It seems almost weekly now that the news brings me to tears, whether it be war, mass shootings or other racist police or citizen actions resulting in death of innocent people and most of the time it is due to easily-accessible guns! This week is no exception, and one woman died mere blocks from my home yesterday (details unknown but a shooting).
Several young people have been shot recently for NO good reason which is highly disturbing to say the least and most definitely caused in part by racist fears gone amok with guns easily at hand. Good, talented young people are dying young, who have promising futures and whose families are impacted forever. Not to diminish our collective consciousness in empathy for their pain. And too many times, the perpetrators, especially police, are not held accountable. The recent shooting of a young black youth, Ralph, who went to the wrong house and rang the doorbell and was shot. Add to the misery, he ran to three homes before collapsing and getting any medical emergency care. So far, the results is the racist, fearful old man who shot him being out on bail. What is the crime of ringing a doorbell? Luckily this talented young man survived!
I prefer not to tune out of the news even though it can be upsetting …sure it’s the easy solution, but I want to know what’s going on and how I might help the situation for our future. Will one of us be next? Occasionally it is good for our sanity to take a respite, but we cannot afford to hide our heads and not do something! If we do, we are allowing it and are complicit.
In high school, one paper we had to do was on this quote that stayed with me over 50 years: “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” ― John Donne.