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Numb and American
Ten years ago, I made a post about gun violence in America:
I show this not because they’re words I take pride in, but because of how devastatingly sad it is that a sixteen year old me could feel so incensed about an issue we have since spent our next decade doing absolutely nothing to address. I spoke from a place of defeat, anger, exhaustion and fear. But I remember a part of me naively feeling as though my words might make some sort of difference. But in the ten years since then, I’ve come to realize my naiveté; school shootings are a standard part of life in America. Sporadically mourning the senseless deaths of elementary school students is as American as apple pie.
When these shootings happen… we fall into cycles. There’s no part of our response to this new shooting that feels unfamiliar. This happens so often that even our own melancholy feels contrived. Talking heads read off of teleprompters speeches that are so interchangeable that there’s simply no telling whether it’s 2012 or 2022 we’re living in. The cycles are so well established, that we’ve been able to map out the process and organize them into flow charts.
