The Unfathomable Has Happened Again

I was a protective mother in many ways, and even though my daughters are adults, I still worry about them. Though I believed in letting Cara and Mackenzie explore their creativity fully as children, I firmly believed in creating a structured, safe environment in which to do so. Some people thought Ronald and I were overprotective, but I had learned, from my own childhood experience of living in an alcoholic home and suffering emotional and physical neglect as a result of it, that a safe environment is the best environment to nurture children and their creativity and minds.

So it was with great trepidation that I finally let C&M walk the three blocks to their K-8 school alone for the first time when they turned 12. They had argued with me before then, and I had said, “I know you are ready, but can you respect that I am not?”

Then one day I was. Even so, I would arrive at work some days and suffer severe panic attacks, hyperventilating with a racing heart, wondering if they got to school safely and if their day would stay safe.

Every parent hopes and has to believe that when her child steps into school, he or she will be in a safe environment and cared for by people who value him or her. I know those parents in Newtown, CT believed it, but one day their children were not safe.

I am so sad for those parents, the professionals who taught and cared for the children and those who responded to the shooting, the children who experienced such a horrific tragedy, the community who has a long healing road to travel, and the children and adults who lost their lives.

We’d already been talking about gun control for years before this event, even though in this election such discussions were eclipsed by economic woes. We talked about gun control after the Columbine tragedy, the Aurora tragedy, and many, many others.  But there are other instances of violence, the everyday violence that children are exposed to in our underserved communities in America. But these regular, every day shootings never seem to elicit the response that these shootings occurring in white middle class environments seem to elicit. And that makes me sad, too.

I’ve been listening to the coverage, and I hear over and over that Newtown is a bucolic, affluent, close community – one of the safest areas in the country. People are stunned that an event of this horrific magnitude could occur in such an area. But I’m not.
Nor am I shocked that the very guns the killer's mother kept in her house for protection were used to kill her. It happens more than anyone would like to think, and it is often by a family member who turns the gun against the gun owner.

I hate that judgments are made about where violence is and is not an expected and acceptable occurrence. Violence is unacceptable and shocking in any community.

My husband Ronald and I were not bad parents because we chose to educate our children in urban schools. They weren’t bad schools. They were good schools. They had dedicated teachers, administrators, and staff. They had safety measures in place. I expected my children to be as safe as those parents in Newtown.

We have to stop the judgments about who deserves to have guns, who deserves to be safe, and whose rights should be more protected than others. We have to believe every life is important and has the same value as ever other life.

So what do we do?

Reenact the assault weapons ban, immediately. Collect all the assault weapons that are already out there and do not sell anymore. No citizen needs that kind of firepower. Only people who expect to shoot someone one day would have that kind of weapon. We have to agree that our country is not that kind of country.

Tighten gun control requirements in every state through a federal gun control law. What is the use of having good gun control in one state if someone can cross state lines and obtain a gun someplace else? Stop the NRA lobby efforts. Every gun dealer should be a licensed dealer. Before purchasing a gun, an individual should undergo a thorough background check. Everyone who purchases a gun should register every gun they own. Large purchases of arms or ammunitions should be investigated. A safety course should be mandatory before gun ownership is approved.

We need to remove the stigma associated with mental illness. Mental illness assessment should be an important aspect of preventative health care.  Access to treatment is a must for every person, without the threat of being labeled and ostracized. How else can those who need it, receive treatment?

We need to be more open to individuality and the differing perspectives each of us brings to our experiences. If we understand that, people who do not fit into a narrow definition of normality will not feel as if they are fringe citizens, isolated from their communities, and we will stop making assumptions about others and ourselves against an unrealistic standard. We are a diverse country in so many, many ways, and we have to stop defining diversity as that which is different from that that is the same, because sameness in that sense is just a social construct that doesn’t truly represent what and who we are.

Understand that religion and God do not have an impact on violence in our society. A mentally ill person is still mentally ill if he attends church. Maybe people who attend church have a higher moral guidance and maybe they don’t. People who don’t attend church and who may or may not be agnostic or atheist do not, by virtue of not being religious, have a substandard morality. There are bad people and good people everywhere, in churches, in businesses, in social venues and in their homes, and their badness and goodness is not one dimensional and unilateral. Prayer in the schools will not stop someone from violence, as Mike Huckabee contends.

