This isn't a post on abortion, though I fall on the unpopular side of that debate. It's a post about how people want to have children, but can't. Or how people want to have children, but are too afraid. It's about how we, as a country, prioritize everything material and disposable over everything sacred and eternal. It's about a few of the ways we're tragically misguided. Specifically, it's about how gun violence, police brutality, and poverty are robbing people of their inherent right to life and family.
I've mentioned before that the idea of having kids in this country scares me because of the gun violence. I won't let the fear stop me from having kids, but it's infuriating. Parents have enough to worry about without mass shootings. I don't know if stripping everyone of their guns is the answer, but I do know that it's unacceptable to leave things as they are. People are more important than arsenals. It sickens me that there are people who refuse to just have a conversation about gun laws meanwhile lives are being taken every single day. It always hurts more when the victims are kids, but a 40 year old who is killed in a shooting is just as precious. He's someone's kid.
I guess I just have to wonder: to the people who refuse to talk about stricter gun laws, many of whom are parents - are you willing to let your kid be sacrificed? Because that's what it takes. Maybe it's not your kid today, but 10,000 kids are shot each year in the US, and many of them - about 8 a day - are killed. And that's just children. That doesn't count the 27 year old adult who is still someone's baby.
When I have kids I'm going to read stories to them, true and fictional. They'll read about Harry Potter and how he was Christlike by sacrificing his life for his friends. They'll read about Frodo and Sam accepting their seemingly inevitable death in a quest to end evil. They'll know the true stories of saints and martyrs across time who died for others, or who were killed for their beliefs. As a parent, I'll have to reconcile teaching my kids these virtues and hoping that a situation that puts them in such danger never arises.
I will not, however, willingly sacrifice my kids to the gun lobby, nor will I sacrifice other people's kids by refusing to talk about gun laws.
I believe we can all agree that we have a right to life. We also have a right to family - to create or foster life. Those are natural rights afforded to every single person. Natural! There is nothing "natural" about the right to tote a man-made weapon created solely for the purpose of inflicting harm on others.
With every shooting, with every bogus NRA lobbying session, we're chipping away at someone's right to have a family. The world will never be completely safe, nor should it be. But there's a difference between natural danger and risk and a deathtrap. (Even I, while writing this, felt like "deathtrap" was an exaggeration, but there are bulletproof blankets and mats specifically made for schoolchildren to wear, so it's really not.)
The vast majority of my friends are still unmarried or without children. (Though some have started families.) Whenever the topic of kids comes up, someone at some point mentions the fear of it all. It's too much. Parenthood will always be scary, it will always be hard. But it shouldn't be scary for these reasons. No one should have reason to say, "I'd like to have kids but how can I? People are being killed every day and nowhere is safe. How can I have kids in a world like that?"
Bottom line: Even if we're just talking about child deaths, thousands are killed. Kids are killed in their homes because of lax storage laws. They're being shot at school. Just typing that sentence - children are being shot to death in their schools - feels wrong, and yet, we're doing nothing about it. In this country, toddlers are killed by guns more often than police officers are.
Maybe you're getting mad at me for politicizing the deaths of so many innocent people. But I'm angry at everyone who refuses to politicize it. It's a national problem and we need national solutions. It's not that I give a damn about politics, it's that I have seven little brothers and sisters; it's that one day I want to get married and have a bunch of kids and take them to football games without them getting shot.
It is about life and about families.
Which brings us to the issue of police brutality. Because while gun violence is a threat against everyone with a pulse, black parents in this country are bearing a burden like no other. They have to worry about the same things white parents worry about and then they have to worry about things no person should have to worry about: will my child be hurt by police?
Yesterday a video went viral. It shows an officer violently throwing a black girl to the ground, hitting her, dragging her across the room. Her offense? She was being "verbally disruptive." Short of saying, "I have a weapon and am about to kill you," there was no justification for that kind of violence.
(I think I've done a good job being civil so far but I'm going to put that aside for a second. Why the fuck do we think it's okay to arrest a schoolchild for being verbally disruptive? How is that normal? Even if the cop never became brutal, there's no reason the girl should have been arrested. You misbehave in school, you go to the principal's office, not the penitentiary. But we'll talk about the school to prison pipeline, the profits of prisons, and all that jazz in another post.)
