America: Land of the Free Fall of Humanity and Home of the Brave Child Killers
To function in a society that murders children as a *policy choice*, the ruling class depend on us pretending the slaughter is not happening. Fuck. The. Pretending.
One year ago today, 28-year-old Aiden Hale walked into The Covenant School, a private elementary school in Nashville, TN.
He walked into The Covenant School 18 years after having been a student there.
He walked into The Covenant School with two rifles.
He walked into The Covenant School and unleashed more than 150 rounds.
He walked into The Covenant School and murdered three adults and three children.
Remarkable right?
Not really, not in America, where today on March 27, not even a full three months into 2024, we’ve had 85 mass shootings.
It was just another day in America. But for one poignant fact: three of Aiden’s victims were white third graders.
This made The Covenant School Shooting analogous to the Sandy Hook School Shooting (not to be confused with the Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, Columbine, Santa Fe, Umpqua Community College, Red Lake, Uvalde, Parkland School Shootings).
At Covenant and Sandy Hook, unlike the rest of these, white babies were murdered.
At Covenant, three white 9-year-olds.
At Sandy Hook, twenty mostly white 6 and 7-year-olds.
I remember Sandy Hook distinctly. It was December 2012, six months after my mother died. My children were even younger than those slaughtered at Sandy Hook, which wasn’t far from where we lived in Connecticut.
Chris Murphy was a congressional representative at the time. Soon after, he became a U.S. Senator. I was one of a handful of mothers who met with Murphy and he told us to our faces: “Congress has this. We should have taken care of this after Columbine. We GOT this.”
What we’ve gotten is a steaming pile of dead children.
Think that’s histrionic? Macabre?
It’s plain fact.
Guns are now the number one killer of children in America.
Not car accidents.
Not drownings.
Not cancer.
GUNS.
At least with Sandy Hook, nine years before Covenant, news of the shooting dominated the press for six months.
With Covenant, not even six hours. It was GONE by the afternoon.
Mass shootings have become so common, they are hardly newsworthy. How many of the 85 mass shootings this year have YOU heard about?
If you’re like the rest of us, close to zero. And even if you hear about one, how long do you sit and actually THINK about it. Probably not long. Because if you did, you’d never go to the mall, the grocery store, movie theater, you’d never send your kids to school.
To function in a society that murders children as a policy choice, we have to pretend like it’s not happening.
Otherwise, we’d have to fully internalize the reality: America is a land of child killers.
Which is the opposite of what we’ve been sold, namely Friends meets Disney meets Marvel, a meet-cute world of rainbows, unicorns and good guys.
The reality of America makes the Hunger Games look like a romantic comedy.
That not even white America’s most prized possessions in the safest place on Earth — white babies in art class — are safe from being hunted.
If America murders white first graders in P.E.: Who won’t we kill? Where won’t we kill?
Hours after Aiden Hale assassinated three white babies, President Joe Biden rambled on about Jeni’s chocolate chip ice cream before demanding Congress do more about guns.
Hour after three white babies were murdered by American policy, our President moved onto dessert.
Which is what our “leaders” have been doing for decades.
Evading accountability.
Raising money.
Pocketing money.
Swilling champagne, green juice or chocolate chip ice cream, as the case may be.
If Congress was gonna do something about guns, the number one killer of American kids, they would have by now.
If the President was gonna do something about guns, the number one killer of American kids, they would have by now. Not just Biden. So too Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton. Not a single American President has changed America’s policy of killing American children.
Let’s be clear, America’s policy has ALWAYS been to kill Black and brown children at home — and abroad.
All that’s changed is that we’ve added white American babies to the national hit list.
While guns are the number one killer of American kids, American-funded Israeli genocide is the number one killer of Palestinian children.
In both cases, America has chosen to make money off of mass death of children: Palestinian and American.
So when Joe Biden says he can’t do anything about guns, that it’s up to Congress to act, how has he managed to go around Congress to send additional money and weapons to kill Palestinian kids?
Simple: he just does it.
Congress has signed off on more than $10 million dollars a DAY to Israel and Biden has signed off on even more.
All to murder Palestinian humans, majority kids.
When American “leaders” want to do something: They. Just. Do. It.
The mass murder of American kids is a policy choice. The genocide of Palestinian kids is a policy choice.
Naturally, the question is: WHY.
Why would humans choose mass death and genocide of anyone, let alone children, as policy?
The answer goes beyond money: white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy have literally robbed us Americans of our humanity.
If you are in tight possession of your humanity, you’d never pick money over life. You’d never pick anything over life.
You’d protect humans over anything else.
The only answer is those in power have traded in their humanity for money and power. The vast majority of Americans silently accepting this reality have done the same, swapping their humanity for stuff.
Most folks are fixated on getting their favorite $9 Starbucks drink without giving a shit that Starbucks is supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinian kids.
Most folks are more worried about wearing the right outfit to their kids’ school auction than they are about their kids getting murdered at school.
Why?
We’ve been trained to consume rather than care.
Trained to buy rather than feel.
Trained to accept rather than think.
In the absence of humanity, our children suffer, Palestinian children suffer, the whole world suffers as Americans run the world.
One year ago today, 28-year-old Aiden Hale walked into The Covenant School.
One year ago, I realized that our “leaders” had chosen to murder white babies as a policy choice and if that was the case, what chance did the rest of us folks — Black and brown — have.
One year ago, I decided that if our “leaders” were going to murder our children, we the people would have to fight back.
That if our government was here to murder our kids, we the people would be HERE4THEKIDS.
Today is Here4TheKids one year anniversary.
We are Here4ALLKids — American, Palestinian and every child on the planet — today, tomorrow and always until we abolish ALL the systems that have been designed to harm and kill CHILDREN.
Please join us in our quest for liberation. We can only achieve it in community, in solidarity.
Our kids need us.
One year anniversary- wow.
'The reality of America makes the Hunger Games look like a romantic comedy.'
Weeping with the truth of it. And also, a year of H4TK is a year where hope, community, connection are growing and spreading as we work toward Abolition, Liberation, Solidarity. Together, we can. We will. We have to.