(The Center Square) – If there ever has been a moment when Americans as individuals need to take stock of their contributions to our country, that day has arrived: June 1, 2020.
We have lived in fear of a global coronavirus pandemic since March that state health departments says has proven fatal to more than 100,000 Americans. Our handling and mishandling of COVID-19 quite possibly will kill multiple more unable to process their fear of it and live their lives.
We have hidden in our homes at the behest of experts and watched the world on television and through the internet. We have seen, though not for the first time, how isolated incidents build into a massive pile of questions that we struggle to process let alone answer.
Some of us are now channeling our angst, anger and other dangerous emotions prompted by a far more manageable societal issue into a fear that they control by smashing and burning down our country, city by city.
We are allowing a pent-up rage and anger to manifest itself in a way that is making an already complex and chronic array of societal problems to become greater than the sum of their parts.
The rogue actions of a police officer in the preventable death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the horrific mistake that led to the shooting of Breonna Taylor in her Louisville home, and images of Ahmaud Arbery being tracked down a country road by misguided vigilantes in Brunswick, Ga., have been bundled into a collection.
We are not part of a collective but insist that there are collectives that unjustly control us.
There is no such thing as The Government.
There is no such thing as The Police.
There is no such thing as The Media.
Each is as relevant and as powerful as we allow them to be when left unchecked.
The corrupt and self-serving who exist in those institutions make mistakes in their processes and judgments just as process and judgment errors exist in convenience store checkout lanes, in offices that do whatever work is accomplished in offices, and in factories where we make whatever is made. The difference is, in those private institutions, poor performance is not perpetuated. It simply isn’t allowed.
There is no reason that repetitive systemic failure should be tolerated in public institutions, where the people ultimately have the power and authority to not only hold leadership accountable but to demand specific action. Regrettably, far too many Americans are better equipped to discuss the steps required to win TV's "The Bachelor" than they are about filing a freedom of information act request.
At this moment, everything is magnified because we have been captive to our fears. We’ve subjected ourselves to life inside, away from contact with friends and extended family, in front of our screens and consuming a continuously flowing stream of coverage of death projections, virus spread models, and snippets of videos that cause us to gain only part of the picture.
We watched our world like spectators.
What we all have witnessed, behind our masks and amidst the uncertainty and fear of COVID-19, has created an unprecedented tension in our country. It is the equivalent of a spring wound too tightly coming unwound. What’s sprung from this release of our fear is no more the reality than the false reality we created inside our homes, doors locked, glued to our screens and choosing the narratives that we chose.
Now the streets that were empty and yearning for normalcy are covered in blood, broken glass and ashes. Incredibly, after fearing death of the masses, we have created more death and more fear than what a coronavirus could generate on its own.
What we have allowed ourselves to become over these past five days is not indicative of who we are as individuals.
We’re not doing this right.
This isn’t what the framers of our Constitution did.
It’s not what Martin Luther King did.
It’s not what Mahatma Gandhi did.
Each accepted the fight. They didn’t start one. That’s what made them heroic.
And whatever this street chaos means to those involved, whatever their motivation, this is not what we should be doing now.
We’ve all been asked to stay in too long. If there was any wonder what effect that might have had on our future as it wore on, we need not think about that too long or too hard. COVID-19 has wrecked us, temporarily.
We can change what’s wrong in this country. We have the responsibility to change what’s wrong with our country.
We cannot expect others to do that for us. No, it’s wholly on you and me.
* This article was originally published here
HELP STOP THE SPREAD OF FAKE NEWS!
SHARE our articles and like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter:
0 Comments