Now, I know that cops will abuse anyone, not just black people. Cops tased and strangled my handcuffed, barefoot brother (why was he getting arrested? for back-talking to a cop.). But I don't worry about them killing my brothers. Are white people ever killed by cops? Yes. But not the way black people are. (I've written about this before.) A police officer's job is dangerous, yes. Many of them are honorable, yes. But when so many of them are killing so many people (and a specific race of people, at that), we need to ask ourselves what's wrong with the institution as a whole. It's clear there's a problem, and if you deny it, you're either ignorant, defensive of your privilege, or complicit.
If you refuse to talk about police brutality in a completely honest way that acknowledges the systemic racism, you're ignoring the rights of others. Because again:
We all have a right to life. We also have a right to family - to create or foster life. Those are natural rights afforded to every single person. Natural! There is nothing "natural" about a state-created and state-sanctioned force of highly armed officers being allowed to kill whomever they feel doesn't deserve to live.
Black mothers are cradling their dead sons. Black parents are trying to teach their kids to be strong and independent, but to navigate a world that is against them. And don't try telling me this world - at least, this country - is not against them. If you saw a man throwing a teenage girl around at the mall, you'd intervene. If you saw a father slam his daughter to the ground and beat her, you'd intervene. If a teacher beat up his student for being disruptive, you'd be furious. (And I'm willing to bet that had this been a white girl, no one would be making excuses for the cop.) But we've given cops a free pass to torment black people. I say "we" because laws are largely written by and for white people. There are laws against teachers hitting their students, but we put cops in black schools and let them hit students.
I have black friends and black cousins who don't want kids for one reason only: they don't want to have kids just so they end up being killed by police or vigilantes.
If you can't see how that's anti-life or anti-family, then you're not looking hard enough.
It's totally about politics and it's totally about racism and it's completely, totally about life and about families.
Which brings us to poverty. I'll keep this short, I just wanted to mention a few things: we've got an ungodly amount of children living in poverty. They're hungry, and we're not feeding them. Parents can't afford to send their kids to college, where even the public universities are increasing their tuition every year. And students who do go to school are met with such high debt that they can't gain independence after graduation. Social mobility is a myth. While the idea of a voluntary military sounds great, it's often poor kids joining because it's their only chance of getting a paycheck, health benefits, and even an education, if they don't die in one of our many wars.
And we try to solve these problems by cutting taxes on the rich.
And we demonize anyone who questions capitalism.
Really, we all have a moral obligation to question our economic policies. Maybe communism and socialism have failed elsewhere (though we could argue that it was because they were fascist, but hey, another post). Maybe capitalism is the "foundation of our economy" in America. But that's not reason enough to NOT resist it. Slavery was once the foundation of our economy in America, and if you support that, there's a 97% chance you're swine. I don't have all of the answers, but I know that there are people not getting married because they can't afford it. I know there are people working 80 hours a week so that they can survive. I know there are people putting off having a family (or never having kids at all!) because they can't afford it.
Is that an acceptable price to pay for capitalism? And for no reason other than capitalism is all we know? I don't think so. The kind of sick distribution of wealth we have is only achieved through the oppression of others. The only way one man can make billions of dollars a year is by the suffering of others - sweatshops, long hours for little pay, a minimum wage far below the living wage, and other unfair labor practices. I think it's alright to be rich. I just think there's a limit to how much money you can make while remaining moral.
And so one last time:
We all have a right to life. We also have a right to family - to create or foster life. Those are natural rights afforded to every single person. Natural! There is nothing "natural" about an economic system that doesn't pay people fairly for work.
We need to rethink a system that leaves people tired and sick. It sounds corny, but really, in this kind of economic environment (and oh my God don't get me started on the gross degeneration we allow our environment to suffer in the name of profits), it's not easy to find love, nonetheless to nurture relationships. A system that leaves people unable or afraid of having kids isn't a good system. And this isn't just about politics or economics, it's about life and about families.
I guess my point is that I'm sick and tired of people putting kids on the line. You're a gun owner and love your automatic weapons, so it's okay that someone's kid might be shot. That's the price you're willing to pay just so that you don't need to have a conversation about gun laws. You're a white person and your kids go to private school, so you're okay with armed police officers being stationed in poor public schools even if it means someone else's kid might be brutalized. You're middle class, so you're okay with anti-poor policies even if it means some other man's kid goes to bed hungry or can't go to college or joins the army out of desperation.
