I found NY Times' editorial on June 20 broadly descriptive of the tragedy in Charleston and the issues surrounding it.
The horrific church shooting
in Charleston, S.C., leaves the nation at an all too familiar juncture —
uncertain whether to do something positive to repair society’s
vulnerabilities or to once again absorb an intolerable wound by going
through what has become a woeful ritual of deep grief followed by
shallow resolve to move on toward … what? Toward the inevitable carnage
next time.
The factors emerging in the mass murder of the nine churchgoers,
who took the shooter into their prayerful midst, are a confluence of
some of the nation’s most glaring problems: the empowerment of a steady
stream of enraged people exercising their easy right to bear arms; the
odious racism that haunts
society’s darkest corners; and the public’s general sense of impotence,
as needed solutions are left up to a political system undermined by
retrograde and timorous officials more interested in their own survival than in the broader welfare.
The details emerging on how the suspected shooter might have been inspired by the white supremacy movement are another warning that the nation’s long history of racial brutality is far from healed. How much black lives matter
was the question posed during the recent police shootings of
African-Americans. This question is posed anew, in most grotesque
fashion, in Charleston. Honest and creative answers are possible, but
only if the American people — white and black — are galvanized to force
politicians to make tangible improvements that go beyond vigils and
speeches.
Anyone
who has been to modern, progressive Charleston would be struck by a
visit to its old slave market. This museum, which recounts historic
abuses from a time when black people were chained as chattel, rings with
the truth of how elusive full racial accord remains in America. The
state’s nostalgic but poisonous flaunting of Confederate flags from a
war that was waged over the issue of human bondage adds insult to the
historic injuries still felt.
Perversely
but tellingly, while other flags at the state Capitol in Columbia were
lowered to half-staff in mourning for the shooting victims, the Confederate flag remained at full staff,
reportedly under the sole control of state legislators. Many of them,
of course, make a staunch defense of that flag part of their election
campaigns.
Of all the factors at the heart of the church massacre, the issue of
easy access to guns should be the most amenable to reform. President
Obama pointed out
how our nation remains shamefully exceptional among modern nations,
racking up tens of thousands of gun deaths a year. “Once again, innocent
people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm
had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” he said.
The laws of the land enable this continuing national tragedy. Congress
issued a bitter lesson to the president when it rejected his proposals
for greater gun safety after the 2012 massacre
of 20 schoolchildren in Connecticut. Mr. Obama should marshal full
political force in reviving the demand for action by Congress — a point
the public strongly supports, even though Congress continues to be
enslaved to the desires of the gun lobby.
In
this moment of grief, there’s a measure of practical comfort to be
taken from the warning of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “We must
live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” It’s
increasingly clear that King understood and embodied the sufferings of
not just African-Americans but an entire nation still haunted by racism
and mindless violence.
Beyond
this latest grief, however, he epitomized unyielding dedication to
political progress. “Change does not roll in on the wheels of
inevitability,” he cautioned, “but comes through continuous struggle.”
This remains the nation’s only course after the horrendous murders in
Charleston.
