[Reposted from May 2022.] Yesterday was an election run-off in Harris County. I was serving as an election judge in a very red area where it is a challenge to staff a democratic polling location. What a gift it was to serve with six young people from 17 to 20 years old. When was the last time you spent 14 hours with a racially and LGBTQ diverse group of young people? I knew it was going to be low democratic turnout so I brought quiet games, puzzles, and conversation cards. It felt like the we were in The Breakfast Club, a movie they had never heard of. Our side of the gym was a vivid contrast to the mostly older and completely white staff and voters at the Republican poll. In another four years, 18 to 25 years old voters will be the most powerful voting block in the nation. I felt like I was sitting with the future of America.
Since it is against election code to use any sort of
communication device within 100 feet of a polling location, it was late in the
day when we heard about the school shooting in Uvalde. After
spending the entire day listening to these young people’s hopes and plans, it
was devastating to see the future taken from other children – yet again.
The fear is definitely swirling after this tragic event and it
made me think about all of the fears that are dividing us.
For conservatives, there is a fear of scary
ideas. For progressives, there is a fear of scary
actions. So on the conservative side, there has been a lot of fear
around the ideas that racism still exists, that gender is different than sex,
that sexuality is a spectrum, that gay parents are okay, that giving birth
could be a choice, that gender roles might not matter. And the
interesting thing is that if all of these ideas are true (even if you are
unhappy about them), you personally are actually not harmed. As our
society becomes more inclusive, diverse, and broad, you may find your influence
or your comfort affected but there isn’t data that shows you are actually
harmed or unsafe.
For progressives, the fear of scary actions tend to focus on dying
by gun violence, dying by freezing to death (when the Texas grid fails), losing
one’s healthcare, losing the right to vote, dying at the hands of police,
losing the choice to marry or give birth, or experiencing
discrimination. I’m a data person and there is good data to
substantiate these fears.
No other peer country experiences the gun violence that we do in the
US. Hundreds of people died in Texas because we don’t require our
power providers to winterize. More black males die at the hands of
police than any other group. The official Republican platform states
their intention to overturn marriage equality and the right to bodily
autonomy. More than a dozen states have recently passed laws
restricting voting. Texas authorities are investigating parents of
transgender children who obtain gender care. Same gender couples are
rejected for mortgages at a higher rate than straight couples when risk factors
are equal.
But here’s one fear we have in
common: guns. But curiously, progressives fear dying by a
gun and conservatives fear not being able to own a gun. Again, if
Americans had to submit to a background check and were prohibited from owning
weapons of war, how would they be harmed? Many argue owning guns is a
defense against a tyrannical government. Thinking that our democracy
is still going because our elected leaders fear their armed constituents is a
fallacy. If our government turns into a dictatorship, no AR-15 will
save us against the might of the US military. Our democracy is still
standing because of the right to vote.
But many are clinging to the second amendment “on principle” and
that we must go back to the framer’s original intent. If we want to
go there, then Americans should only be allowed to own muskets because that
would have been the framer’s intent at the time. They never could
have imagined a handheld gun that could kill multiple people in
seconds. If we apply any context to this amendment, such as we did
when we interpreted “all men are created equal” to actually be “all people,” it
is met with vehement opposition. This narrow interpretation of the
US Constitution is literally killing us.
What I have been mulling over today is how we treat the
US Constitution as if it is scripture and we treat the Bible as if it is
statute. The Constitution gets this hallowed treatment to the
point that children are dying on the altar of the second amendment and the
Bible gets used as if it is nothing more than a book of laws and not the story
of how to love each other. Our response to
the tragedy of gun violence must be compassionate but our solution must
be political because that is where the power lies to change the
future. For all children with hopes and dreams, the time is
now.
