5/25/2022

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            It is a sad day, a heart wrenching day. Parents are tweeting about their hesitance to drop their children off at school & daycare. I hesitate to hope that your indictment of the gun lobby industry will resonate with enough grieving people that it will tip the balance toward gun control, since I have had this hope every time one of these shootings happens.

            As a teacher, my thoughts go to the shooter & what his teachers could have done to prevent this. I understand that he was bullied in school, was cutting himself & showing violent tendencies. I worry that the competitive culture that we cultivate in schools exacerbated his sense of isolation. I continue to wonder how we can teach kids to love one another & how this might happen in math class.

Clearly, the shooter should not have been able to buy a gun. I’m disappointed that Chuck Schumer doesn’t think there are the votes to pass any new gun legislation.

As we contemplate violence & the darker side of men’s souls, I call your attention to the atrocities of the military in Burma. Desmond, writing in the Irrawaddy, asks that we call the group of soldiers who are terrorizing their neighbors, “murderous military.” They urge us not to use the term, “Tatmadaw,” because it means ‘Royal Armed Forces’  & ‘Royal’ is understood as glorious in Burmese culture. Desmond suggests ‘Sit-kwe’, or dog soldiers, indicating that the terrorists only obey their masters. I will do my best to adopt this new vocab.

The only way to get through days like these is to remember that Love > Hate & to do our best to spread love. It helps to remember that Hate grows from the primal fear instinct & that we should do all we can to prevent fear in ourselves & others. I believe that police officers are excessively violent in situations with BIPOC folk because of their fear. I hope the police reforms in the Exec Order you sign today address this.

BYBS,

RCA