That's a rhetorical question.
But I have a personal answer.
Last night around midnight, before I went to bed, I checked Daily Kos one last time and saw the headline of the top recommended diary.
And I was up until 3 am watching the TV News after that. Mostly MsNBC because they were the only network that consistently stayed with the story. CNN kept cutting away to their "other" scoop, the one about Brian Williams. I also tried watching Fox, but every time I switched to them they were covering something else, either the Donald or some horrific tale of a college student allegedly wrongly accused of rape because he was too drunk to understand that the women who initially consented to sex with him changed her mind (Megan Kelly was in full outrage mode on that one).
So I stayed tuned to MsNBC. Watched the presser with the mayor and police chief. Watched people at the scene holding hands and praying. Listened to various talking heads tell me the same things they didn't know over and over.
Mostly, though I sat there, feeling this deep sense of deja vu, and not the good kind. I remember watching the news as a kid when JFK and then MLK and then Bobby were gunned down. Of seeing the video from the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. Of seeing the murders of those four students at Kent State. Of riots by whites in Boston over busing. Of the riots in LA after the first Rodney King trial came back with acquittals. Of the Two Towers falling and knowing our country was in for a world of hurt with George W. Bush as our president. Of the complete and utter failure of "Brownie" after Katrina where our government abandoned mostly, poor, black people to their fate. Of every nasty thing said or done by Republicans after the election of President Obama as our first non-white President.
And of course, most recently Trayvonn Martin, the troubles in Ferguson and Baltimore, the continuing onslaught of images of police shootings and murders of African Americans such as Walter Scott to name but a few.
And here we we are again. Back in the the same shit, same as it ever was and seemingly will be forever and ever, not amen.
And I wondered what is it with this crazy country in which I live? The country in which so many of my family and friends worship Ronald Reagan as if he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. The country where they refuse to see any injustice except the supposed injustices being done to them by liberals and minorities and anybody who doesn't toe the conserva-crazy line.
Finally I forced myself to turn off the television, I took my sleeping pills and snatched three or four hours of sleep before I awoke, only to discover that - yes, Steve - what you saw last night really did happen. It wasn't just a bad dream.
And then I spent much of the day here, reading diaries, writing one of my own, but mostly following the comments. Seeing the outrage, the anger, the sniping back and forth among various groups of people over what I often saw as trivial crap or (pardon my language) stupidity.
The usual fare in other words, but somehow made worse because I couldn't stop thinking about the people who were murdered, gunned down in their own church by a man they welcomed into their midst. I couldn't help thinking of the family and friends grieving for their loved ones, lost forever. I kept remembering losses I have suffered in my lifetime, none of them as jarring or traumatic as these poor souls are going through now.
What is the right thing to do? To say?
I can't tell you.
For myself, my first response, though, is to mourn. To mourn the loss of so many good people, and to keep the families of those who lost people they care for, that they knew, loved, shared a life with, in my heart. But also to remember the survivors, and the horrific trauma they face and will continue to face every day of their lives, wondering why not me? They need our support and help just as much as the families of the murdered.
Today, that should be the focus. Not fighting with one another. Not wondering which Democratic candidate responded better to the killings in Charleston. We should support those who are grieving and mourn with them.
Tomorrow though ...
Well, Onomastic is right whether you are willing to accept her message or not.
Can you imagine living every day waiting to be pulled over for driving while black, for sitting while black, for walking home while black, for praying while black? Can you imagine living every day praying you don't get a phone call informing you of the shooting of a loved one? Can you imagine going to church and wondering of you'll be able to return home in one piece?
[...]
None of it will stop until White America wakes up, finds its' courage, and does something about it.
All the crocodile tears and prayers won't change that fact.
Whether we like it or not, America's white Racism that began at its' founding must end with us.
The ball is in our court, right where it has always been. Without us, the white supremacists win. Without us the shootings and bombings will continue. Without us, the attacks on voting rights continue. Without us, Justice dies. It's that simple.
Stand up. Be counted. Refuse to be silent. Join the NAACP. Join the Moral Monday's Movement. Do something!
I agree, it is on me and other white Americans to take responsibility for these never ending series of atrocities.
It's not enough to blog our support against racists, and all the other bigots out there, all the other people who are discriminated against or beaten or bullied into suicide attempts or outright murdered because they are not what a very vocal, very hateful number of primarily white people believe they should be. People who believe the worst most vile things about those who are not like them, people who condone, if not outright cheer, the violence and pain inflicted on so many of their fellow citizens. We need to stand up. We need to be the agents of change we've been waiting for.
I'm going to take that path, though I do not know the way.
One thing I'm going to find out is what I can do in my city to help and support the victims of racism and homophobia and so on and so forth. To help the poorest among us. To stand up for an end to this cycle of violence to which so many of our fellow Americans are addicted.
I'm going to look to find where the vigils for the Charleston victims are going to be held in my community and attend.
I'm going to try to find a way to reach those fellow whites among whom I live, those who are still blind to their own bigotry, their own prejudices, and seek a way to open a dialogue with them, to make them know there are many, many of us who do not believe as they do, and who know with all our hearts that their attitudes, their beliefs and their actions are profoundly wrong.
Our world is beset by many issues that threaten human civilization, from nuclear weapons, arms races, economic tyranny to looming ecological and environmental catastrophes. There are those who want us at each others' throats. They want us under their boot heels. The way forward out of this trap will either lead to greater acceptance and understanding among all peoples, a coming together to advance humanity's common interests, or it will go down a much darker, dangerous path, one beset by class and racial conflict, wars and death on a scale far in excess of what our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents witnessed in the last century.
The best place to start making a difference is here, in our own nation.
We are not that shining city on a hill that Reagan rhapsodized about so often in his maudlin speeches. But neither are we without the ability to effect change for the better. We lost our way, my generation I mean, those of us who grew of age during the years of the Civil Rights movement, the Feminist movement, the anti-war movement, and all the other human rights movements. We became lazy. We allowed the worst of us to gain a foothold in the psyche of a significant number of our white brothers and sisters. We allowed them to infect the body politic with their evil ideologies of greed, distrust of collective action for the betterment of all, and the original sin of racial prejudice until many of us either adopted those memes or found ourselves wondering how we ended up where we did, so divided, so unequal, so bereft of faith and hope.
Too many of us believed our own bullshit about a post-racial society. That the end of history had come and democracy, peace and good were at hand. We failed to listen to the downtrodden and marginalized all around us. Too many of us turned our faces away for those who suffered every day from poverty, oppression, injustice and all the other sins of our consumer driven society, content with our own small portion of the shrinking "American Dream." Too many were afraid helping others threatened what little place we had made for ourselves. We closed our eyes and ears and held our noses until we couldn't any longer. Too many of our friends and family are still stuck in those mental prisons, slaves to the right wing propaganda machine and corrosive effect of the lies money can buy.
Maybe you feel there isn't anything you can do. Maybe you feel there isn't anything you need to do. I don't know. But I, for one, feel there is a lot I can still do and should do. I see my daughter's generation, the much maligned Millennials, and they give me hope. Many of them are working hard to effect change now. They aren't waiting for us. We should follow their lead. I should follow their lead.
I sure intend to do so.
Namaste, my friends.