DONE GONE CRAZY — The Weekly Opine

The stars and stripes have been replaced by tears and guns. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Wild, wild America

It’s been twenty years – nearly to the day – since former President Barack Obama’s minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, gave a sermon during which Wright exclaimed, “God damn America!”

On April 13, 2003, Rev. Wright admonished the United States for the inhumane treatment America persistently foists on those considered less worthy by the elites. In his speech Wright recounted the establishment’s sinister treatment of Native Americans, Japanese Americans and Black Americans.

Upon discovering Wright’s inflammatory sermon, in early 2008, the media and political opponents pressured candidate Obama into delivering a speech on race relations, during which Obama deftly clarified his relationship with Wright while speaking in visionary and reassuring terms. In Philadelphia in March 2008, Obama effectively saved his presidential candidacy with a speech titled, “A More Perfect Union.”

At the time, Rev. Wright was written off as a race-baiting buffoon. However, twenty years later, some of Wright’s words resonate, considering the inhumane way that gun violence afflicts all corners of America, but especially lower income populations in rural and inner-city America.

As gun violence carnage piles higher and deeper, the Republican establishment smugly does nothing of consequence (thoughts and prayers do not count). The NRA, Fox Lies and complicit GOP legislators have successfully turned America into a gun culture nation. Now, as it relates to the government neglecting to shield its citizens from the insanity of those who purposefully misconstrue the 2nd Amendment, the chickens, as Malcolm X once said, have come home to roost.

America’s fascination and tolerance for gun violence is on full display as the chickens come home to roost. (Photos credit Gigi)

Death squads around every corner

In just the past week, our sensibilities have been shaken by the outrageous shootings of four unarmed young people who were doing nothing more than going about their daily lives.

In Kansas City, Missouri, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, by all accounts a stellar student and accomplished musician, was shot twice – in the head and arm – by a gun-toting redneck. Yarl, who is Black, was on his way to pick up his younger twin brothers from their friend’s house when he inadvertently went to the wrong address.

Yarl rang the doorbell not realizing he was at the wrong house. The homeowner, 84-year-old Andrew Lester, greeted him with a 32-caliber handgun and, without saying a word, promptly shot through the outside glass door, hitting the teenager in the head. Then, in an obvious attempt to finish the job of killing him, Lester shot Yarl in the arm as the boy lay on the porch.

Not surprisingly, local authorities quickly released Lester from confinement because that’s what authorities most often do when a White man shoots a Black person, e.g., the three White men who murdered Black man Ahmaud Arbery.

Finally, four days later and under intense nationwide pressure, Kansas City authorities charged Lester with two felonies, punishable by up to 30 years in prison. (For some reason attempted murder is not one of the charges.) Lester’s bail was set at a generously low $200,000. C’mon, we all know that if Yarl attempted to murder Lester there would be no bail, or it would be set at a more realistic number, say $2 million.

Next up, in rural Upstate New York, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was in the front passenger seat of a car with friends when they inadvertently drove onto the wrong driveway searching for another friend’s house. As they promptly backed out of the driveway, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan stepped onto his porch and fired into the car. Gillis was struck, dying from her gunshot injury a short time later. At least authorities in Hebron, New York, immediately arrested Monahan and charged him with murder. Monahan is being held without bail.

Then we learned that late Monday night a group of high school cheerleaders were returning to a grocery store parking lot, after a late-night practice session. One of the girls mistakenly opened the door to a car she thought was hers. When she realized her mistake, she immediately backed away. But the person inside the car, 25-year-old Pedro Rodriquez Jr., followed her to the car where she had rejoined her cheer squad teammates. Rodriquez disregarded the girl’s apology and opened fire, striking two cheerleaders, seriously injuring one of them named Payton Washington.

Considering the way things are in America, think twice before agreeing to water your neighbor’s plants. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

The shooting of the four young people in Missouri, New York and Texas, by gun-wielding cranks, is a sober reminder. I recall several years ago, when the garden club I belong to offered watering service to town residents while they were away on summer vacation. Residents would sign up for the service and then one of our garden club members would water plants while the homeowner was away. I politely declined to participate out of fear some loose cannon would see me – a Black man – in their neighbor’s yard watering plants and, no questions asked, shoot me.

As appalling as mass shootings are, the three recent shootings of innocent young people are even more disturbing. The matter-of-fact ease with which some gunowners believe they are justified shooting non-threatening civilians is beyond scary. What’s next? Will someone driving to a home improvement store park their car and shoot the person who pulled into the parking lot behind them, with the excuse they believed the other person was following them and therefore a threat?

Sadly, at this juncture, there seems to be no way out of this mess, considering there are around 400 million firearms circulating in the U.S.

Desperate + dumb = violence

It’s no surprise America is regressing with respect to education. Higher education is under relentless attack. State governments reduce funding for higher ed. Conservative politicians question the validity of college. The cost of college and fear of insurmountable debt scare away prospective students.

The pandemic hurt, too as math and reading scores for many grade school and junior high school-age students fell sharply. National Assessment of Educational Progress scores reveal that eighth grade math scores fell by eight points during the pandemic while fourth grade math scores fell five points. Stunningly, Gallup research shows that 54% of American adults read at or below the sixth-grade level (making them ripe to believe baseless fearmongering).

It's also no surprise we’ve settled into a phase a business school professor warned about during a course I took in the late-1970s. At that time, America had five classes: upper; upper-middle; middle; lower middle; and lower. The professor predicted we were heading toward a time where there would be two classes: those that are making it, and those that are not making it. Friends, we are in that moment.

While I definitely do not agree with everything he says, Rev. Jeremiah Wright was on to something. (Photo credit The Atlantic)

An increasing amount of the populace desperately hang on to “have” status. Others, in the “have not” class, cope with desperation working low-paying jobs (or don’t have a job) trying to put food and medicine on the table. Couple that with a large swath of the population slipping into ignorance and succumbing to conspiracy theories, or trying to survive on a high school degree with no skills training, or spending too much time clicking social media bait. What you get is a society turning on itself, disintegrating into lethal chaos. (Not saying that everyone living in desperation is dumb and/or violent.)

Illiterate people are more easily convinced to be afraid. They are told, and believe, that hope lies in firearms ownership, not for sport hunting but to defend themselves from imagined “enemies.”

As more citizens become desperate and more citizens become dumb, society becomes more violent. Wayward souls celebrate as the rule of law goes out the window. And the ‘party favor’ of choice is firearms. We are witnessing this manifestation as 120 Americans die from gun violence daily.

The way I see it, there is no difference between those who pull the trigger and those who refuse to take action to stop them. If it takes two to tango, then both the shooter and the do-nothing legislator are equally responsible for fueling America’s gun violence contagion.

Rev. Wright was right. Until America decides to do good by its citizens and adopt tough measures that will substantially reduce our inhumane gun violence epidemic, well, then… God damn America.