Trickle Up
By Albert B. Kelly
I imagine that most decent folks were a combination of angry
and scared the weekend before last as they watched the coverage coming out of
Orlando Florida. First there were the headlines that came staccato-like over
that weekend; 49 dead 52 wounded- the worst mass shooting in American History-
ties to terrorists- Hating LGTB, AR15 Assault Rifle; ad nauseum.
I say scared, because seeing this carnage makes you wonder
just how vulnerable you really are from day to day. I say scared, because we
don’t ever remember things being this bad with people dividing up into their
own groups and ethnicities and races and tribes while hating those outside of
it.
Scared; because technology has made it nearly impossible for
people of good will to carve out and maintain a space of their own as safe or
sacred while at the same time making it incredibly easy for a single individual
to inflict a whole lot of damage in the blink of an eye.
I’m sure the world seemed just as scary at other times in
history, but most of us weren’t around then so we don’t know how it felt. I
would guess that 1939 or maybe 1940- on the eve of a global war, made people
feel much as we do today, but that was long ago and we know how that story
ends.
Scared; because the worst thing we can become- the thing we
may well be guilty of now- is being indifferent and unmoved by all the carnage.
Some of its pure volume- meaning we’ve had so many mass shootings and so much
gun violence in the last decade that it barely registers anymore. We hear about
something, tune in for a little while, then shrug and move on to whatever.
And if it’s not pure volume, then maybe it’s a case of
picking your poison. Today, so many wear their hatreds on the surface like an
identity badge whether it’s against LGBT, Liberals, Conservatives, blacks, Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Latinos, whites, women, and the list is endless. Hatred and guns
don’t mix.
I say angry, because inevitably it all gets played out down
on the streets where all of us live life. I thought about that in the days
after the shootings in Orlando when it came out that you could be on the “no
fly” list, not allowed on an airplane, but you could easily waltz into any
store and buy an assault rifle like the one used in that nightclub. Does that
even make sense?
The legislators who are okay with that fact in the name of
the second amendment have the luxury of going to work every day in a building
ringed by guards and metal detectors and whatever else keeps them safe. But
it’s mayors across the country dealing with the carnage and devastation from
gun violence and mass shootings.
Sure, some high officials “parachute in” for the obligatory
visit, but it’s mercifully short and they leave after “thoughts and prayers”,
so it becomes easier for everyone to do gridlock and go on about what the
framers of the constitution intended and why background checks or banning
military grade weapons is a slippery slope to something.
Not so much for mayors and if you doubt that, ask the ones
in Orlando or Charleston or Aurora or Newtown or Chicago or Ferguson or any one
of a dozen other cities across the country. They’re on the ground after the
cameras leave worrying about their communities- doing whatever to try and be OK
again.
That’s not necessarily a complaint, nor is it a pat on the
back. It’s just saying that all of this- the hatred, the mass shootings, gun
violence, and identity politics- looks different from the low spot in the
pecking order of “officialdom”. It’s all to say that the legislative landscape
might look a lot different if mayors had the juice to make national policy.
But it doesn’t happen that way. Legislation trickles down,
whether from Washington DC or some state capital. It’s the view from 30,000
feet and while maybe that view gets the broad outlines and the big land
features right, it misses the cracks and crevices that regular folks have to
navigate through each day.
So maybe that’s why elections matter; because it’s the one opportunity
to be heard by the folks who see things from 30,000 feet- it’s the one time
when you know the echo will be loud enough to trickle up.