On Uvalde

I don't really have words for what happened in Uvalde, or in the hundreds of other schools, churches, and public spaces when armed men have taken the lives of unsuspecting civilians.

My only words are this: on the whole, I think we are devoid of imagination as a society. We lack the ability to imagine a better future for ourselves, a more just civilization for our children, an economy that does not favor the rich and poweful at the expense of the poor, a public and open space that needn't fear hateful and extremist violence at its absolute, unbearable worst. We are a sick society, in need of more than simple reform. And it is difficult -- nearly impossible -- to not despair and wonder if we will ever have anything but the same, over and over again.

Elizabeth Bruenig says it better than I could:

Yesterday, before the families of Uvalde had buried their children, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a televised interview that he would “much rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens, because it’s not going to be the last time.” That is to say: It’s going to go on indefinitely. It’s not an end, exactly, but life inside a permanent postscript to one’s own history. Here is America after there was no more hope.

-- A Culture That Kills Its Children Has No Future

Tagged: America