Just my random thoughts for today

August 3rd, 2019 - two shootings in America.

El Paso, Texas - 22 people dead and 2 dozen injured.

Dayton, Ohio - 9 people dead many more injured.

A President who is using these horrible incidents to blame people with mental illness, a Republican Senator who refuses to let gun control issues a vote.

Hearts that are broken, lives that are lost....innocent lives.

Racism?

Anger?

Who to blame?

Home grown terrorism.  That is who to blame.

Racism has always been in America, we cannot wipe it clean from our history or our present. There are very few people who can honestly said they are not racists in one form or another, but it is how you process that racism that defines us.

I am a white girl, living in a predominately white world. I have not experienced racism, but I have experienced discrimination based on the religion I was brought up on, which was Catholic. We moved to a 90% Methodist neighborhood when I was 5 and I didn't understand why some of the kids wouldn't play with me. It was only because I didn't go to their church.

Exclusivity - is that even a word? I am not really sure. We exclude people in our lives for so many different reasons. Their hair, their skin, their clothes, the way they talk, the way they walk, who they hang out with, their opinions, who they love, who they don't love, who they vote for, cat lovers vs. dog lovers....so many stupid reasons really.  We all do it.

Each

And

Every

One

Of

Us

I am trying to wrap my head around the shootings, the reasons, the aftermath, the fighting, the name calling....

I can't.

I cannot fathom losing someone in my life who has been killed in a random act of violence.  I cannot fathom what has pushed someone so over the edge that they felt the need to open fire at innocent people....because of what?  What?  What can make you so mad at the world that you would take so many lives? 

It hurts me to my core.

I just don't understand.

It is not mental illness, it is hatred...pure hatred that makes someone kill someone else without feeling that what they have done is wrong.  When did we become this nation of hate? Can I point the blame at one person? I wish I could, but it's been there...stewing beneath the surface for a long time and the current climate has brought it out...front and center to reveal the ugly true of what our nation is. 

We don't want to become a nation that is all inclusive to all people.

We don't want to protect our citizens from harm.

We don't want to welcome people who are fighting the horrors from other countries, especially if their skin is a different color other than white.

We thrive on divisiveness.  Look at our history.  We WANT conflict.  It's in the very nature of the history of our nation.

We are a nation of outcasts.  People who fled to find freedom.  Think about that for a second.

Our very nation has been built on the backs of immigrants who came here looking for a better future and who were willing to break their backs and work harder than anyone else so that they could come to the land of freedom.

And we stick them in cages...no...I am sorry...we stick their CHILDREN in cages.

Then we shoot at them.

We shoot ourselves.

We are stuck in this horrible loop.

Fighting...shooting,...killing for no real fucking reason at all.


No...real...fucking reason at all.

Seriously...give me a real reason.

Anyone?