I recently heard Mr. Obama state, "One of the toughest days of my life was hearing about what had happened at Sandy Hook."
Well Mr. Obama I've had a few of those tough days myself.
Watching Rodney King get beat down like an animal by cops is still memorable. Then the day unarmed Tarika Wilson was shot and killed by a cop and her seven month old baby wounded was another heartbreaking day. It was tough watching the video of Oscar Grant handcuffed on his stomach and then shot point blank in the back by a transit cop. But the toughest day of memory, I continued to strugge with because I have a grandaugher the same age, was the day 7 year old Ayiana Stanley Jones was shot in the head by a police officer in a raid on her home in Detroit.
But here is the difference regarding how we feel about the effects of Sandy Hook on us personally.
When I first heard of the shootings deaths of innocent children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut I was neither shocked or surprised by the event. Columbine and the other less famous school shootings across the country had conditioned me to accept the inevitability of another deranged individual committing such a senseless violent act.
What really troubled me about hearing about the deaths of those innocent small children and adults present that day was my own personal lack of grief and compassion for both the victims and their families. I know that statement sounds heartless and impersonal especially considering the numerous loss of life and the gravity of the tragedy.
I asked myself, "How have I become so harden to the pain of others who have suffered through such a tragic event?"
At first I thought I could lay the blame for my insensitivity on all the gratuitous violence I have watched and witnessed throughout my life on TV, in movies or read about over the years. I thought maybe all the violence absorbed into my psych had made me immune to the sympathies and grief of others.
But then I had to confront the truth. As reminded by the words of another writer, "If you cannot bear what is true (often uncomfortably so) about yourself, it is impossible to discern the true nature of others."
So I admitted that my own lack of compassion for the shooting victims in Connecticut was based on my own racial and cultural bias. What did I care that a crazed white gunman murdered some white children and adults in an affluent Connecticut suburb?
Not only did my racial and cultural bias affect my emotional indifference to the deaths of the victims in Connecticut but I also had to take into account the continuing permanent fixture of vigilante and police violence people of color suffer and endure in this country. A silent genocide that is oblivious nationally.
We abhor the deaths of helpless white children and adults by suicidal maniacs in affluent communities and call for more stringent gun control laws but give silent consent to the police to shoot and kill unarmed people of color. And for the victims and their families the great injustice that results from these killings is the consistant exoneration of the guilty police officers either by corrupt prosecutors or not guilty verdicts rendered by all white juries.
Mr. Obama let me pose this question.
Are the deaths of small white children and adults anymore horrific than the killings of unarmed black or brown children and adults shot and killed by police?
I think you would agree, there are no degrees of a human life. And that the value of a life is not dependent or determined by the race or age of the victim.
A nation's moral collective grief for victims cannot be based on a double standard in which one group of victims are ignored while supporters and families of the other group want and desire the sorrow of the nation.
I'll guarantee you one thing Mr. Obama when it comes to more blood, death and tears I'll have more tough days ahead of me than you.
www.truthatlarge.blogspot.com
War inna Babylon
Well Mr. Obama I've had a few of those tough days myself.
Watching Rodney King get beat down like an animal by cops is still memorable. Then the day unarmed Tarika Wilson was shot and killed by a cop and her seven month old baby wounded was another heartbreaking day. It was tough watching the video of Oscar Grant handcuffed on his stomach and then shot point blank in the back by a transit cop. But the toughest day of memory, I continued to strugge with because I have a grandaugher the same age, was the day 7 year old Ayiana Stanley Jones was shot in the head by a police officer in a raid on her home in Detroit.
But here is the difference regarding how we feel about the effects of Sandy Hook on us personally.
When I first heard of the shootings deaths of innocent children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut I was neither shocked or surprised by the event. Columbine and the other less famous school shootings across the country had conditioned me to accept the inevitability of another deranged individual committing such a senseless violent act.
What really troubled me about hearing about the deaths of those innocent small children and adults present that day was my own personal lack of grief and compassion for both the victims and their families. I know that statement sounds heartless and impersonal especially considering the numerous loss of life and the gravity of the tragedy.
I asked myself, "How have I become so harden to the pain of others who have suffered through such a tragic event?"
At first I thought I could lay the blame for my insensitivity on all the gratuitous violence I have watched and witnessed throughout my life on TV, in movies or read about over the years. I thought maybe all the violence absorbed into my psych had made me immune to the sympathies and grief of others.
But then I had to confront the truth. As reminded by the words of another writer, "If you cannot bear what is true (often uncomfortably so) about yourself, it is impossible to discern the true nature of others."
So I admitted that my own lack of compassion for the shooting victims in Connecticut was based on my own racial and cultural bias. What did I care that a crazed white gunman murdered some white children and adults in an affluent Connecticut suburb?
Not only did my racial and cultural bias affect my emotional indifference to the deaths of the victims in Connecticut but I also had to take into account the continuing permanent fixture of vigilante and police violence people of color suffer and endure in this country. A silent genocide that is oblivious nationally.
We abhor the deaths of helpless white children and adults by suicidal maniacs in affluent communities and call for more stringent gun control laws but give silent consent to the police to shoot and kill unarmed people of color. And for the victims and their families the great injustice that results from these killings is the consistant exoneration of the guilty police officers either by corrupt prosecutors or not guilty verdicts rendered by all white juries.
Mr. Obama let me pose this question.
Are the deaths of small white children and adults anymore horrific than the killings of unarmed black or brown children and adults shot and killed by police?
I think you would agree, there are no degrees of a human life. And that the value of a life is not dependent or determined by the race or age of the victim.
A nation's moral collective grief for victims cannot be based on a double standard in which one group of victims are ignored while supporters and families of the other group want and desire the sorrow of the nation.
I'll guarantee you one thing Mr. Obama when it comes to more blood, death and tears I'll have more tough days ahead of me than you.
www.truthatlarge.blogspot.com
War inna Babylon