I was in St. Louis for an annual family reunion this last Fourth of July weekend. It was a grand time in every way possible. Four generations of my beautiful family gathered to laugh, hug, kiss new babies, dance, compete and feast. We always end this event with a picnic of about 150 people. We had a great time. Though we never talked about it, somewhere in the back of their minds, every adult kept an eye out for an agent of evil hellbent on doing us harm just because we are black. I’m happy to report nothing happened. The picnic was on July 3.
The next day there was the tragic shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. I wish I could say I was as surprised as much as I was outraged. Shootings in America are sadly becoming as common and normal as apple pie and fireworks on the 4th.
I was dismayed to hear the news, but was equally dismayed to hear so many of the people interviewed by news stations say the same thing.
“This kind of thing doesn’t happen in our community. It happens in Chicago, but not here.” Not lost to me in these statements was the very thinly veiled racism that suggested that gun violence is relegated to black and brown communities and suburban communities are spared from this growing scourge. There was a sense that their zip code protected them. Even more cynical was the idea that we have so many guns on our person and in our homes that we are safe. After all, we are the good guys with the guns.
Seems to me we should see very clearly that everyone has a gun, nobody is safe. We have seen that truth play out repeatedly.
This takes me to the Jan. 6 hearings. Just like we stand by and let gun violence get worse, we also stood by and watched a group of people, led by a madman, bring the country to the brink of destruction. For so many years, we have watched from a distance as other countries around the world experienced coups, military takeovers, violent regime changes and civil wars that nobody won. From the comfort of our belief in the exceptional nature of the democracy we lived in, we could scoff and sneer at the failures of other nations. Like the people in Highland Park, we believed that the upheaval that can bring a nation to its knees happens in other neighborhoods, with “other” people.
So just like I was not surprised by yet another shooting, I was not surprised by anything that the Jan. 6 Committee was showing us. There were no smoking-gun revelations, we were just being told things we already knew. Things that so many, on both sides, let happen as we stood around and watched.
July 4 was evidence that gun violence can happen anywhere, just as Jan. 6 is evidence that those who destroy nations depend on those who only stand by and watch.
Ricardo Pitts-Wiley is co-founder with his wife Bernadet of Pawtucket-based Mixed Magic Theatre, a company that has striven to bring diverse stories and images to the stage since 2000. A university theater instructor, he is an actor, playwright, composer, and director and 2017 Pell Award recipient.
(5) comments
I actually laughed out loud when Mr. Pitts wrote “…we also stood by and watched a group of people, led by a madman, bring the country to the brink of destruction.” This is knee-slapping hilarious. We now know that the only person killed that day was a woman killed by a police officer for the terrible crime of climbing through a window and I wonder if Mr. Pitts believes this killing was justified.
Talk about bringing the county to the brink of destruction: the summer of 2020 saw Black Lives Matter and Antifa engaged in burning buildings, firebombing police cars, blocking highways, burning federal buildings and murdering people, but I have yet to hear him bemoan the republic’s future because of these thugs. Apparently, some thugs are better than others. And, I’m still waiting for his column regarding today’s thugs threatening Supreme Court justices and I’m waiting on the column expressing outrage regarding the madman caught in his attempt to assassinate one of the justices. I’ll wait for his column regarding these issues, but imagine I’ll wait for a good long time…………..
You guys are soft on crime, Ashli Babbit was a criminal and the officer was justified. The fact that all those terrorists attacked police and the police only shot one of them tells you all you need to know about White Supremacy in America. They were chanting they wanted to MURDER the Vice President who was following the rule of law.
Republicans in the 80s warned against the weaponization of the second amendment as a point of the culture war. Presidents like Nixon and Reagan understood the dangers of unregulated firearms to modern American culture. Now, we have goofballs like Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham proudly standing with the gun lobby who pushes their product featuring white nationalist symbolism while shoving millions in those politician's pockets. We also know the Russians and others understand how the issue divides America and makes us a more dangerous place, which is why Russia funded the NRA for years (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/11/nra-russia-money-guns-516804). We even had Fox News try and claim the rise in violence in 'Red' States where gun laws are at its weakest are somehow the fault of democratic polices. Ronald Reagan banned automatic gun ownership and pushed for universal background checks and other bans - including the 1994 assault weapon ban which now according to the NRA was the worst thing imaginable. How many more kids, people shopping, concert goers, etc. must die to appease the 2A nuts who ignore the 'well regulated' portion?
Ricardo and Derrick have something in common. They make everything about skin color.
Gun related deaths will continue to rise for as long as our criminal justice system is soft on criminals. Skin color is irrelevant.
So now it is considered racist to acknowledge that surrounding suburban communities, like Highland Park, don't normally see the same level of gun violence that takes place in Chicago?
Since when is stating facts racist?
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