“The trouble with listening to authentic American voices is the certainty that they won’t tell you what you want to hear.”
That’s the way I kicked off my last post, and of course, Nikolas Cruz. 19, spoke with his AR-15 on Valentine’s Day 2018 and told his story without words. He left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida testifying to his own life by taking the lives of others.
The school had two armed guards, a shooter protocol and one entrance. Cruz, a former student, knew the school’s rules and layout. He pulled a fire alarm that opened side doors, and shot students and one teacher who died shielding students as they followed fire drill procedure and headed outside.
The temptation is to take the narrative and turn it into a light vs. shadow story: The surviving students have initiated a national debate about common sense gun control and the role of the National Rifle Association in our elections. The facts show that it is a shadow vs. shadow story. The Pulse nightclub shooting, the Las Vegas shooting and a shooting just a year ago in the Ft. Lauderdale airport didn’t lead to change. American culture is a gun culture, and any measures to reduce the body count have to be preventative rather than proactive.
There is also the temptation to place the horror in the present tense. However, the darkness of violence (not necessarily gun violence) and murder stain US and Florida history back to their beginnings. Before that wars and murder were rampant in all parts of the world, and it was a natural progression to bring them to the so-called New World.
Here are two quotes from one my favorite Florida authors: Zora Neale Hurston. In a nod to Cruz’s flirtation with white supremacy, I’ve used a quote that compared Nazi Gemany’s attempt to subjugate Europe in World War II to the oppression of the blacks in America.
In my opinion, it sums up a continuing political climate in America.
“One hand in somebody’s else’s pocket and one on your gun and you are highly civilized. Your heart is where it belongs-in your pocketbook…Democracy, like our religion, was never designed to make our profits less.”
Cited From a story by Henry Gates’ “A Negro Way of Saying” on the New York Times website.
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