What will have an impact is that we learn to care for everyone in our community as equals, and that we ensure all communities can make sure they are safe. We can’t fool ourselves with magical thinking that something deadly and horrific would not occur in our communities, that we live in good communities vs. bad communities, so we are safe from such occurrences. We will find psychotic people who will do horrific things to themselves or others all over, mentally ill people who are hurting and overwhelmed by our post-modern complexity and who may act out as a result, and there are other bad things like natural disasters and illness that we can only do our best to protect ourselves and our families from. We have to recognize that what we think, feel and do is not always enough to keep us safe.

Now we will go through the healing process again and maybe again after this.  I hope not, but I had hoped as much after Columbine, 911, Virginia Tech, Aurora and other mass tragedies.

Parents are feeling the emptiness of their homes and their hearts today, because they lost a child even though they thought they had done everything they could to keep him or her safe. Those who were fortunate to find their children waiting for them at the fire station must truly be wondering how they will continue on and pick up life where they left it when they dropped their children at school yesterday morning.

 Such painful images make me cry and ache in empathy, and it isn’t fair that those parents have to endure such devastation. All of our children – affluent, poor, black, brown or white, girl or boy – deserve to grow up safe, and we deserve to watch them grow up.  Now is the time to act.

Here are my precious children at age two

Tired World

“Do you ever get the feeling the world is tired, Walt?”

~ The Cold Dish: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson

I had to call the driving range a couple days ago. I needed to get hold of Ronald, and he has taken to leaving his cell phone in the car. “Why carry it? No one ever calls me,” he says in explanation. I don’t call him often. He’s retired, and I work from home. We are constantly in each other’s space and have little need for additional communication tools during the times we are apart. I’ve had just a few emergencies since working from home in which I felt the need to call him: 1) the rabid coyote rolling around our yard; 2) the escaped cockatiel hopping toward me when I took the dog out; and 3) a couple days ago when the sub-contractors were burying the neighbor’s cable, and it was possible they were going to bury it on our property. They had it wrapped around one of our trees and across our yard.

When he didn’t answer his cell phone, I dialed the range.

“Hello, is Ron Hagan still there?” I asked. He’s been going there for the five years we’ve lived here, almost daily, at least weekly. He must have handed his debit card across the counter thousands of times. The white guys on the porch, including the owner, talk to him regularly, as you know, because I often write about their conversations.

“Do you mean Ron [Maverick]?” the man on the phone responded. That was one of the white guys who sometimes works there but mostly just sits on the porch. Once he asked Ronald if he could see a sample of my writing because he considered himself a writer, too. Ronald handed him a copy of my essay, What’s Race Got to Do with It? The next time Ronald showed up at the range, the guys on the porch were passing it back and forth, and the pristine sheets were dog-eared and creased. “Um, do you mind if we read this?” one of the guys asked Ronald as he stepped onto the porch.

“No, Ron Hagan. He was hitting balls. I need to speak with him,” I continued on the phone.

“Oh, black Ron,” the range owner said.

I paused. I took a breath.

“Yes, that’s him.”

Ronald picked up the phone a few minutes later, and he came home to check and see if the sub-contractors had buried the cable correctly.  I had already gone up and checked after I got off the phone, and they had done it correctly. If there had been a problem, though, I prefer Ronald to take care of it. He’s much more assertive than I am, and he knows code enforcement from his career as a firefighter.

When he got home I said, “You have a new name, black Ron.”

He screwed his mouth in disgust. “Figures,” he said.

All the white guys had read my essay. They know I’m white.

“He knows I’m white, but my voice didn’t match what he thought I’d sound like, and he couldn’t make the connection.”

“That’s it, exactly.”

Later I told my mother-in-law about it.

“Really? That’s terrible!” she said.

Maybe many readers are saying, “What’s the big deal? Skin color is an identifying characteristic.”

