortable as if you’re breaking some ironclad social convention. They might even put their hands on you and say, “Now is not the time.”
If somebody ever puts their hands on you in a situation like that, make sure they draw back a stump.
You need to be heard. You have a right to be heard. If you are loud enough the masses will hear you.
The general public has to recognize that the social convention of silence is part of the mechanism of oppression. When people have experienced tragedy, they know something the rest of the population does not. It’s irresponsible to let the ignorant masses skip along content to maintain a philosophy that leads inevitably to human suffering.
People have to be held accountable for their ignorant beliefs.
Those beliefs are getting our children killed.
If you’ve been down a road that leads to death, why would you refrain from calling out a warning to your fellow travelers?
The only reason that human suffering is allowed to continue in our country is that we’re more afraid of telling the truth than solving our problems.
Our activism is limited to things we know won’t work
A week ago I sat through a “community event” where the school district went through the motions of asking parents what they wanted from our educational system. We were broken up into little groups and everything we said was repeatedly put into new words until all the meaning was lost.
The whole setup could be called a “complacency funnel.” They never overtly stated that some things were “off limits.” Instead, they made vague comments about not becoming “too political.”
Well, educational funding is political. When you try to speak without mentioning politics, there’s very little you can say.
The influence of religion is sabotaging our schools
The superintendent mentioned that the district was looking at a funding shortfall in a few years. In my group, I mentioned that the various “voucher” programs in our state funnel millions of dollars from public schools to rich, private schools.
When I brought this up, there was a sharp intake of breath like I was coming to close to a prohibited topic. But dang it, if the school district is going to say that they’re out of money, why can’t they also say part of the reason is that religious schools, which largely only came into existence to keep segregation alive, are deliberately siphoning money away from public schools because white supremacists hate the idea that Black children might have access to a good education?
That’s just a fact.
That’s also the reason why there will be a “funding shortfall.” If the public knew that, maybe they’d make better choices at the ballot box.
But no, we’re not allowed to talk about that, so the only thing that’s left is cutting social benefit programs and teacher pay. We’ve already driven off so many educators that schools struggle to hire qualified candidates.
That solution is completely unacceptable.
Ignorant people are easy to control
Our choice is simple, we can either submit to rehashing the same old narratives that have already been proven not to work, or we can find the courage to step on the toes of social convention.
As for me, I’m sick of doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a new result.
Get this, at the end of the community event, the superintendent introduced the group responsible for designing the program and one of them was the local pastor! So what am I supposed to conclude from that? Is the local Christian community deliberately working with the school district to siphon money away from schools that serve black communities? It sure seems like it.
Oppressors hate the idea of education. Educated people know better than to submit. That’s why there is always an attack on education. That’s why the police and the military get a blank check.
Oppressors want us stupid, and they want plenty of brutes with clubs to hit us on the head.
People get nervous when you speak the truth
Why is that? I’m serious. Ask yourself that question.
Why do people get nervous when you speak the truth?
Anybody who knows me becomes very uncomfortable whenever I get near a microphone. I can feel their nervousness. They start to shuffle. They start to laugh without humor. They look down at the floor.
What are they afraid of?
Whenever I stand in public, I can sense the hostility from the room. Do you know who is responsible for that hostility? It comes from the white supremacists who are in the audience. These are the same people who love to flood your community with constant threats, some of which come in the form of gun decals on their vehicles.
Yes, it’s a threat to cover your vehicle with silhouettes of AR-15s.
Yes, it’s a threat to drive around flying a massive Confederate flag.
Yes, it’s a threat to use blatantly racist language like ‘Joe and the H-.’
These are symbols of, “Don’t you dare go outside the lines of what we consider to be ‘acceptable’ behavior or else.”
Who made them god?
What are they going to do, shoot me at the school board meeting?
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You have to stand up to bullies, there is no other option
I’ve been the focal point of the thousand-yard stare before. Let me tell you what happens if you start talking. The moment you start to speak the truth, a few people will nod. As you gather momentum, a few more people will vocalize their approval. After a while, even more, people will stand and speak. Eventually, the small minority of oppressors that were trying to control the room will slink away in embarrassed defeat.
