The Gun Lobby and NRA have weaponized community by promoting ownership of guns as protection. Protection from whom? Media presents news when it reports isolated killings without commentary on why it might have happened. For example why do old white men feel they should kill an unarmed youth for coming to their door by mistake. Why are they afraid of the stranger.
Jim Crow laws forbade "African Americans from living in white neighborhoods. Segregation was enforced for public pools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails and residential homes for the elderly and handicapped.". https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws#jim-crow-laws-expand.
Honour killings - In 2022 "an 18-year-old woman, Aisha Abakar , died after an attack led by family members who believed the unmarried Darfur teenager was pregnant. Her younger sister is in a critical condition in hospital after being injured in the same attack. Three men have been arrested. Three days previously, in the same state a 21-year-old woman was murdered by her brothers and cousins who believed that she was talking to men on her mobile phone. No arrests have been made for her murder." https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/oct/03/sudan-campaigners-demand-action-after-alarming-rise-in-honour-killings
Could there be any other reasons for such a cruel response to suspicion? What makes fear such an affective weapon? What makes hate such a common denominator in tragedy?
Climate change - long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas." https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change
Hate creates among ordinary citizens, a sense of powerlessness. Corporate media loves stories of conflict, tension and violence, but it doesn't want to spend too much space on analysis around these issues.
A well functioning community is invested through the conscience of moral citizens. When libraries are threatened with lack of funding, when Canadians are threatened by short-sighted views that promote removal of funding and shared responsibility we know something must be done but what can a few relatives achieve in world affairs?
If you read this blog and wonder why I spend so much time and space on racism, misogyny, anti-semitism and violence -- it's because I see my community where I have been free to move around, visit art shows, apply for jobs, send letters to the editor -- now under threat.
The thought of people being murdered for their colour or race or gender is a sign that the commons will be ruled by FEAR and HATE if the citizens don't see what they have to lose.
While media space focuses on celebrity, glamour, beauty and entertainment - these are representations of power. Powers that most of us don't have. And while we are right to feel the integrity of one person doesn't get much attention, I believe we must look more closely at what this means for civilizations particularly for our children and grand-children.
When the law bans a woman for getting an abortion because of expressed concern for life, but mothers who can't afford to feed the baby in their uterus once it emerges, when there is no protection for the pregnant against domestic violence, when criticism, blame and hate, stir up community tension -- what does our society offer the people who live in it, who nurse and teach and care for others?
It offers the glitz while expressing contempt for life. It says we love gloss and glamour but not the families who wear it. It says we love the law that controls and defends the land but not the life that is cut down in order to get the profit. It says profit is merely a symbol of power, not the real power of nurture and good health.
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