Yes, it is, but after five years of almost daily contact, that’s the only way to describe someone? I’d feel more comfortable about it if the owner of the range described the two men named Ron as “white Ron” and “black Ron.” That makes sense, if you are distinguishing between the two and you don’t know last names.  But if one is Ron [Maverick] and the other is black Ron, I am offended, and so was Ronald. Don’t get me wrong. We laughed about it. But see how deeply race is ingrained in people’s perceptions and how they categorize and recognize others? Not as individuals but as a color or a race, and it apparently doesn’t go away by close association and the passage of time.

It’s the same reason I am offended whenever a reporter, or anyone for that matter, identifies President Obama as the black president or Tiger Woods as the black golfer. What is the need for the additional qualifier? I realize it’s about firsts and minorities – for a long time men who became nurses were called male nurses. Women dominated the nursing field, and men were few and far between.

I hope that’s changed by now, and I wish we could move forward with the added description of race that is used to describe people of minority races only. If race is not used as a descriptor, usually a person is describing a white person, a “race-less” person.

People have mentioned to Ronald and me at different times that we should tell people who we are married to, as in, “My black husband Ronald is mowing the lawn,” or “My white wife Dianne expects me home early so we can go out to dinner.” Maybe we should start by identifying everyone by race: conservative white radio host Rush Limbaugh; Asian basketball player Jeremy Lin; retired black basketball player Charles Barkley, white actor George Clooney; black singer Patti LaBelle, or white presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Do you think people would tire of it? I know I am tired already.

I’m tired and scared of how dangerous our country is, too. James Holmes, dressed in riot gear, smoke bombed an Aurora, CO theater during the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, then systematically shot an AR15 and a Glock into the crowd of movie goers jam-packed into the theater. Latest numbers are 12 dead and 59 injured. He told the police he was the Joker, one of Batman’s enemies.

The Joker is a dark, evil character voiced in animation by Larry Storch and Mark Hamill, among others, and portrayed on TV and film by Caesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, and Heath Ledger. Ledger’s portrayal was particularly dark, psychotic and remorseless. Ledger worked hard to stay in character, and he had trouble sleeping during the shoot. Some say the portrayal contributed to his depressed mood and death caused by accidental overdose in the months before the movie was released.

Here is an excerpt from an article in the Daily News titled Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger on 'Joker' role that talks about the role and the effect it had on Ledger:

Jack Nicholson, who played the Joker in 1989 - and who was furious he wasn't consulted about the creepy role - offered a cryptic comment when told Ledger was dead.

"Well," Nicholson told reporters in London early Wednesday, "I warned him."

Though the remark was ambiguous, there's no question the role in the movie earmarked as this summer's blockbuster took a frightening toll.

Ledger recently told reporters he "slept an average of two hours a night" while playing "a psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.

"I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."

Prescription drugs didn't help, he said.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/jack-nicholson-warned-heath-ledger-joker-role-article-1.340786#ixzz21GpU06bP

Holmes may be mentally ill or maybe not, and we don’t know his motives. What we know is that he was able to obtain weapons, body armor, and a gas mask. He booby-trapped his apartment with explosives.  How did he get these weapons and explosives?

Here’s what I got off ABCnews.com about James Holmes:

Suspected Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes purchased four guns at local shops and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet in the past 60 days, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told a news conference this evening.

"All the ammunition he possessed, he possessed legally, all the weapons he possessed, he possessed legally, all the clips he possessed, he possessed legally," an emotional Oates said.

Read the full article at http://abcnews.go.com/US/colorado-movie-theater-shooting-suspect-bought-guns-6000/story?id=16817842#.UAoPZGZhXKw

Colorado is a state that strongly supports the second amendment. The NY Times said this about Colorado gun control in the article Colorado Gun Laws Remain Lax, Despite Changes after Columbine:

As a mountain state, Colorado has a history of broad support for Second Amendment rights. But in the years since the Columbine tragedy, the state’s lawmakers and voters passed some gun restrictions, including requirements governing the sale of firearms at gun shows, a law regulating people’s ability to carry concealed weapons and legislation banning “straw purchases” of weapons for people who would not qualify to buy them legitimately.

