feature image photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images
We thought, naively in retrospect, that things might change after Sandy Hook — that the literal mass murder of small children might impact even the coldest, most NRA-lined heart in Washington. We were wrong. Since the Columbine shooting in 1999, little has been done to prevent the reality so many teachers, students and parents have been forced to accept about the kind of violence and bloodshed this country is willing to tolerate in our schools in the name of our white supremacy-rooted “second amendment rights.”
Merely ten days after the horrific mass shooting of 10 Black residents of Buffalo by a white supremacist in a grocery store — what was then the deadliest shooting of the year so far — another mass shooting took place in Uvalde, Texas, a close-knit community of 15,000. It was every parent, student and teacher’s nightmare: a gunman, armed with an assault weapon, his pathway of destruction uninterrupted by the armed officers outside the school, entered a fourth-grade classroom and killed 19 children between the ages of 9 and 11 and two teachers. An hour elapsed between him entering the school and his eventual execution by a tactical team, during which time cops waited outside, doing nothing. This has not stopped Republican lawmakers insisting more school “security,” rather than gun control measures, is what will stop future tragedies from occurring.
In the aftermath of this horror, we wanted to hold space here on our little gay website for the feelings so many parents and educators have been feeling. What are we stuck on? What actions are we planning? How have we talked to our kids about this and how has that conversation changed over the course of our children’s lifetime? What can we do — to feel better or even just cope, to help, to escape — in the face of the compounded hell we’re trying to move through? We invite you to share your answers to these questions — these are ours.
– Riese & Laneia
