Mass Shootings are America’s Normal
We’ve Become Desensitized
I think Americans are desensitized to bloody mass shootings, even when little children are murdered.
Humans get used to things being a certain way and good or bad it becomes their normal. In America, mass shootings are so normal that it takes one happening in your neighborhood to someone you love before it rings a bell that this is not the norm that we should have in the richest country in the world. This is not the norm that we find in lots of other countries. Countries that we loudly claim to be better than.
We love to hand out awards to ourselves no matter how undeserved they may be.
I’ve been saying for years that America is simply not the greatest country in the world. We invented that phrase because it makes us feel secure, but our security is false. In the greatest country in the world, I should not have to worry about going to the grocery store, school, the movies, or the mall because someone might murder me. Someone that doesn’t even know me might murder me just because I was standing in the wrong place at the right time.
I’m petrified for my granddaughter who goes to school every day, loves school, and is a fabulous student. I can’t wait for her to graduate from high school so that I don’t have to worry about her being in school in a country that loves to shoot and kill children. I don’t know what to do about it.
There are so many issues right now in this country that it’s hard to focus on one, but I’ve chosen to make this my number one area of concern.
My number two area of concern is white Christian nationalism becoming a threat to minorities — again. The two concerns have a lot in common. After all, both issues revolve around threatening those with no power. Is there anyone less powerful in our society than a child? White Christian nationalists make it their business to go after minorities. Minorities have little to no power against this long-sanctioned American institution that has defined and terrorized our culture for centuries.
I’m sick and tired of Americans living in fear of other Americans who have been culturally sanctioned and thus given the power to torment, threaten, and even kill the least among us.
I have a very diverse family. Every single day I feel that one member or another is being threatened by this American institution that is white Christian nationalism. I can barely sleep at night worrying about how things will turn out for those I love. History tells me the future is grim.
So those two issues are enough to keep me writing, voting, speaking out, and saying what needs to be said no matter who is in the room.
Our children aren’t safe. It’s as simple as that. Whether it’s mass shooters roaming the halls of schools hoping to break through the door of a classroom in order to mow down as many little kids and teachers as possible or a crazed white Christian nationalist rapidly passing bills that harm kids who will grow up to be members of the LGBTQ community, our children are under threat every damn day of their lives.
Can you even imagine the trauma this induces in the developing brains of our children?
Trust me, we will pay in the future for terrorizing our children. The cost to the next generation will be huge when it comes to their mental health. You can’t experience nonstop violent threats and end up completely unscathed.
I don’t understand why humans are such a violent mess.
So much so that they treat their offspring in such a horrible fashion, but they are and they do. They have treated children like second-class citizens without any rights whatsoever for centuries.
Makes me wonder why we even bother to have children.
We keep producing babies, one after another, and then denying them the protection they deserve. We’re far too casual about birthing babies. It’s almost an American pastime. The problem is that we don’t seem to know what to do with them after they’re born.
Trust me, I taught school for 20 years, grade five. Parents are doing well if they attain mediocre childrearing skills. Humans fail in droves when it comes to cherishing the lives they insisted on creating.
All children deserve better.
Will they get it? Not in my lifetime. Other than living in a war-torn country where bombs are being dropped on random places, we couldn’t be doing a worse job than we are now. It’s a sink-or-swim society we’ve created. Even our children have to pull themselves up by their tiny bootstraps and get on with it.
Shame on us.
Teresa is an author, world traveler, and professional mythbuster. You can find her books on Amazon.
