This is America: I can’t stand what I see
This is America: three mass shootings in less than a week. Just days after a 19-year-old gunman killed three people at a Gilroy, California, garlic festival, a 21-year-old in Texas opened fire at a mall on Saturday, murdering at least 20 people. The next day in Dayton, Ohio, a 24-year-old killed nine people. All of the shooters were young white men.
Minutes before the El Paso attack, the shooter released a screed saying it was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” echoing racist statements made by the president and referencing the “cultural and ethnic replacement” of white people. Similarly, before the teenage shooter in California went on his rampage, he published a post on Instagram recommending a novel popular with white supremacists. A motive has yet to be identified in the Ohio shooting, but the killer’s former classmates note he was suspended once for writing a list of girls he wanted to rape.
The sad part is many of us went to church this Sunday without a mention of what’s happening in the world around us. But if it was mentioned, we spent maybe a few moments and mentioned these horrifying acts and lifted up in prayer.
I believe its time (over time) that we national action of speaking into these issues. I know there are some people who are going to read this and say we need a national act on Black-on-Black murders, to which I say, your right. We need a Nehemiah call to fasting and prayer but also a Nehemiah call to ACTION. What are we going to do?
While we are scared that North Korea has weapons of mass destruction that can take out countless lives, we are sitting around with folks full of hate with weapons of mass destruction (AR-15, AK-47 and many other war assault rifles) waiting for them to shot up folks because their way of life is being threatened. This is a national emergency, and if any other demographic were so wholly responsible for mass murders in the United States, we would be talking about it every single day.
These shootings are just the latest in what has become a horrific American trend of mass murders motivated by racism. The 2015 white supremacist shooting in a black church in Charleston, and the Poway synagogue murders in April — the young white men committing these crimes are not anomalies or “lone wolves”, they are terrorists: disaffected, radicalized online, seeped in racial resentment, and hoping for lasting glory. Remember the tiki torches and them yelling out “You will not replace us”.
We preach on Sunday that we are image-bearers and if you have a little Charismatic back ground, we would say, that should be careful how you speak and that your words carry power. Well brothers and sister, our President is using words of hate and he should be held accountable for the words that are coming out of his mouth. Where are the preachers that supposedly have his ear? We must address this head on. We must talk about how these shootings are motivated and encouraged by white supremacy and xenophobia. That means we must address Donald Trump behavior and language that incite this type of violence. It also means addressing those politicians (super christian Ted Cruz who backs him up 90% of the time) and calling them into accountability. Yes we heard this year chants of “Send her Back”. This president has bloody hands because he won’t vehemently and consistently condemn these types of words. “Shoot them all at the border”: DMV employee investigated for Facebook comment on immigrants. Let me be honest, as if I weren’t already, Trump not the problem!! This is America!! Trump is a manifestation of the ugliness that is in us.
The biggest danger to Americans isn’t immigration, socialism, campus activists, or progressive congresswomen — it’s a system that leads young white men to become violent and deadly because they fear that they are losing America. If we don’t address this, if we continue to ignore what happening more people will be killed. It’s easy to say these men had mental health issues, but let me say this, hate and bigotry aren’t mental health issues, they are learnt behaviors. If we make that excuse, then every slave owner had mental health issues or George Wallace had mental health issues or all the people who stood and watched innocent men, women and children be hung, raped, and castrated have mental health issues.
This hurts bad and I feel like I’m watching movie, but I’m in it. We are in it. I’m scared but we have to be proactive. That means beyond just a short prayer we must push for smart gun control policy, we must pay attention to who is most at risk of becoming radicalized, and proactive steps to stop that downward spiral. These tragedies don’t have to be inevitable but if we don’t do anything we will be here again soon. Is this the America you want?
