• I am among the generation of kids that got the standardized talks in elementary school to educate us to ‘stranger danger’ in order to make us aware of the potential of kidnapping. I remember faces on milk cartons.
• When I was in kindergarten, we became involved in the Gulf War. I was very young, but raised in a house where current events were openly discussed. I knew war was bad and that people violently died. And I knew that not all the people that died in war were the bad guys.
• When I was in the fourth grade (and living in Oklahoma) the Murrah Federal Building was bombed and 168 lives were taken.
• When I was in the sixth grade, there was a bombing at the Atlanta Olympics. What should have been a celebration of national pride became fear-driven-chaos and embarrassment.
• In the eighth grade, there was a premeditated mass shooting at Columbine High School. People my age were killing each other.
• On picture day my junior year of high school, I stood in line waiting for my turn to have my picture taken while watching the second airplane fly into the World Trade Center. Live. On a big screen TV.
• When I was a junior in college, 32 precious people were viciously murdered on the Virginia Tech campus. The year before, a gunman had been apprehended in the offices of my own university.
These are just some of the events that make up my collective memory. There are many more – local, national and international. The above list is to give a glimpse through the window, which I, and others my age, see the world. We have never had the luxury of perceiving the world surrounding us as “safe”. As young people in America, we don't live everyday with bombs and military attacks, yet we are aware that we live in a dangerous world. We are overtly and covertly taught this from the moment we draw our first breath.
Today, I sat dumbfounded as the news of injured congresswoman Gifford poured across the television. We are America. And we are injured again. Yet again, it is a self-inflicted wound. As the saying goes, when you keep doing what you’ve always done, you keep getting what you’ve always got.
We need change.
My generation (especially those born, raised and /or living in the United States) knows vast luxury, extraordinary wealth and the American dream. Yet, the unhappiness and hostilities seem to multiply every day. I do not understand why in our modern age, people are choosing to settle extreme disagreement with violence and guns.
We need change.
I do not have the magic answer as to how to accomplish this. I know that if change is not begun it can never be realized. I also know it starts with conversation – honestly and actively listening to each other. We need to be able to sit, break bread and converse with those whom we love and those whom we don’t. It won't bring change over night, but it is a start -a small start. Its the small things that can start a revolution.
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