…

Despite the changes over the past 13 years, Colorado law still prohibits local governments from restricting gun rights in several significant ways. Moreover, gun rights organizations have successfully fought other efforts to restrict access to guns, including blocking a University of Colorado rule prohibiting concealed weapons on campus.

People in Colorado are allowed to carry firearms in a vehicle, loaded or unloaded, as long as the gun is intended for lawful uses like personal protection or protecting property.

Carrying a concealed weapon requires a permit, but Colorado is among those states whose rules on permits are relatively lax, said Heather Morton of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Colorado is one of 38 “shall issue” states. She explained that this meant “if a person complies with all of the requirements, then the state must issue a concealed weapons permit.” (By other measures, the number of states whose laws amount to “shall issue” is closer to 41.) Factors that might keep someone from being able to get a permit generally include felony convictions, mental illness or protective orders.

Other states have a slightly tougher “may issue” law, which gives discretion to withhold a permit to an authority like the local sheriff or department of public safety.

Read the entire article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/colorado-gun-laws-remain-lax-despite-changes-after-columbine.html

We live in a diverse, divisive, and increasingly polarized country. Race, class, ethnicity, gender orientation, political views, and religious beliefs divide our country, and it seems that violence is often a threat against those who disagree or who are different. I am reminded of some of the horrible things that were said of homosexuals in my home state before the passage of Amendment One that defines marriage in the state constitution: hateful things, violent things. How can anyone hate another individual that much?

Just as we live in a country that has strong views on gun ownership, we also live in a culture that promotes celebrity at any price. What lengths will someone go to in order to obtain fame? From sexually explicit YouTube and Facebook clips to mass murder, it’s anyone’s guess.

Fears are also prevalent in our culture. They range from insecurities about looks, exposure to germs, and what the Joneses own that you don’t to the loss of white dominance, terrorist attacks, and changes in the country that are more pro-socialist than pro-capitalist. There is the constant fear of an uprising: will it be a class uprising, or a race-motivated uprising? These fears are fueled daily through the media, especially on the Internet, and through the words of politicians who use fear to drive votes. This horrible, unimaginable killing spree was primed to occur, there in Aurora, CO, or anywhere in the country.

I can only imagine the backlash this tragedy will inspire. People arming up and carrying to the grocery store, the movie theater, the park, out to eat, at the kids’ playground, on a walk through the neighborhood. I’m more concerned by the prospect of frightened and skittish Joe America shooting me than I am of a mentally ill person opening fire in a crowd. The Aurora tragedy is huge, but the percentage of such an occurrence happening again is small.

More likely to happen is a child finding a parent’s firearm and shooting himself or a sibling, a domestic violence incident or murder, a homeowner mistaking a stranger as a threat and shooting the person, or a neighborhood watch president like George Zimmerman, trying to play hero, trailing and shooting a person who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, even though he belonged there, like Trayvon Martin. I see the possibility of people, who consider themselves good, law-abiding people, ending up in a shoot out over a perceived offense, a moment of road rage, or a moment of self-righteous judgment. Suddenly everyone in the crowd pulls out his gun and everyone is aiming at everyone else. We’ve all seen that scene in movies. I love those kinds of movies, because of the total improbability of it ever occurring in real life.  But is this what we’re coming to?

We need better gun control, similar to what states like New York have. We need to take assault weapons off the street by re-enacting the Federal Assault Weapons Ban originally passed under the Clinton administration in 1994. It expired in 2004 under the law’s sunset provision. Although there have been attempts to renew the ban, a new vote has never reached the senate floor.

The only reason someone would purchase an assault weapon is the intent to kill another person. It’s the drive to achieve a level of protection that puts the owner at the top of the food chain while the rest of us dwell on a link below. What other motive could s/he possibly have? Do we need that kind of personal protection when we have police forces, security everywhere, and the military? I don’t think so.

Maybe we are all tired.  I know I am. I am tired of being offended and feeling afraid, not of the rare mentally ill person who commits a tragic act, but by the reaction of everyone else left to experience the aftereffects. I wish we could learn to love ourselves better, so we could begin to love our neighbors. Then we would be better stewards of this tired world and allow it and us to rest and heal.