Politics is an Easy Pill to Swallow But Could Only Do So Much

As the nation continues to grapple with the aftermath of last Friday’s tragic massacre that took twenty seven lives, twenty of which are small children, gun control activists and their dormant political allies spared no time to hog the limelight in an attempt to push their own agendas. Washington Post and The New York Times Editorial Boards surely joined in on this chorus on gun control. There has even been a push to change our constitution! At a time like this, when our nation mourns and prays for those affected by the tragedy, we could use an alternative discourse on violence in order to maintain our own sanity and to honor the dead with a level of cool-headed dignity that was lacking in the killer’s head. We must steer away from the agenda-driven, big-government “solution” to instead focus more on mental health issues, community engagement, strengthening the family, and yes, faith-based values in the public sphere.

Of course, our first thought at times like this is, “What can be done to prevent it from happening next time?” The truth of the matter is that we live amongst people from all walks of life, that any one person’s sanity could be deemed insane by the next person. The point is that we can never eradicate insanity from the society because our fragile mental makeup as human beings is always susceptible to environmental dictates. Evil lives amongst us. Heck, Psychopathic killers have been living and working amongst us for centuries. While the grave tragedy that we all had to endure and absorb as parents, friends, mentors, community leaders, and distant observers deserves serious attention and reflection, we should refrain from crusading for nonsensical laws crafted based on emotions rather than reason. The same kind of nonsensical, erratic behavior exhibited by the shooter should be especially avoided by our nation’s top political leaders. This is not meant as an attack on the good intentions of many politicians and public figures, but it is an indictment on the act of employing the same impulsive response to life’s many turbulent trials with no regard to the underlying cause. No law can stop Adam Lanza from his evil rampage. No law can identify and help those most mentally vulnerable individuals living amongst us. We tend to think and believe that we have the answer to everything in this world. That is not true, as apparent from our many collective failures as a society in recent years (poor education system that lags behind China and India, rising poverty rates among minorities, and still high incarceration rates for young Blacks, etc.). Often time both politicians and those violent perpetrators are two sides of the same coin: victims of their own conceit and ignorance.

We Was What We Had

Last week, I was onboard M1, the MetroBus, being bored as usual, sifting through tweets on my iPhone – just like any other day when I normally catch the bus to go to work – when I suddenly heard a particularly intriguing exchange between two African American males sitting next me. It went something like this:

[Man #1]: Man I’m telling ya, it just ain’t like what we had before [disclaimer: I truly have no idea what the entirety of the exchange was all about, but what I did gather was a snippet of reality that simply resonated with me personally]

[Man #2]: mmhmm, that’s true…

[Man #1]: we used to get together with the families, parents would join the kids for kickball on the weekends, and we’d always have plenty of food for everyone…now it just ain’t the same no more

[Man #2]: I feel ya. I know exactly what you are talking about, man. Now we have the younger generation behind bars, with no respect toward the older ones, just ain’t the same no more

[Man #1]: yeah man. I mean back then…ya know…families were tight…I’m telling ya…we was what we had

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I have to confess that halfway thorough their exchange, I had both my ears perked up (totally disregarding at that point what the Twitter-sphere was buzzing about) and proceeded to absorb everything I heard – or eavesdropped, rather.

For whatever reason, that conversation stuck with me for a good part of this past week as I went on with my life. I meant to jot it down last week to reflect on the meaning of it all but didn’t have the time to do so. However, at the time, I immediately appreciated what the man was trying to get at: families and communities are broken, and we have increasingly started to express ourselves through institutions other than our immediate families and communities, whether be corporations, government, universities, or yes, the prison system, to a degree that the people closets to us are becoming ever so aloof.

As the percentage of children born out of wedlock had gone through the roof over the past several decades, among those are 73% of African Americans and 53% of Latinos, as reported by the New York Times. Astonishingly, blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than Latinos and 6 times more likely than whites. 1 out of 9 young black male (age 20-34) is behind bars according to the latest data from National Institute of Justice. Our nation needs a renewed dialogue about education, criminal justice, higher education, psychological development, and etc. to identify ways to strengthen our communities. Ignoring these issues will lead to more broken families and more unstable communities. The most racist thing we can do as a nation is to turn a blind eye against these tough statistics and pretend like they don’t exist. We need honest dialogue about how to reduce these rates, more so than ever, and I happen to believe that family and community are central to solving these issues. Strengthening these institutions would allow for more opportunities for all Americans. Doing so will not only lead to a more prosperous and stronger country, but indeed, it will be the right thing to do. That requires, first, that we pay more attention to these issues and proactively listen to these lost voices coincidentally heard onboard a metrobus.