Bits and Pieces

23 Dead: a grandmother, 19 elementary grade students, two teachers and the gunman. That totals 23 souls extinguished from one community. The kids, the teachers, the grandmother and the gunman were all Hispanic. The shootings do not appear related to eliminating Hispanics. We may never know the motivation behind the gunman’s thinking and actions. It just doesn’t make sense to us. Not now. Maybe never.

Certainly, there was logic behind the gunman’s actions. It made sense to him and so he acted. Twisted, disjointed maybe, but logical to him.

For the rest of us we need to tally the cost of our inaction. How many more children, teachers and family members will die from gun violence before we require our legislators to solve this one aspect of our social order? Will our system of governance do its job? Or will we prove to be ungovernable? So far, our record is clear on this issue.

Cancel Culture: we cancelled native American culture. We slaughtered hundreds of thousands Native Americans from the founding of our nation up to and including the Civil War. We confiscated their lands, their art, their social order, their homes, and all too many lives. The same was done with slaves. Their culture was stripped away as they were cast into servitude in squalid conditions. They were brutally beaten, killed, raped and bartered like commodities. They were supervised to keep humanity at a minimum. Their culture was cancelled.

I don’t get the sense that we have stripped the Hispanic culture of its wholeness, but surely the melting pot action on all immigrants serves to eliminate some of it.

One thing remains clear: white culture remains in place. Oh, it has been enhanced by the many ingredients provided by immigration. We are enriched by sharing cultures in this diverse land, but the white culture will likely remain in place for many generations to come. This is due to numbers, not white supremacists. As ugly as white supremacists are, they cannot cancel history. History continues its story. It is only the telling of it that can be hidden, obfuscated and lied about. The story remains however to be told. Facts are facts and they will be known. That’s what historians do. They dig up facts and study them to understand the cause, effect and result of them. Why? Because that is how we came to be. And the generations that are sure to follow us.

Resolutions: solving a problem does not come with a band aid. Solutions are never final; they cause ripples to spread for all time. Besides, solutions come by way of compromise and that is never a final resting place. Engage. Discuss. Weigh options. Decide on an action that is possible to improve on the situation at this time. We will worry about later, later. For now, we need to resolve – however temporary – the largest problems of our time: injustice, racism, gun violence and world peace. The latter comes if we can do the same locally.

May 27, 2022

 

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