I have to be honest with you, this weekend’s terrorist attack in El Paso shook me more than any of the other senseless and horrific mass murders our country has experienced recently. Having taken the time to consider why, I came to a stark and horrible explanation. Surely part of it is that even though El Paso is almost 750 miles away from us in Houston, this happened to my fellow Texans. Surely part of it is that I’ve been to El Paso before where I encountered nothing but friendly kind-hearted people. Surely part of it is that I've just become a father, and thoughts of something like this happening when my wife and I are out with our son are inevitable. The idea that our son will one day have to participate in active shooter drills in school is truly heartbreaking, as is the idea that he might very well face hatred and racism because of his own Hispanic heritage. But the part that I realized was truly the most frightening to me, and the thing that made this hit very close to home, is that the shooter, who is without question a domestic terrorist, drove clear across our state solely to murder people who look like my wife. For me personally, that's how an attack that happened 750 miles away hit so close to home.
How did we get here? How have we as a society seemingly normalized the mass slaughter of our fellow human beings? We have groups like the NRA who hold sway in the halls of power by dispensing blood money in order to block any semblance of meaningful gun safety regulations. We have "leaders" who look at atrocities such as this and offer only their meaningless "thoughts and prayers" while continuing to take that blood money and refuse to do their jobs and try to help the people they supposedly represent. We have a "President" who has led the charge to lock up immigrant children in concentration camps, who has called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers, who said a group of Neo-Nazi protesters was made up of "very fine people", who instituted a travel ban on members of the Muslim faith, who has told four duly elected Congresswomen of color to go back where they came from, and who constantly and gleefully throws racist and bigoted vitriol into the national discourse because he is a malignant cancer who is completely devoid of anything positive to contribute to our society. And that racist President is backed unquestioningly by a Republican party completely made in his image now, that is nothing but a group of truly spineless cowards and sell outs who actively court the votes of virulent racists in order to try and maintain their stranglehold on power. They are both backed by media companies like FOX News who openly advocate for and disseminate racist talking points and conspiracy theories further poisoning our national discourse. That's how we've gotten to the point where an attack like this, and too many before it and tragically too many after it, will serve not as a point in history where actual change occurs, but rather as just another entry in a long list of horrific incidents that have shattered lives and communities across our nation.
I won't offer my thoughts and prayers to the victims of this massacre, or the victims of other such tragedies, because those thoughts and prayers alone don't accomplish anything. What I offer is the promise that I will use the privilege unduly afforded me as a white male in America to speak out and fight against the scourges of gun violence and white supremacy. While my voice alone may be small, with the voices of enough people of good conscience rising together, we can be loud enough that nobody can ignore us. #ElPasoStrong