With everything that has happened the last few weeks, it’s pretty much normal to feel like the world is about to end. From the murders of several cooperative African Americans, to the completely unwarranted and apparently “mistaken” shooting of another innocent African American, to the deaths of five Dallas police officers, to the announcement of Indiana governor Mike Pence as VP and everything in between -- it’s been an insane past couple of weeks. So much so that the feeling of anxiety and fear has become ordinary, and acts like these, while still heartbreaking, are becoming less shocking. I’ve had trouble for the past several weeks to narrow down an event that I wanted to write about, but the chaos kept coming and I couldn’t pick just one. However, other than the DNC this week, amazingly, nothing unexpected happened.
What’s really amazing though, or more likely, terrifying, is the fact that it’s surprising when nothing crazy happens during a particular week. Of course, there have definitely been several weeks this year where nothing of notice actually happened, but with the overall unpredictability of this past year, and the sudden occurrence of several very real nightmares occurring all in the span of a few weeks, it’s not hard to see why everyone has fallen into the habit of quietly anticipating and bracing themselves for the next “breaking news” story. And although the focus has been primarily on America since the beginning of 2016, other countries have definitely tried to steal our spot light. England left the EU in a move they called Brexit, some driver decided that roads were too mainstream and crashed a truck into a busy area of Paris, Germany shopping mall patrons regretted making a certain day shopping day, and Nice, France, realized that just because its name was Nice doesn’t mean that other people have to be nice as well.
Now, although it’s been a pretty quiet week, I’m sure that with the conclusion of the DNC and the acceptance of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee (one small step for man, one giant leap for woman kind), I’m sure that we’ll see the focus start to shift from the political to the destructive and violent once again. I mean, it’s 2016 in America for goodness’ sake. It should mean equal rights for everyone, the absence of discrimination, and the ability for any citizen to survive and be successful. Instead, all it means is that people are still dying (being killed), still losing (being discriminated against) and still struggling (being oppressed and ignored).
What’s funny is that the numbers no longer seem to matter. It doesn’t matter what year it is, or what year it will be. All that matters is what that year or that time period will be associated with in the future. Just because it’s 2016 doesn’t mean that everything is peaches and cream. What it does mean is that future history students will learn that it was the year we let a modern day Hitler close enough to power that he may actually win the presidency and that we valued the ownership of guns and lethal weapons more than actual human lives and overall safety.
I really hope I never become a history teacher because I’d never be able to explain to my students why any of this was allowed to happen. Who knows? Maybe one day researchers and historians will be able to come up with some sort of excuse for our behavior this year. Air borne chemicals? GMOs? Hypnotic brain waves? Whatever it is, it’s only the end of July. We still have a lot of year left before us.