I've known for a while now that power lies in the hands of a few. But this is never clearer to me than when I'm with my other friends, many of whom are women, talking about starting families. Our kids - the ones we're often scared to even dream of, are the ones that get sacrificed to America's unholy gods: guns, false traditions, and money. Not every rich person is bad, not every gun owner is dangerous, not every cop is corrupt. But the ones that refuse to change? The ones that refuse to even entertain the notion of progress or of debate - they are treading on the rights of others.
I guess I just have to wonder: to the people who refuse to talk about stricter gun laws, many of whom are parents - are you willing to let your kid be sacrificed? Because that's what it takes. Maybe it's not your kid today, but 10,000 kids are shot each year in the US, and many of them - about 8 a day - are killed. And that's just children. That doesn't count the 27 year old adult who is still someone's baby.
When I have kids I'm going to read stories to them, true and fictional. They'll read about Harry Potter and how he was Christlike by sacrificing his life for his friends. They'll read about Frodo and Sam accepting their seemingly inevitable death in a quest to end evil. They'll know the true stories of saints and martyrs across time who died for others, or who were killed for their beliefs. As a parent, I'll have to reconcile teaching my kids these virtues and hoping that a situation that puts them in such danger never arises.
I will not, however, willingly sacrifice my kids to the gun lobby, nor will I sacrifice other people's kids by refusing to talk about gun laws.
I believe we can all agree that we have a right to life. We also have a right to family - to create or foster life. Those are natural rights afforded to every single person. Natural! There is nothing "natural" about the right to tote a man-made weapon created solely for the purpose of inflicting harm on others.
With every shooting, with every bogus NRA lobbying session, we're chipping away at someone's right to have a family. The world will never be completely safe, nor should it be. But there's a difference between natural danger and risk and a deathtrap. (Even I, while writing this, felt like "deathtrap" was an exaggeration, but there are bulletproof blankets and mats specifically made for schoolchildren to wear, so it's really not.)
The vast majority of my friends are still unmarried or without children. (Though some have started families.) Whenever the topic of kids comes up, someone at some point mentions the fear of it all. It's too much. Parenthood will always be scary, it will always be hard. But it shouldn't be scary for these reasons. No one should have reason to say, "I'd like to have kids but how can I? People are being killed every day and nowhere is safe. How can I have kids in a world like that?"
Bottom line: Even if we're just talking about child deaths, thousands are killed. Kids are killed in their homes because of lax storage laws. They're being shot at school. Just typing that sentence - children are being shot to death in their schools - feels wrong, and yet, we're doing nothing about it. In this country, toddlers are killed by guns more often than police officers are.
Maybe you're getting mad at me for politicizing the deaths of so many innocent people. But I'm angry at everyone who refuses to politicize it. It's a national problem and we need national solutions. It's not that I give a damn about politics, it's that I have seven little brothers and sisters; it's that one day I want to get married and have a bunch of kids and take them to football games without them getting shot.
It is about life and about families.
Which brings us to the issue of police brutality. Because while gun violence is a threat against everyone with a pulse, black parents in this country are bearing a burden like no other. They have to worry about the same things white parents worry about and then they have to worry about things no person should have to worry about: will my child be hurt by police?
Yesterday a video went viral. It shows an officer violently throwing a black girl to the ground, hitting her, dragging her across the room. Her offense? She was being "verbally disruptive." Short of saying, "I have a weapon and am about to kill you," there was no justification for that kind of violence.
(I think I've done a good job being civil so far but I'm going to put that aside for a second. Why the fuck do we think it's okay to arrest a schoolchild for being verbally disruptive? How is that normal? Even if the cop never became brutal, there's no reason the girl should have been arrested. You misbehave in school, you go to the principal's office, not the penitentiary. But we'll talk about the school to prison pipeline, the profits of prisons, and all that jazz in another post.)
Now, I know that cops will abuse anyone, not just black people. Cops tased and strangled my handcuffed, barefoot brother (why was he getting arrested? for back-talking to a cop.). But I don't worry about them killing my brothers. Are white people ever killed by cops? Yes. But not the way black people are. (I've written about this before.) A police officer's job is dangerous, yes. Many of them are honorable, yes. But when so many of them are killing so many people (and a specific race of people, at that), we need to ask ourselves what's wrong with the institution as a whole. It's clear there's a problem, and if you deny it, you're either ignorant, defensive of your privilege, or complicit.
