I was going to write a report on Georgia passing a law similar to Texas’ law that allows teachers in schools to carry guns… but, like the world around it, news changes so fast. It appears that guns are not the deadliest weapon in our schools today. There are weapons that are quicker to wound and cut deeper. That cannot be bested with an equal show of force. We live in a world where people hide behind a computer screen, or a smartphone and kill.
On Friday morning, after a performance of Willy Wonka, the students of nearby elementary schools went to have lunch at our MAX. I can imagine how grown up they must’ve felt. Maybe they fantasized about the day that they would be eating there every day, laughing with friends after class, worrying about getting homework done, about what they were going to wear to the party later that night.
What I can’t imagine is what kind of a person that would seek these children out and attack them on a social media network. It must’ve been someone who felt personally attacked themselves by the world around them and projected that onto these defenseless children. Or, perhaps, someone who had just gotten out of the hospital from a lobotomy.
You’d think that we were past this; you’d think that in 2014, at the end of black history month, on a liberal arts college campus, this would never happen. Or if it did happen, it wouldn’t happen to children.
As inexcusable as this behavior is, people will still make excuses, and the most popular one is “We live in the South”. This is especially clear when you see the Confederate flag hung in the window of a house across the street from parks that used to be for white children only.
I’m a person who believes in forgiveness, that a person’s past does not define them. I think that the people of Georgia need to recognize that this is not something that they want to be associated with and collectively move past it.
To the hidden assailants, I would say: What if they were your children? Your friends Or your brothers and sisters? Or your cousins, nieces and nephews? Or you if that is the only person for whom you carry any resemblance of respect?
What if they saw? What if they ran to their mother’s arms and asked her what that word meant? That word she thought she’d never have to explain to them.
What if it was the opposite? A child writes in chalk “look at all those racists in the cafeteria, we should round them up and have them make us macaroni and cheese?”
I would ask them what the difference was between the child that they victimized and the child that they themselves were not so long ago.
Human beings are human beings. Black, white, gay, straight, short, tall, man, woman, southern, northern, right-handed, left-handed, no life is more precious than the last.
I feel pride that GCSU students responded immediately and held discussions today, the day after. I feel pride that the President of GCSU also took the opportunity to respond today. I know that there have been talks of other opportunities for showing support and love, and I hope that these events are filled with just that. Only in a world made from love will hate truly be extinguished.