If you don’t live under a rock, you will have realized that the past few weeks haven’t been easy in America. We’ve got two jokes as front-runners for our next president, and the punchlines just keep hitting harder. A young woman was raped and her offender’s punishment was ridiculously lenient. We lost 49 lives in a horrific shooting at a gay club in Orlando.
Another mass shooting and what do we have to show for it? More arguments. More fighting. What will we do with our guns? What will we do about terrorism? What will we do about homophobia? If this tragedy is anything like the other mass shootings America has experienced, nothing much will happen. For many of us, in a week or so Orlando will just be another bad memory. Another drop in the bucket of lives lost to gun violence. Another stain on American history.
Why are we like this? Why do we keep allowing these things to blow over? Congress will continue to collect and we’ll continue letting them. Nothing seems to change in this country. We’re a broken record playing the same song over and over again. A child who doesn’t learn.
Americans are nothing if not stubborn. Sometimes this stubbornness is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. We know how to put our feet down and stand firm when the whole world is telling us to move. We know how to push back. But lately, it seems we’re more content to let bygones be bygones. To see horrible things happen to our people, and do nothing.
The question I’m posing here is this: What kind of America do we want to live in?
Do we want to live in the kind of America where gun violence shakes the foundations of our cities and we do nothing? Do we want to preach about our constitutional rights while our young people die because of senseless hate? Play into the hands of terrorists while we blame our Muslim neighbors for crimes they haven’t committed?
Or do we want to live in an America that changes? That improves upon itself? That sees a problem and fixes it? An America that protects its own, all its children, no matter their skin color, religion, or sexuality? Americans that love and celebrate difference and diversity?
This is my American Dream. I for one did not live long enough to become an adult in an America that sits idly by while horrible things happen. I can still believe in the America that stands up for what’s right. As Americans, we’ve got to stop letting things go. We’ve got to start taking things back. When Americans are killed in a hate motivated shooting meant to shock us we’ve got to stand firm, take a deep breath, look back into the eyes of those who would harm us, and say, “No, not again.”
Help send relief to victims of the Orlando shooting by purchasing a T-Shirt here from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology’s Queer Students and Allies group. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the victims and their families.
