The terrible numbers keep adding up. Another weekend passes, another group of shootings. Another senseless death.
The terrible numbers keep adding up. Another weekend passes, another group of shootings. Another senseless death.
The carnage on our streets has reached levels that approach war zone status, and, in truth, that is where we are. We are in a war zone and our children are not only caught in the crossfire; increasingly they are the perpetrators. Not only that, but because of the indiscriminate bullets flying, no one in our communities is safe, no one is out of the war zone.
Father Michael Pfleger at St. Sabina church was criticized for flying the American flag upside down (a recognized symbol of distress), but we are in distress. We are fighting a battle for our very lives and unfortunately we are not making any headway.
There is no simple solution to stemming the violence, to stopping the killing. But we cannot keep waiting for “someone” to do it, and we can’t expect that the White House or Congress or the governor or the mayor will do it.
Our communities are in distress, and we are under attack. When our children are afraid to walk to the local store or even worse when our children take the fatalistic view that there is nothing they can do to take the target off their backs, we must change the paradigm.
We are producing a generation that has become inured to the death and destruction. We have a generation that has been pummeled by this war, and we have not come close to dealing with the epidemic of post-traumatic stress.
We have to do it. We have to make a point of stopping this violence, so we can stop attending funerals, stop having prayer vigils, stop having peace marches. We have to stand up and say, “No more.”
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