All you have to do is SPEAK THE TRUTH!
The only way they can beat us is if we cower to their unspoken threat and fail to say what we know needs to be said.
The idea that we must be passive in the face of oppression is part of the control narrative. You have to answer and respond to all the lies that are at work in our society. You can’t just shake your head and meekly whisper, “Wow.” You have to be willing to offend people with the truth.
You don’t become a bully when you stand up to a bully because you’re fighting for justice, not oppression. That makes all the difference.
It’s not an act of intolerance to fight intolerance. Only ignorant oppressors try to claim that.
All these arguments of, “Now is not the time for this conversation” are part of the mechanism of control. You have to respond to them immediately. “Now IS the time! I hereby claim my right to SPEAK!”
If they still try to silence you, start screaming, “FIRST AMENDMENT! FIRST AMENDMENT! FIRST AMENDMENT!” That should shut them up.
Do not let them use intimidation to pressure you into silence. Do not.
Who are we trying to “protect?”
Beware of false appeals to decorum. They’re really just trying to maintain the status quo.
The only decorum I see is stopping the senseless mechanisms of violence directed at our kids. We must:
* Give our kids healthcare
* Give our kids an education
* Give our kids tolerance
* Give our kids food
* Give our kids shelter
* Give our kids love
* Give our kids a chance at a healthy, happy, satisfying life
When the forces of oppression silence the mature discussion that should take place after a national tragedy, they claim their motivation is to “spare the country future agony” or “get on with the healing.”
We can’t “get on with the healing” when we’re in a perpetual state of mourning and the powers that be refuse to make any changes.
We need the voting public to see the reality of the consequences of our collectively stupid and irresponsible decision-making. When you do something idiotic and the result is that children die because of your ineptitude, you don’t get to skip away from your mistake and never think about it ever again.
Respect victims, stop shaming them
The parents and families of the victims of senseless tragedies shouldn’t be forced to carry the burdens of irresponsible people. Imagine how infuriating it must be for these parents to see our ignorant and indifferent country REFUSE to do anything.
Even worse is the entitlement of the passive observers.
People spend all day chirping horrendous thoughts and sharing appalling memes because they’ve been “spared the agony” of seeing the damage their ideas inflict. They say things like, “Nobody owes you anything!” or “Young people are lazy!” or “Young people are ungrateful!” or “Young people don’t want to work!”
Then, when some kid is finally bullied into such a black pit of despair that s/he ends up taking his or her own life, some authority figure steps in to cut the feed. We don’t get to see the endpoint of the narrative of misery that proliferates our whole society.
We pretend it doesn’t exist and that’s wrong. That’s a lie. It does exist and it’s coming for your kids.
The tragedy is the consequence of the narratives that are “allowed” in the United States.
Meanwhile, those of us who genuinely want to save lives by advocating tolerance are forced into silence.
Unacceptable.
Why do people stand for that?
How are we supposed to adopt a mature and responsible worldview if nobody is ever held accountable for their reckless viewpoints?
As it stands, the innocent and vulnerable are always made to pay the price for the actions of the incompetent and powerful. When the victims complain, they are shunned.
This isn’t right.
Rational people aren’t allowed to talk while irrational people are allowed to babble away to their heart’s content. Irrational people get to go on the news and speak for hours!
We need to reverse that trend or our society will stay in this dystopian holding pattern forever.
We’ve been listening to the self-righteous jerks who insist that our only strategy is to sit on our hands and “hope for the best” for 50 years. Things have only gotten worse. It’s a failed strategy. It’s time we realized that nothing is going to get better until we demand responsible action.
First, the oppressors try to silence your kids by putting their hands over their mouths, then they’ll try to silence them with a hail of bullets. You’ll never be given the opportunity to speak because they don’t want you to speak. You have to take that opportunity. That opportunity is your right!
It’s not an act of aggression to bite a hand that’s suffocating you, it’s an act of self-defense. The people out there who are still preaching “be passive” in the face of all this failure might as well be pulling the trigger themselves.
This danger is real. Being passive makes you a target. If you want to save your children or yourself, your only strategy is to start making noise. You must find the courage to demand a better world.
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