Thirty-two people are dead and dozens more injured in three separate mass shootings across the U.S. in just one week.
Like many of you, we feel stuck. We feel helpless to defend against — much less stop — these attacks.
The suspect who killed 20 people and injured 26 others in El Paso on Saturday called the attack “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Motives in the shooting in Dayton overnight and the shooting in California one week earlier are less clear.
What we do know however is that domestic terrorism is real and its main mechanism is hate. We can not afford to wait for these seemingly random acts of extreme violence to become aware of this problem, to commit resources to fix it, and to stay vigilant in addressing it.
These perpetrators exploit our inability to address these problems as one voice, one people. Regardless of our individual efforts, too many of us are not coming together in unison long enough to make a dent in the issues confronting us everyday, including the proliferation of white supremacy ideology, domestic terrorism, gun access, and hate speech on social media.
The only way we can become unstuck in moments like these is to commit to action before the violence. And to never waver. Together or nowhere.
In pursuit of social evolution.
