Wake the Fuck Up Human Race & Get Your Shit Together Finally Before It’s Too Late!
By Ron Signore
When did everything change? I was born and spent the first 6 years of my life in a small suburban area of Chicago, where the town had experienced an influx of minorities within it’s population. My parents saw the traditional Italian-Irish-Bohemian-German town quickly become a memory. It is fair to say that during this transition period, there was a clear influx of crime. Graffiti painted the garages in the alley ways, and the streets became louder with rebellion.
Still, despite all of that, we could walk down the streets, ride our bikes on the sidewalks or wander around the town without fear. Sure, there was the news in the tight nit community of a shooting and gang activity. Not to downplay it, but it did not consume our lives the way news consumes us now.
This small town feel from little old Berwyn, Illinois is a far distant memory to the way life used to be. Now we live in a society where we are fighting for that old small town feel in aspects of our lives. The normal has become a complete state of pessimism for a lack of trust to our neighbors in this world. There is a constant fear, borderline to paranoia, that keeps us skeptical of our surroundings in people. We can thank those who betrayed our trusts socially like the priests who molested little boys, the other pedophiles we hear of, kidnappings and now, random shootings.
It is reasonable for different generations to have different identities for the time and cause for change. In many cases, it was the transitional periods of the smaller towns demographically. I would argue for my generation (millennials or even Z) it was Columbine. While the Cold War brought practices like “duck and cover,” in fear of nuclear war, Columbine brought something a little closer to specificity in targets that extended to a randomness in terror.
Once Columbine hit the news in the mid-nineties, a certain level of investigation into just about everything in hindsight was brought to the foresight of America. The lyrics of music by artists like those of Eminem or Marilyn Manson were sought after in the efforts to place blame or in my belief, deflect accountability. The old argument of who’s fault is this kind of tragedy enters the immediate attention of all of us at every age. The parents should have paid closer attention to their kids; or the music made them do it; or the bullies deserved what was coming to them. All avenues were brought to attention. All avenues had an adversary with a counter opinion of fault.
Either way, from that day forward, precautions against active shooters has become the norm in schools and even businesses. Sadly, it has rarely shown to be preventative in stopping these nonsensical tragedies. Instead of putting the masses safety as the forefront, round and round we go with political battle on the use of the second amendment, with many arguing this fear of an over powering government taking our guns, others arguing a more Reaganian stance of needing to blame the individual as opposed to society.
I am in no way advocating that accountability to the individual offender, or offenders in many cases, should be ignored. However, we are missing the boat in understanding a simple societal code to do no harm to others. A nobility, or Christian way of life so hypocritically ignored, of live in peace. The misfire of understanding what is best for greater good compared what is good for us as individuals routinely misses the point.
Many could argue it was 9/11 that changed everything. I believe 9/11 magnified the terror reach as a constant pessimistic threat. While there were terror related events throughout our lifetime, 9/11 became monumental in driving awareness when in public, but also drive hate and racism prejudices. Columbine brought that global fear domestically. The chances of an event like that could happen at any given moment. Unlike the Cold War, 9/11 or even events like the OKC Bombing which had elements of randomness to them, Columbine brought the reality to everyday life and how our next-door neighbor, our classmate, our peers could all be someone who could snap that way and bring that tragedy to the limelight of the nation. We need to debunk the absolute accountability to that one person and understand that it is a combination of a variety of factors that can be held accountable. We need to step up as, not a country, not a government, not a political ideology or party, but as a human race. We need to start practicing what we preach and pursue life, liberty and justice for all.
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