We can speak of race. And yet, I can see assasinations by mentally ill and armed people… any armed person with an unbalanced mind, any person with poor judgment who is given a firearm … that the issue of who is target is not toward one race.

One would have to ignore even a year’s or twenty years’ history in the US alone to think a shooting of a person of any race has only to do with race.

Armed and mentally ill who also think ‘those blacks, those latinos, those hippies, those jews, those arabs, those persians, those moguls, those catholics, those asians, that ex-spouse, that unguarded child, that politico, those untermenschen… they are the uncontained in our country, often seen as ‘normal’ by those who are only human and do not necessarily know the signs of repressed rage, hostility, mental disorders, severe side effects of psychotropic and vaccinative medicines.

I’ve written here about the black college students who were gunned down by black thugs whilst getting coffee near a park. I’ve written about politicos like Gabriel Gifford being gunned down by an armed mentally ill person. A Muslim US soldier gunning down white soldiers on base. An Asian, Cho, a clearly mentally ill man gunning down many young whites and persons of other races at Virginia tech… I’ve written about Arab on Arab violence in the disgrace of dishonor killings of daughters and sons. I’ve written about Latinos gunning down Sister Dorothy Stang, a white nun. Ive written about those who murdered the Buddhist monks in Ariz, and at Columbine high school where I served after the massacre, teachers and community, I noted a black step-father, take to the airwaves saying his son was targeted racially, when in fact 11 other white children were shot dead, one white teacher was dead, and white children shot in the back and put in wheelchairs as paraplegics… and 22 other white children shot and wounded, all on the same day.

I can appreciate a person’s grief. And there has to be a way, an attitudinal sea change so, the day comes right now when all children are OUR children. All. OURS. Trayvon Martin is our child. Regardless of his race, before, during and after … his death is tragic because he is no more. Because he was young. Because he was loved. Because there is no good excuse given for a grown man shooting down a child.

I remember what Martin King said, he said ALL. Not this one or that one. He said ALL of us belong to each other, some harder no doubt to wrap one’s mind or arms around, but innocent people, the easiest of all to embrace.

In all the media rush to say what IS real amongst blacks, it is forgotten that we Latinos and other groups when we hear of some horrendous thing, we pray it was not one of us who was the victim and we pray that it was not one of us who did the dastardly deed. We are NOT different. We share a deep sense of unsafety. Because of people? Perhaps. Moreso because we do not know what unhinged in the moment or mentally harmed and harmful person also has a loaded gun.

All it takes to feel hounded, unguarded and unsafe is to be stopped by the police ‘for looking poor’ no matter your race or religion (been there), to be threatened even once by KKK saying you are a ‘mud person’ not worthy of life (been there)… and the KKK speaks this to white Catholics, middle Easterners, Latinos, blacks, latino and asian immigrants, and to native americans. All it takes is to see even people you thought good, to bodily harm to the young ‘for their own good,’ to ‘teach them a lesson.’ I am a witness. A heartbroken, and yet fierce, witness.

Overall, all this ‘fear of’, which is real, is not based in race only, it is based in the deep aspect that hardly anyone speaks about, for this issue of the unsafety of one group or another–only– keeps center stage…

The issue ‘dare not be spoken about’ is guns in the hands of the mentally unfit. What shall we do about that? And who are the wise leaders to say so aloud…

We can talk all day and all night about how unsafe the forest is. But its past time to do something different about some of the rabid animals being allowed firearms.

CODA
Dr.E has been a member of NRA off and on for the last 32 years, is CC eligible in 17 states.