I Experienced the Dallas Shooting.
The All American Mass Shooting Experience
On Thursday evening, I walked from my downtown apartment to Belo Park. I was already emotionally exhausted, spent and trying to motivate myself past sinking into helplessness by attending the #BlackLivesMatter protest. It was hot and I snapchatted about the heat while we stood in front of the Dallas County Civil Court as speakers reminded us that protesting was not enough, we need to invest and be active in our community. We were told to pair off to ensure everyone got home safely, and as we turned to finish off the march it was a beautiful site to see the diversity in the crowd. The families, the young adults, the children, Black, White, Muslim and Latino walked in solidarity. It was a small slice of solace for the long road ahead, but it was enough to say we can do this, we can build up from this. There is a long fight to be had, but societal change is never quick or unanimous.
I looked down at a little boy rocking a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt, holding is hands up as he chanted “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”. How beautifully sad. I thought to grab my phone out to document the moment, and *snap* the air was whiffed away and people suddenly started running in the other direction. It was an instant. A blink, a snap, not even long enough for a sigh. It was that simple. Easy without the breeze. At first I thought it was a fight but I was baffled because no one had appeared agitated. To a fault I don’t participate in mob mentality, so I didn’t run as my homegirls turned and ran in the other direction, calling for me to come. Besides, I am the slowest runner ever no matter how fast I feel like I’m going, literally going nowhere fast. And with no bearings of where to turn or run to, it was futile. So I stopped on the street as the air calmed down after the initial burst of people running and then a succession of shots rang out.
It was real. Unbelievably surreal.
Five police officers dead. One sniper that not even a police force could put down. A robot strapped with a bomb brought it to an end. None of this makes sense. But before I attempt to resolve the more complex implications of that night, how do I assess experiencing a mass shooting?
I experienced a mass shooting. The words sound heavy but they feel so empty. I am alive, physically whole though confounded with the feeling that this happened all to0 easily. If I’m to believe there was a single shooter. One young man, was able to quickly plan and stockpile enough armory to take down a police force. To engage in a shootout over a couple of hours. In the downtown business section of Dallas. Where buildings are secure and surveillance is prevalent. All of that was usurped by a single individual with a conflated vendetta.
This is not something contained within the protesting of #BlackLivesMatter, though white people may wistfully believe this to be our own consequence. On one part I’m maddened by our holding on to the loose interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. At no point did I feel any safer, being as this is Texas, there were armed civilians in the crowd. They could not stop the attack, the police, who are armed and trained, could not stop the attack. Instead we watched in horror as the local news aired a gunman shooting down a police officer. It would be several hours later before the robot bomb was finally brought in. The irony about the right to carry in order to protect against “the man” or the “they,” had every chance to prove it self on July 7th and failed miserably somewhere between Commerce and Main St.
Lest we wistfully forget that mass shootings have easily occurred in nightclubs, elementary schools and movie theatres. The air being sucked out of the room as the trigger is pulled and life being snuffed away from the innocent. It’s always been some distance, where I pantomime in rage about the need for gun reform and then go on about my day. My day came to a halt as the rest of the world moved on and I was left with confusion. The unsettling feeling that swelled in me, that peace could be easily disrupted. That death could be so close, all it takes is convening in a crowd. There is no filter to stop this from being the quintessential American experience.
When I finally made it home the next morning, I was left to unpack the layers.
I am Black. Where I spent the week deeply saddened by the extrajudicial killings that were on display across media of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
I am a Black woman. Where I am hurt and exhausted by how often we are erased from the dialogue while we sacrifice and carry the movement on our backs.
And now, I am a American. I now understand that any day, any setting, any peace can be so easily disrupted because the war zone is only a scratch below the thin facade.
Is this freedom?
