Sadly, what happened in Georgia is all too predictable, and happens all too often. Some people are full of hate and rage, cut-off from those who could help, and connected more so to those who prod, promote, and exploit that hate and rage. And then there is the easy access to a gun, and that predictable outcome becomes the actual outcome. People die, because they are like those whom some hate and rage against, and because they happen to be in the place where the gun is pointed.
It will only stop if we make it stop. No more easy access to guns. No more jokes, stories, memes, and posts that directly or subtly promote negative stereotypes, racism or misogyny. No more hatred against anybody based on whatever it is that makes a person, like all people, special.
Rather than be pulled into our computers and televisions, let’s step outside. Let’s see, meet, and embrace those with whom we share our neighborhoods, our communities, our countries, and our world. Let’s see and love those whom, and that which, we all have in common – families and friends, the want to learn and work, and the desire to worship or not worship freely, as we wish. Let’s remember our paths and seek to make the paths of others easier. We can do it with waves and kind words, and even with smiles, the type of smiles that extend beyond masks and into our eyes, easily seen by others.
I know, it sounds too simple, and it is too simple for the complexity of what we saw in Georgia, and what we have seen and heard about too often elsewhere. But it is a start. Let us start now. Right now. All of us. Together.
State Senator John F. Keenan 