If you refuse to talk about police brutality in a completely honest way that acknowledges the systemic racism, you're ignoring the rights of others. Because again:
We all have a right to life. We also have a right to family - to create or foster life. Those are natural rights afforded to every single person. Natural! There is nothing "natural" about a state-created and state-sanctioned force of highly armed officers being allowed to kill whomever they feel doesn't deserve to live.
Black mothers are cradling their dead sons. Black parents are trying to teach their kids to be strong and independent, but to navigate a world that is against them. And don't try telling me this world - at least, this country - is not against them. If you saw a man throwing a teenage girl around at the mall, you'd intervene. If you saw a father slam his daughter to the ground and beat her, you'd intervene. If a teacher beat up his student for being disruptive, you'd be furious. (And I'm willing to bet that had this been a white girl, no one would be making excuses for the cop.) But we've given cops a free pass to torment black people. I say "we" because laws are largely written by and for white people. There are laws against teachers hitting their students, but we put cops in black schools and let them hit students.
I have black friends and black cousins who don't want kids for one reason only: they don't want to have kids just so they end up being killed by police or vigilantes.
If you can't see how that's anti-life or anti-family, then you're not looking hard enough.
It's totally about politics and it's totally about racism and it's completely, totally about life and about families.
Which brings us to poverty. I'll keep this short, I just wanted to mention a few things: we've got an ungodly amount of children living in poverty. They're hungry, and we're not feeding them. Parents can't afford to send their kids to college, where even the public universities are increasing their tuition every year. And students who do go to school are met with such high debt that they can't gain independence after graduation. Social mobility is a myth. While the idea of a voluntary military sounds great, it's often poor kids joining because it's their only chance of getting a paycheck, health benefits, and even an education, if they don't die in one of our many wars.
And we try to solve these problems by cutting taxes on the rich.
And we demonize anyone who questions capitalism.
Really, we all have a moral obligation to question our economic policies. Maybe communism and socialism have failed elsewhere (though we could argue that it was because they were fascist, but hey, another post). Maybe capitalism is the "foundation of our economy" in America. But that's not reason enough to NOT resist it. Slavery was once the foundation of our economy in America, and if you support that, there's a 97% chance you're swine. I don't have all of the answers, but I know that there are people not getting married because they can't afford it. I know there are people working 80 hours a week so that they can survive. I know there are people putting off having a family (or never having kids at all!) because they can't afford it.
Is that an acceptable price to pay for capitalism? And for no reason other than capitalism is all we know? I don't think so. The kind of sick distribution of wealth we have is only achieved through the oppression of others. The only way one man can make billions of dollars a year is by the suffering of others - sweatshops, long hours for little pay, a minimum wage far below the living wage, and other unfair labor practices. I think it's alright to be rich. I just think there's a limit to how much money you can make while remaining moral.
And so one last time:
We all have a right to life. We also have a right to family - to create or foster life. Those are natural rights afforded to every single person. Natural! There is nothing "natural" about an economic system that doesn't pay people fairly for work.
We need to rethink a system that leaves people tired and sick. It sounds corny, but really, in this kind of economic environment (and oh my God don't get me started on the gross degeneration we allow our environment to suffer in the name of profits), it's not easy to find love, nonetheless to nurture relationships. A system that leaves people unable or afraid of having kids isn't a good system. And this isn't just about politics or economics, it's about life and about families.
I guess my point is that I'm sick and tired of people putting kids on the line. You're a gun owner and love your automatic weapons, so it's okay that someone's kid might be shot. That's the price you're willing to pay just so that you don't need to have a conversation about gun laws. You're a white person and your kids go to private school, so you're okay with armed police officers being stationed in poor public schools even if it means someone else's kid might be brutalized. You're middle class, so you're okay with anti-poor policies even if it means some other man's kid goes to bed hungry or can't go to college or joins the army out of desperation.
I've known for a while now that power lies in the hands of a few. But this is never clearer to me than when I'm with my other friends, many of whom are women, talking about starting families. Our kids - the ones we're often scared to even dream of, are the ones that get sacrificed to America's unholy gods: guns, false traditions, and money. Not every rich person is bad, not every gun owner is dangerous, not every cop is corrupt. But the ones that refuse to change? The ones that refuse to even entertain the notion of progress or of debate - they are treading on the rights of others.
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